84 DAVID S CONCLUSION ; OR,
devices ; but to look upon the catastrophe and winding up of the tragedy ; not to look on the present conflict, but to go to the sanctuary, and see the end of all, see how God directs all things to a sweet end. ' All the ways of God to his children are mercy and truth,' Ps xcviii. 3, though they seem never so full of anger and displeasure. Thus you see God's children are in conflict ofttimes, and sometimes they are foiled in the conflict ; yet by way of recovery they go into the sanctuary, and there they have spiritual eye-salve. They have another manner of judgment of things than ' flesh and blood hath.'
4. Again, we see, when he went into the sanctuary, the very sight of faith makes him draw near to God. Sometimes God represents heavenly truths to the eye of sense, in the examples of his justice. We see sometimes wicked men brought on the stage. God blesseth such a sight of faith, and such examples to bring his children nearer to him ; as we see immediately before the text, ' thou wilt destroy all that go a-whoring from thee ;' and then it follows, * It is good for me to draw near to God.' So that the Spirit of God in us, and our spirits sanctified by the Spirit, takes advan- tage when we enter into the sanctuary, and see the diverse ends of good and bad, to draw us close to God.
Indeed, that is one reason why God sulTers difi'erent conditions of men to be in the world, not so much to shew his justice to the wicked, as that his children, seeing of his justice and his mercy, and the manifestation and discovery of his providence in ordering his justice towards wicked men, it may make them cleave to his mercy more, and give a lustre to his mercy. ' It is good for me to cleave to the Lord.' I see what will become of all others.
5. The next that follows upon this, that God's children, thus conflicting and going into the sanctuary, and seeing the end of all there, they go a con- trary course to the world. They swim against the stream. As we say of the stars and planets, they have a motion of their own, contrary to that rapt motion, whereby they are carried and whirled about in four- and- twenty hours from east to west. They have a creeping motion and period of their own, as the moon hath a motion of her own backward from west to east, that [shej makes every month; and the sun hath a several* motion from the rapt motion he is carried with that he goes about in a year. So God's children, they live and converse, and are carried with the same motion as the world is. They live among men, and converse as men do; but not- withstanding, they have a contrary motion of their own, which they are directed and carried to by the Spirit of God, as here the holy prophet saith, ' It is good for me to draw near to God.' As if he should say. For other men, be they great or small, be they of what condition they will, let them take what course they will, and let them see how they can justify their course, and take what benefit they can ; let them reap as they sow ; it do not matter much what course they take, I will look to myself; as for me, I am sure this is my best course, ' to draw near to God.'
So the sanctified spirit of a holy man, he looks not to the stream of the times, what be the currents, and opinions, and courses of rising to prefer- ment, of getting riches, of attaining to an imaginary present happiness hero ; but he hath other thoughts, he hath another judgment of things, and therefore goes contrary to the world's course. Hear St Paul, Phil. ii. 21 ; saith he there, 'All men seek their own, — I cannot speak of it without weeping, — whose end is damnation, whose belly is their god, who mind * That is, ' separate.' — G.
THE saint's resolution. 85
earthly things.' But what doth St Paul, when other men seek their own, and are carried after private ends ? Oh, saith he, ' our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the Saviour, who shall change our vile bodies, and make them like his glorious body, according to his mighty power, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.' So you see the blessed apostle, led with the same Spirit as the man of God here, he considers not what men do, he fetcheth not the rules of his life from the example of the great ones of the world or from multitude. These are false, deceiving rules. But he fetcheth the rule of his life from the experi- mental goodness he had found by a contrary course to the world. Let the world take what course they will, ' it is good for me to draw near to God.'
6. I might add a little further, that the course and corrupt princq^les of the world are so far from shaking a child of God, that they settle him. They stir up his zeal the more. As we say, there is an antiperistasis, an increas- ing of contraries by contraries, as we see in winter the body is warmer by reason that the heat is kept in, and springs are warmer in winter because the heat is kept in ; so the Spirit of God, in the hearts of his children, works and boils when it is environed with contraries. It gathers strength and breaks out with more zeal, as David, Ps. cxix. 126, when he saw men did not keep God's law. We see how he complains to God, ' It is time, Lord, for thee to work.' Indeed, it is the nature of opposition to increase the contrary. Those that have the Spirit and grace of God in truth, they gather strength by opposition.