In this our excellency consisteth, that God is our God in Christ, who was God ; and that he might bring God and us to good terms together ; that he might make God our God. He was Immanuel, God with us, to make God with us in favour and love. The Godhead is nearest the human nature of Christ of any creature. It is nearer to Christ than to the angels ; for God hath not taken the angels into hypostatical union, to be in the same person ; but God in Christ is so near our nature, that there is an hypostatical union. They make one person, our nature being taken into the second person. By reason of this near union of the Godhead to our nature cometh that comfort and near union between God and our nature, whereby God hath sweet communion with us in Christ. God by his Spirit, though not hypostatically, yet graciously, is one with us, and hath communion with us now as his children. So that sweet intercourse between God and us now, is founded upon the nearness of the Godhead to^ our nature in Chrisi, in whom it is nearest of all, in whom it is advanced above the angelical nature. And therefore our blessed Saviour might well say, ' I go to my God, and your God ;' to his God first, and then to our God.
Now we may say, God is our God ; and upon good grounds, because God is Christ's God, and in him our God, which is a point of singular comfort ; and therefore I will enlarge myself further in it.
Doct. For God to he our God, especially in having that in our hearts un- folded, in regard of our spirits and best being, is the most fundamental comfort that ice have. For from this, that God is our God, cometh all that we have that is good in nature and grace. Whatsoever is comfortable cometh from this spring, that God in Christ is our God, our reconciled God ; that God's nature and ours now are in good terms.
Beloved, what cannot we expect from God, that is now become our God ! What he is, what he is able to do, what he hath, all is ours, con- sidering himself is ours. If we have the field, we have the pearl in the field. And therefore the wise merchant in the gospel sold all for the field wherein the treasure was, Mat. xiii. 44. We have the field itself in
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having God, and we have all that God is or can do for us for our good, even as we have Christ, and all that Christ is, or hath done, and suffered, and enjoyeth ; * all is ours, because we are Christ's, and Christ is God's,' as the apostle saith. So that having God we have all, because we have him that possesseth all, the creator of all, and preserver of all, and disposer of all.
But to clear the objection a little : if God be ours, and all things else, how comes it that we want so many things ?
Ans. I answer. It is our own fault for the most part. We want faith to make use of and improve this comfort. And then again, we want nothing that is for our good ; want itself is for our good. And observe this, our God is so powerful a God, that he maketh the worst things we suffer a means to convey the greatest good oftentimes to us. If God be our God and Father in Christ, why have we sins ? Why vexed with the devil ? Why persecuted with men ? Why frightened thus, and thus, and thus ? All this is for our good. God is our God by these, and in the midst of these ; and is never more our God than in the greatest extremity of all, for then we come nearest the fountain. There is a near and sweet communion between this God and us, when we take of the fountain. When the means are drawn away, the conduits of conveyance, and we have nothing to go to but God immediately, there is sweet communion and sweetest comfort in heaven ; we shall have God in Christ, who will be all in all unto us. We shall need no magistracy, ministry, food, raiment, or defence against cold or injury ; we shall be out of the reach of Satan and all enemies ; God will be all in all immediately. The same God is all in all to us, either by means or immediately. When means fail, he conveyeth his sweetness and his power immediately, but ordinarily by means. And what sight doth in heaven, faith doth now in some proportion ; for as sight in heaven seeth God in Chi-ist all in all, and enjoyeth that happy vision, so faith seeth God to be all in all, and Christ to be all in all. Though in an inferior degree to sight and clearness of vision, yet for the capacity of this life we enjoy God now as they do in heaven. We have inward comforts when most deserted. God was never more near our blessed Saviour than on the cross, when he cried, ' My God, my God,' &c., for then he found invincible strength supporting him in the great undertaking under the wrath of his Father. And so God is never nearer than in extremity ; in strength, though not in sense and feeling ; and oftentimes in feeling itself. We never have sweeter comforts than in the want of all outward comforts whatsoever, when nothing else can comfort us but the presence of God. And we must know besides, that the state of a Christian in this world is an hidden con- dition ; for it is to the eye of faith, not of sense ; and therefore God is a God to his, though the world see it not. There is a secret, hidden influence, a secret passage between heaven and earth, that none seeth. Who observeth the influence of the sun, or the sweet influence of the stars upon the earth ? Light we see, but there is a secret influence pierceth deeper than the light, to the very bowels of the earth, whence metals come. Where no light comes, there is an influence, though not discerned ; and much more can there be influence of strength and power and hidden comfort, though there be no sight. Cannot God be our God in regard of strength, supporting and supplying, though there be no visible and sensible comfort, though we see it not ourselves ? Certainly the soul is upheld by an invincible strength in the worst condition that can be. Therefore this is true, that God is our God in all conditions.