876 THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A COMFORTER. [BOOK VIII.
is of power omnipotent. Thoughts of our disconsolation arise from the impressions that Satan makes upon our minds and consciences, by sin, temptation, and persecution ; for we find not in ourselves such an ability of resistance as from whence we may have an assurance of a conquest. " This," saith the apostle, " you are to expect from the power of the Holy Spirit, which is infinitely above whatever Satan hath to make opposition unto you, or to bring any disconso- lation on you. This will cast out all that fear which hath torment accompanying of it." And however this may be disregarded by them who are filled with an apprehension of their own self-sufficiency, as unto all the ends of their living and obedience unto God, as like- wise that they have a never-failing spring of rational considerations about them, able to administer all necessary relief and comfort at all times ; yet those who are really sensible of their own condition and that of other believers, if they understand what it is to be com- forted with the "consolations of God," and how remote they are from those delusions which men embrace under the name of their "rational considerations," will grant that the faith of infinite power is requisite unto any solid spiritual comfort: for, —
1. Who can declare the dejections, sorrows, fears, despondencies, and discouragements that believers are obnoxious unto, in the great variety of their natures, causes, effects, and occasions? What relief can be suited unto them but. what is an emanation from infinite power? Yea, such is the spiritual frame and constitution of their souls, as that they will ofttimes reject all means of comfort that are not communicated by an almighty efficacy. Hence God " creates the fruit of the lips, Peace, peace," Isa. lvii. 19; produceth peace in the souls of men by a creating act of his power, and directs us, in the place before mentioned, to look for it only from the infinite ex- cellency of his nature. None, therefore, was meet for this work of being the church's comforter but the Spirit of God alone. He only, by his almighty power, can remove all their fears, and support them under all their dejections, in all that variety wherewith they are at- tempted and exercised. Nothing but omnipotence itself is suited to obviate those innumerable disconsolations that we are obnoxious unto. And those whose souls are pressed in earnest with them, and are driven from all the reliefs which not only carnal security and stout-heartedness in adversity do offer, but also from all those lawful diversions which the world can administer, will understand that true consolation is an act of the exceeding greatness of the power of God, and without which it will not be wrought.
2. The means and causes of their disconsolation direct unto the same spring of their comfort. Whatever the power of hell, of sin, and the world, separately or in conjunction, can effect, it is all levelled
CHAP. II.] GENERAL PROPERTIES OF HIS OFFICE. 377
against the peace and comfort of believers. Of how great force and efficacy they are in their attempts to disturb and ruin them, by what various ways and means they work unto that end, would require great enlargement of discourse to declare; and yet when we have used our utmost diligence in an inquiry after them, we shall come short of a full investigation of them, yea, it may be, of what many individual persons find in their own experience. Wherefore, with respect unto one cause and principle of disconsolation, God declares that it is he who comforteth his people: Isa. li. 12-15, " I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass ; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth ; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail. But I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared : The Lord of hosts is his name/' He sees it necessary to declare his in- finite power, and to express in sundry instances the effects thereof.
Wherefore, if we take a view of what is the state and condition of the church in itself and in the world; how weak is the faith of most believers; how great their fears; how many their discou- ragements; as also with how great temptations, calamities, opposi- tions, persecutions, they are exercised; how vigorously and sharply these things are set on upon their spirits, according unto all advan- tages, inward and outward, that their spiritual adversaries can lay hold upon, — it will be manifest how necessary it was that their con- solation should be intrusted with Him with whom infinite power doth always dwell. And if our own inward or outward peace seem to abate of the necessity of this consideration, it may not be amiss, by the exercise of faith herein, to lay in provision for the future, seeing we know not what may befall us in the world. And should we live to see the church in storms, as who knows but we may, our principal supportment will be, that our Comforter is of almighty power, won- derful in counsel, and excellent in operation.