' Matt. xi. 21; Acts xiii. 46.
8 Luke ii. 34; 1 Pet. ii. 7; Ezok. ii. 5; Matt. xxiv. 14; Rom. ix. 22, 2:^.
' Nch. iv. 17. * Zech. iv. 7. * Seal, de Emend. Temp.
UNOHAl^GEABLE, FREE MERCY, 17
Now, difficulties arise from the following kings : — what their flattering counsellors, what the malignant nations about them conspired, the books of Nehemiah and Ezra sufficiently declare. Whence, verse 25, the angel tells Daniel, that from " the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, in troublesome times;" that is, it shall be seven weeks to the finishing of Jerusalem, and thence to Messiah the Prince sixty-two weeks ; — seven weeks, that is, forty- nine years; for so much it was from the decree of Cyrus^ to the finishing of the wall by Nehemiah : of which time the temple, as the Jews affinned, was all but three years in building, John ii. 20. During which space, how often did the hearts of the people of God faint m their troubles, as though they should never have seen an end ! And therefore, ever and anon they were ready to give over, as Hag. i. 2. But yet we see the decree was fixed, and all those varieties did but orderly work in an exact method for the glorious accomplishment of it.
England's troubles have not yet endured above half the odd years of those reformers' task; yet, good God! how shoi-t-breathed are men ! What fainting is there ! what repining, what grudging against the ways of the Lord! But let me tell )^ou, that as the water in the stream will not go higher than the head of the fountain^ no more will the work in hand be carried one step higher or beyond the aim of its fountain, the counsel of God, from whence it hath its rise. And yet, as a river will break through all oppositions, and swell to the height of mountains, to go to the sea from whence it came ; so will the stream of the gospel, when it comes out from God, break down all mountains of opposition, and not be hindered from resting in its appointed place. It were an easy thing to recall your minds to some trembling periods of time, when there was trembling in our armies, and trembling in our councils, — trembling to be ashamed, to be repented of, — trembling in the city and in the country ; and men were almost at their wits' end for the sorrows and fears of those days : and yet we see how the unchangeable purpose of
' I follow in this the vulgar or common account, otherwise there is no part of Scripture chronology so contended about as these weeks of Daniel; most con- cluding that they are terminated in the death of Christ, happening about the midst of the last week. But about their original, or rise, there is no small debate. Of the four decrees made by the Persian Icings about the building of Jerusalem, — viz., 1st, by Cyrus, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23; 2dly, by Darius, Ezra vi. 8; 3dly, by Ar- taxerxes, Ezra vii.; of the same to Nehemiah, chap, ii., — following the account of their reign set down in profane stories, the last only holds exactly. TertuUian ad Jud. begins it from Darius, when this vision appeared to Daniel, whom, it seems, he conceived to be Darius Hystaspes, that followed the Magi, and not Medus, that was before Cyrus; and so with a singular kind of chronology makes up his account. — Vid. Euseb. Demon. Evan., lib. viii. cap. Fuuc. Com. in Chi-ou. Beroald. Chron., lib. iii. cap. 7,8. Montacut. Apparat.
VOL. VIII. 2
18 A VISION OF
God hath wrought strongly through all these straits, from one end to another, that nothing might fall to the ground of what he liad deter- mined. If a man, in those days, had gone about to persuade us that all our pressures were good omens, that they all wrought together for our good, we could have been ready to cry, with the woman who, when she had recounted her griefs to the physician, and he still replied they were good signs, *7 (lot ayadciv air6'Kk\j[ji,ai, " Good signs have undone me," — These good signs will be our ruin : yet, behold, we hope the contrary. Our day hath been like that mentioned, Zech. xiv. 6, 7, — a day whose light is neither clear nor dark, — a day known only to the Lord, seeming to us to be neither day nor night. But God knew all this while that it was a day, — ^he saw how it all %vrought for the appointed end; and in the evening, in the close, it wul be light, so light as to be to us discernible. In the mean- time we are like unskilful men, [who] gomg to the house of some curious artist, so long as he is about his work, despise it as confused; but when it is finished, admire it as excellent : — whilst the passages of providence are on us, all is confusion; but when the fabric is reared, glorious.
Use 2. Learn to look upon the wisdom of God in carrying all things through this wonderful variety, exactly to answer his own eternal purpose ; — suffering so many mountains to lie in the way of refomimg his churches and settling the gospel, that his Spirit may have the glory, and his people the comfort in their removal. It is a high and noble contemplation, to consider the purposes of God, so far as by the event revealed, and to see what impressions his Avisdom and power do leave upon things accomplished here below, — to read in them a temporary history of his eternal counsels. Some men may deem it strange, that his determinate will, which gives rule to these things, and could in a word have reached its own appointment, should carry his people so many journeys in the mlderness, and keep us thus long in so low estate. I say, — not to speak of his own glory, which hath sparkled forth of this flinty opposition, — there be divers things, things of light, for our good, which he hath brought forth out of all that darkness wherewith we have been overclouded. Take a few instances.