Therefore God, in the Scriptures, borrows names from everything that is comfortable. He is with them as a rock, to build on; as a shield, to defend them ; in the time of heat and persecution, he is a shadow, to keep them from the heat ; he is with them as a light. Christ is our life in death, our light in darkness, our righteousness in sinfulness and guilt, our holiness in impurity, our redemption in all our miseries. There is some- what of God in every creature ; therefore God takes names from his own creatures, because there is some strength or comfort in them. God gives himself variety of names, as there are variety of our distresses. Are we in misery ? God is a rock, a shield, a tower of defence, a buckler ; he is all that can be said for comfort. He is with us in his attributes and sweet relations, and all sweet terms that may support our faith, that whatsoever we see comfortable in the creature, we may rise more comfortably to God, and say, God is my rock and shield, and my light and defence.
And then God is with us in ever}^ condition and in every place whatsoever. He is not only a God of the mountains and not of the valleys, or a God of the valleys and not of the mountains, as those foolish people thought, 1 Kings XX. 28, but he is in all places, and at all times with his. If they be in prison, he goes with them : Acts xvi. 22, seq., he made the prison a kind of paradise, a heaven. If they be banished into other countries, he goes with them ; ' I will go with thee, 0 Jacob, into Egypt, and bring thee back again,' Gen. xlviii. 21. If they be in death, he is with us to death and in death : ' In the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me,' Ps. xxiii. 4. At all times whatsoever, and in all conditions, God is with us.
In all our afiairs whatsoever God is with us. ' Fear not,' Joshua ; ' fear not,' Moses. What was the ground of then- comfort ? ' I will be with thee.' He was with St Paul in all conditions, therefore he bids him ' fear not,' Acts xx-\ai. 24. So our blessed Saviour, the head of all, in Acts x. 38, in the speech of Peter to Cornelius, he did all things well, ' for God was with him.' You see how God is with his children.
SAINT Paul's challenge. 389
"WTiat is the ground that the great, and holy, and pure God, blessed for ever, should be with such sinful and wretched creatures as we are ? that be should not only be with us, and about us, and compass us as a shield, but be in us ?
The gi'ound of all is his free love in Christ. Christ was God with us first. God, that he might be with us, ordained that Christ should be God with us ; * Emmanuel,' that he should take our nature into unity of person with himself. Christ being God with us, that he might satisfy the just wrath of God for our sins, and so reconcile God and us together, he hath made God and us friends. So that this, that God is with us, it is grounded upon an excellent and sound bottom ; upon the incarnation of our blessed Saviour, that for this very end, that God might be with us, was God with us ; that is, he was God and man, to bring God and man together ; he was God and man in one, to bring God and man, that were at contrary terms, to terms of reconciliation ; to recollect and bring us back again to God, from whence we fell. So the reason why God the i'ather. Son, and Holy Ghost are with us, it is because Christ, the second person, God and man, is with us, or else there could be no such sweet terms as these are. You see how it is founded. Christ took our nature, and advanced and enriched it. Now he having taken our nature and our persons to be one with him, how near are Christ and we together ! There is one common Spirit in him and us, one common Father, ' I go to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,' John sx, 17. There is one common kingdom and inheritance. We are fellow-heirs with him. Oh, how near is Christ to us ! Our souls are not so near our bodies as Christ is to us, and God in Christ. So you see this, that God is with us. It is founded upon an excellent, wonderful, comfortable mystery. This I suppose is clear; therefore I come to that I intend further to enlarge; that is, the comfort built upon this ground, ' If God be with us, who shall be against us?'
One would think this a strange question ; for a Christian no sooner comes to be one with Christ, and so to be reconciled to God, but he hath against him all the powers of hell; and then he hath the whole world against him presently, Satan's kingdom; and then he hath an enemy that is worst of all, that stirs up strife and rebellion and contention even in his own heart, his own flesh. So that we may say, who is not against a Christian ? If God be with us, all else but God will side against us. There are two grand sides in the world, to which all belong. There is God's side, and those that are his; and there is another side, that is, Satan's, and those that are his; two kingdoms, two seeds, two contrary dispositions, that pursue one another, till all the one be in hell, Satan and all his seed together, the devil and all that fight under his banner, that are led with his malignant, poisonful spirit. Though it may be they cannot do more hurt, or do not out of politic respects, though they have poisonful hearts, yet these never leave contend- ing till they be in hell ; and the other never leave till they be in heaven together. Christ makes it his prayer, ' My will is, that where I am, they may be also,' John xvii. 24, and his will must be performed ; so that he need not ask the question, ' If God be with us, who shall be against us ?' There will be enow against us.