It requires hearts warmed by the Spirit of God to think of and admire these things answerable to their natures. The angels, when Christ was born, could not contain, but break out, ' Glory to God on high, on earth peace, good will towards men,' Luke ii. 13, 14, because there was then peace; peace between God and us, and by consequence with all the crea- tures, which do but take part with God and revenge his quarrel.
These things be matters of admiration ; and we shall spend eternity in admiration thereof in another world, though here our narrow hearts can hardly conceive it. But what we cannot beheve by understanding, as things above nature, let us labour to understand them by believing. Desire God we may beheve them, and then we shall un(ierstand them to our comfort.
' Emmanuel, God with us.' If God be with us in our nature, then he is with us in his love; ' and if God be with us, who shall be against us ?' Rom. viii. 31. For this Emmanuel hath taken our nature forever; he hath taken it into heaven with him. God and we shall for ever be in good terms, because God in our nature is for ever in heaven, as an inter- cessor appearing for us. There is no fear of a breach now ; for our Brother is in heaven, our Husband is in heaven, to preserve an everlast- ing union and amity between God and us. Now, we may insult* in an holy manner over all oppositions whatsoever. For if God be with us in our nature, and by consequence in favour, who shall be against us ? and therefore with the apostle, ' let us triumph,' Rom. viii. 37, seq.
Let us make use of this Emmanuel in all troubles whatsoever, whether of the church or of our own persons. In troubles of the church ; the church hath enemies, hell, and the world, and Satan's factors; but we have one, Emmanuel, God with us, and therefore we need not fear. You know whose ensign it is, whose motto. Dens nohiscum is better than Sancta Maria. Sancta Maria will down when Deus nobiscum shall stand (b).
I beseeeh you, therefore, let us comfort ourselves in regard of the chui'ch, as the prophet in the next chapter, verse 7, comforts the church in distress: * He shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over; he shall reach even to the neck : and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy Iand,t 0 Emmanuel.' It may seem a kind of com- plaint, ' The enemy stretcheth out their wings over thy land, 0 Emmanuel ;' which may teach us in the person of the church to go to Emmanuel : Remember the enemies of thy church spread their wings over thy land and people ; 0 Emmanuel, thou seest the malice of the enem}'-, the malice of antichrist and his supporters. He is the true Michael, that stands for his church. And then in the tenth verse, * Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought ; speak the word, and it shall not stand : for God is with us.' And as the church before Christ came in the flesh, much more may we, now he is come in the flesh, insult over all. Let all the enemies con- sult together, this king and that power, there is a counsel in heaven will disturb and dash all their counsels. Emmanuel in heaven laugheth them to scorn. And as Luther said, ' Shall we weep and cry when God laugheth?'! He seeth a company of idolatrous wretches, that conspire together to root out all protestants from the earth, if it lay in their power. They that are inspired with Jesuitical spirits, the incendiaries of the world,
* That is, ' triumph.'— G. } Cf. Vol. I. page 126.— G.
t In margin, ' church.' — G.
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have devoured all Israel and Christendom in their hopes ; but the church, which is Emmanuel's land and freehold, sees it, and laughs them to scorn. God can dash all their treacherous counsels.
And so in all personal trouble whatsoever, ' Emmanuel, God with us,' is fitted to be a merciful Saviour. He was poor, that he might be with the poor. He took not on him an impassible nature, but he took our poverty, our miserable nature. He is poor with the poor, afflicted with the afflicted, persecuted with the persecuted. He is deserted with them that be deserted : ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' He suffers with them that suffer ; he hath gone through all the passages of our lives. In the beginning of it he was conceived and born ; and he hath gone along with us, and is able to pity and succour us in our poverty, in prison, in bonds, in disgrace, in our conflict with God, in our terror of conscience, in all our temptations and assaults by Satan. He was tempted himself by Satan, for this purpose, that Emmanuel might in all these be merciful.
Let us not lose the comforts of this sweet name, in which you have couched so many comforts. In the hour of death, when we are to die, think of Emmanuel. When Jacob was to go into Egypt, saith God, * Fear not, Jacob ; go, I will go with thee, and bring thee back again,' Gen. xlvi. 3 ; and he did bring him back to be buried in Canaan. So fear not to die ; fear not to go to the grave, Emmanuel hath been there. He will go into the grave ; he will bring us out of the dust again ; for * Em- manuel' is * God with us,' who is God over death, over sin, over the wrath of God, God over all, blessed for evermore ; and hath triumphed over all. So that ' what shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus ? ' Rom. viii. 35.