One thing only would I commend to your consideration, — viz., that this Moses, thus preserved, thus delivered, thus protected, falling into one deviation, in one. thing, from close following the Lord, was taken off from enjoying the closure and frait of all his labour, Numb. xx. 12. Otherwise he folloAved the Lord in a difficidt season, and did not want unconquerable supportment. Take heed of the smallest turn- ing aside from God. Oh ! lose not the fruit of all your labour, for self, for a lust, or any thing that may turn you aside !
Now, the Lord will do this, — -
1. Because of his oivn engagement.
2. For our encouragement.
1. Because of his own engagement. And that is twofold.
(1.) Of truth and fidelity.
(2.) Of honour and gloiy
(1.) His trutli and veracity is engaged in it. " Those that honour him, he will honour," ] Sam. ii. 30. If men honour him with obedi- ence, he will honour them with preservation. " He will be wdth them, while they are with him," 2 Chron. xv. 2. While they are with him in constancy of duty, he Avill be with them to keep them m safety. He will never leave them, nor forsake them, Josh. i. 5. "No 1 In Numb. cap. iv.
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weapon that is formed against them shall prosper," Isa. Hv. 17. Now, God is never as the waters that fail to any that upon his engage- ments wait for him ; he will not shame the faces of them that put their trust in him. Why should our unbelieving spirits charge that upon the God of tn;th which we dare not impute to a man that is a worm, a liar? Will a man fail in his engagement unto him who, upon that engagement, undertakes a difficult employment for his sake? The truth is, it is either want of sincerity in our working, or want of faith in dependence, that makes us at any time come short of the utmost tittle that is in any of the Lord's engagements.
[1.] We want sincerity, and do the Lord's work, but with our own aims and ends, like Jehu ; — no wonder if we be left to ourselves for our wages and defence.
[2.] We want faith, also, in the Lord's work,— turn to our own coun- sels for supportment: no marv^el if we come short of assistance. " If we will not believe, we shall not be established."
Look to sincerity in working, and faith in dependence ; God's truth and fidelity will carry him out to give you unconquerable support- ment : — deflexion from these will be your destruction. You that are working on a new bottom, work also on new principles ; put not new wine into old bottles, new designs into old hearts.
(2.) He is engaged in point of honour. If they miscarry in his way, what will he do for his great name? Yea, so tender is the Lord herein of his glory, that when he hath been exceedingly provoked to remove men out of his presence, yet because they have been called by his name, and have visibly held forth a following after him, he would not suffer them to be trodden doAvn, lest the enemy should exalt them- selves, and say. Where is now their God? They shall not take from him the honour of former deliverances and protections. In such a nation as this, if the Lord now, upon manifold provocations, should give up parliament, people, army, to calamity and niin, would not the glory of former counsels, successes, deliverances, be utterly lost? would not men say it was not the Lord, but chance that happened to them?
2. For our encouragement. The ways of God are oftentimes at- tended with so many difficulties, so much opposition, that they must be embraced merely because his; no other motive in the world can suit them to us. I mean, for such as keep them immixed from their own carnal and corrupt interests. Now, because the Lord will not take off the hardship and difficulty of them, lest he should not have the honour of carrying on his work against tumultuating opposition, he secures poor weaklings of comfortable assistance and answerable success, lest his work should be wholly neglected. It is true, the Lord, as our sovereign master, may justly require a close labouring in all his ways without the least sweetening endearments put upon them,
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only as they are his, whose we are, who hath a dominion over us. But yet, as a tender father, — in which relation he delights to exercise his will towards his own in Christ, — he pitieth our infirmities, knowing that we are but dust ; and therefore, to invite us into the dark, into ways laboursome and toilsome to flesh and blood, he gives us in this security, — that we shall be as a fenced brasen wall to the opposing sons of men.
Use 1. To discover the vanity and folly of all opposition to men called forth of God to his work, and Avalking in his ways. Would you not think him mad that should strike with his fist, and run with his head against a fenced brasen wall, to cast it down? Is he like to have any success, but the battering of his flesh, and the beating out of his brains? What do the waves obtain by dashing themselves Avith noise and dread against a rock, but their own beating to pieces? What prevails a man by shooting his arrows against the sky, but a return upon his own head? Nor is the most powerful opposition to the ways of God like to meet with better success. God looks no otherwise upon opposers than you would do upon a man attempting to thrust down a fenced brasen wall with his fingers. Therefore it is said, that in their proudest attempts, strongest assaults, deepest counsels, combina- tions, and associations, " he laughs them to scorn," derides their folly, contemns their fury, lets them sweat in vain, until their day be come, Ps. ii. How birthless in our OAvn, as well as other generations, have been their swelling conceptions ! What, then, is it that prevails upon men to break through so many disappointments against the Lord as they do? — doubtless that of Isa. xxiii. 9, " Surely the Lord of hosts hath purposed it, to stain the pride of all glory, and to bring into con- tempt all the honourable of the earth." God gives up men unto it, that he may leave no earthly glory or honour without pollution or contempt. And therefore hath opposition in our days been turned upon so many hands, that God might leave no glory without con- tempt: yet with this difference, that if the Lord will own them, he will recover them from their opposition ; as has Imppened of late to the ministry of one, and \vdll happen ere long to the ministry of an- other nation. When the Lord hath a little stained the pride of their glory, they shall be brought home again by the spirit of judgment and burning; but if he own them not, they shall perish under the oppo- sition. And when it hath been wheeled about on all sorts of men, the end will be.