2. Remember that diligent use of the means for the end aimed at is a necessaiy concomitant of, and ingredient unto, waiting on God. Take in the consideration of this direction also. Do not think to be freed from your entanglements by restless, heartless desiring that it were otherwise with you. Means are to be used that relief may be obtained. What those means are is known unto all. Mortification of sin, prayer, meditation, due attendance upon all gospel ordinances; conferring in general about spiritual things, advising in particular about our own state and condition, with such who, having received the tongue of the learned, arc able to speak a Avord in season to them that arc weary, — are required to this purpose. And in all these are diligence and perseverance to be exercised, or in vain shall men de- sire a delivery from their entanglements.
God the proper object of the soul's waiting in its distresses and dopllis.
We have seen what the duty is intended in the proposition. We are nextly to consider the reason also of it, why this is the great, first,
Vcr.5,6.] GOD HIMSELF THE OBJECT OF OUR WAITING. 619
and principal duty of souls who in their depths have it discovered unto them that there is forgiveness with God ; and the reason hereof is that which is expressed in our second obsei-vation before mention- ed, namely, —
That the proper object of a sin-distressed soul's waiting and ex- pectation is God himself as revealed in Christ. " I have," saith the psalmist, "waited for Jehovah;" — "It is not this or that mercy or grace, this or that help or relief, but it is Jehovah himself that I Yv^ait for."
Here, then, we must do two things, — first, Show in what sense God himself is the object of the waiting of the sold; secondly, How it appears from hence that waiting is so necessary a duty.
First, It is the Lord himself Jehovah himself that the soid wait- eth for. It is not grace, mercy, or relief absolutely considered, but the God of all grace and help, that is the full adequate object of the soul's waiting and expectation ; only, hei'ein he is not considered ab- solutely in his own nature, but as there is forgiveness with him. What is required hereunto hath been at large before declared. It is as he is revealed in and by Jesus Christ; as in him he hath found a ransom, and accepted the atonement for sinners in his blood ; — as he is a God in covenant, so he is himself the object of our waiting.
And that, first, because all troubles, depths, entanglements arise from, — 1. The absence of God from the soid; and, 2. From his dis- pleasure.
1. The absence of God from the soid, by his departure, withdraw- ing, or hiding himself from it, is that which principally casts the soul into its depths. " Woe unto them," saith the Lord, " when I depart from them !" Hos. ix. 12. And this woe, this sorrow, doth not attend only a universal, a total departure of God from any; but that also which is gradual or partial, in some things, in some seasons. When God withdraws his enlightening, his refreshing, his comforting pre- sence, as to any Avays or means whereby he hath formerly communi- cated himself imto the souls of any, then " woe unto them ! " sorrows will befall them, and they will fall into depths and entanglements. Now, this condition calls for waiting. If God bo withdrawn, if he hide himself, what hath the soul to do but to wait for his return? So saith the prophet Isaiah, chap. viii. 17, "I will wait upon the Lord, that hidoth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him." If God hide himself, this is the natural and proper duty of the soul, to wait and to look for him. Other course of relief it cannot apply itself unto. What that waiting is, and wherein it doth consist, hath been declared. Patient seeking of God in the ways of his appoint- ment is comprised in it. This the prophet ^xpresseth in that word, " I will look for him;" indeed, the same in the original with that in
620 AN EXPOSITION uroN rsALM cxxx. [Ver.5,6.
the psalm, i? ^ri\'i.Pl; — "And I will earnestly look out after him, with expectation of his return unto me."
2. A sense of God's displeasure is another cause of these depths and troubles, and of the continuance of the soul in them, notwith- standing it hath made a blessed discovery by faith that there is with him forgiveness. This hath been so fully manifested through the whole preceding discourse, that it need not again be insisted on. All hath respect unto sin; and the reason of the trouble that ariseth from sin is because of the displeasure of God against it. What, then, is the natural posture and frame of the soul towards God as displeased? Shall he contend with him? shall he harden himself against him? shall he despise his wrath and anger, and contemn his threatenings? or shall he hide himself from him, and so avoid the effects of his wrath ? Who knows not how ruinous and pernicious to the soul such courses would be? and how many are ruined by them every day? Patient waiting is the soul's only reserve on this account also. And, —