10. God pities our weakness in all our troubles and afflictions. He will not stay too long, lest we out of weakness put our hands to some shifts.* He will not suffer the rod of the wicked to rest upon the lot of the righteous, Ps. cxxv. 3.
11. Is it not an unreasonable speech for a man at midnight to say it will never be day? And so it is an unreasonable thing for a man that is in trouble to say, ' 0 Lord, I shall never get out of this ! it will always bo thus with me.'
12. Do the wicked think to shame or fear good men? No; a spirit of grace and glorj' shall rest upon them. They shall not only have a spirit of grace rest upon them, but a spirit of glory, so that their countenances shall shine as Stephen's did when he was stoned, Acts vi. 15.
13. If God hides his face from us, what shall become of our souls. We are like the poor flower that opens and shuts with the sun. If God shines upon the heart of a man, it opens ; but if he withdraws himself, we hang down our heads : ' Thou turnedst away thy face, and I was troubled,' Ps. XXX. 7.
14. When we have given up ourselves to God, let us comfort our souls that God is our God. When riches, and treasures, and men, and our lives fail, yet God is ours. We are now God's Davids, and God's Pauls, and God's Abrahams; we have an everlasting being in him.
15. A special cause of too much dejection is want of resolution in good things, when we halt in religion ; for as halting is a deformed and trouble- some gesture, so in religion, halting is always joined with trouble and dis- quiet.
16. God hath made the poorest man that is a governor of himself, and hath set judgment to rule against passion and conscience against sin; there- fore reason should not be a slave to passion.
17. It is the peculiar wisdom of a Christian to pick arguments out of his worst condition, to make him thankful. And if he be thankful, he will be joyful; and so long as he is joyful he cannot be miserable.
18. God hath made himself ours, and therefore it is no presumption to challenge him to be our God. When once we have interest in God, he thinks nothing too good for us. He is not satisfied in giving us the bless- ings of this life, but he gives himself unto us.
19. As we receive all from God, so we should lay all at his feet, and say, ' I will not live in a course of sin that will not stand with the favour of my God;' for he will not lodge in the heart that hath a purpose to sin.
20. God's people have sweet intercourse with God in their callings. When we look for comfort, we shall find it cither in hearing, reading, or praying, &c., or else in our callings.
21. We glorify God when we exalt him in our souls above all creatures in the world, when we give him the highest place in our love and in our joy, when all our affections are set upon him as the chiefest good. This is seen also by opposition, when we will not offend God for any creature, when we can ask our affections, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee ? ' Ps. Ixxiii. 25.
* That is, ' expedients.'— G.
AND HOLY CONTEJIPLATIONS. 187
22. There is no true zeal to God's glory but it is joined with true love to men ; therefore let men that are violent, injurious, and insolent, never talk of glorifj'ing God so long as they despise poor men.
23. If we do not find ourselves the people of God's delight, let us attend upon the means of salvation, and wait God's good time, and stand not dis- puting, ' Perhaps God hath not a purpose to save me ;' but fall to obedience, casting thyself into the arms of Christ, and say. If I perish, I will perish here.
24. The love of God in Christ is not barren kindness. It is a love that reaches from everlasting to everlasting; from love in choosing us, unto love in glorifying of us. In all the miseries of the world, one beam of this loving-kindness of the Lord will scatter all.
25. Our desires are holy if they be exercised about spiritual things. David desires not to be great, to be rich in the world, or to have power to be revenged upon his enemies, but that he may ' dwell in the house of the Lord, and enjoy his ordinances,' Ps. xxvii. 4.
26. Desires shew the frame of the soul more than anything; as where there is a spring, it discovers itself by vapours that arise ; so the breathing of these desires shew that there is a spring of grace in the heart.
27. Desires spring from the will ; and the will being as the whole man, it moves all other powers to do their duty, and to see for the accomplishing of that it desires. Those therefore that pretend they have good desires, and yet neglect all means, and live scandalously, this is but a sluggish desire.