Use 2. " Be wise now therefore, O ye \_rulers;^ be instructed, ye judges of the earth; serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with tremb- ling," Ps. ii. 10, 11. See whence your assistance cometh; see where lie the hills of your salvation, and say, " Asshur shall not save us ; we will not ride upon horses ; neither will we say any more to the work of
154 RIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED
our hands, Ye are our gods: for in tliee tlie fatherless findeth mercy," Hos. xiv. 3. It is God alone who is " a sun and shield : his ways do good to the upright in heart." Behold, here is a way to encompass England with a brasen wall : let the rulers of it walk in right ways with upright hearts. Others have been careful to preserve the people to them, and the city to them; oh, be you careful to preserve your God unto you ! He alone can make you a fenced wall; if he departs, your wall departs, your shade departs. Give me leave to insist a little on one particular, which I choose out among many others. "When God leads out his people to any great things, the angel of his presence is still among them. See at large, Exod. xxiii. 20-22. The angel of the covenant, in whom is the name of God, that hath power of pardon- ing or retaining transgressions, — Jesus Christ, the angel that re- deemeth his out of all their troubles, Gen. xlviii. 16, — he is in the midst of them, and amongst them. And God gives this special cau- tion, if we would have his assistance, that we should beware of him, and obey him, and provoke him not. Would you, then, have God's assistance continued? — take heed of provoking the angel of his pre- sence: provoke him not by slighting of his ways; provoke him not by contemning his ordinances: if you leave him to deal for himself, he will leave yoii to shift for yourselves. What though his followers are at some difference ^ (the best known g but in part) about the adminis- tration of some things in his kingdom ; the envious one having also sown some bitter seeds of persecution, strife, envy, and contention among them? — what though some poor creatures are captivated by Satan, the prince of pride, to a contempt of all his ordinances, — whose souls I hope the Lord will one day free from the snare of the devil ; — yet I pray give me leave (it is no time to contest or dispute it) to bear witness in the behalf of my Master to this one ti-uth, that if by your own personal practice and observance, your protection, counte- nance, authority, laws, you do not assert, maintain, uphold the order of the gospel, and admhiistrationof the ordinances of Christ, — notwith- standing the noise and clamours of novel fancies, which, like Jonah's gourd, have sprung up in a night, and will wither in a day, — you will be forsaken by the angel of God's presence, and you Avill become an astonishment to all the inhabitants of the earth. And herein I do not speak as one hesitating or dubious, but positively assert it, as the known mind of God, and whereof he will not suffer any long to doubt, Ps. ii. 1 2.
Use 3. " Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not : behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recom- pense; he will come and save you," Isa. xxxv. 3, 4. Let the most ' Sec the appcndi.x about Toleration.
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weak and fearful, the fainting heart, the trembling spirit, and the doubting mind, know, that full and plenary security, perfect peace, attends the upright m the ways of God. You that are in God's way, do God's work, and take this cordial for all your distempers, — Return not to former provoking ways, and he will make you " a fenced bra- sen v/all."
And so I come to the third thing which I pi-oposed to consider, —
III. The opposition which men cleaving to the Lord in all his ways shall find, with the issue and success of it: " They shall fight against thee ; but shall not prevail."
The words may be considered either as a prediction depending on God's prescience of what ■v^dll be; or a commmation from his just judgment of what shall be.
In the first sense the Lord tells the j^rophet, from the con'uption, apostasy, stubbornness of that people, what would come to pass ; — in the second, what, for their sins and provocations, by his just judg- ment, should come to pass. Time will not allow me to handle the words in both acceptations, wherefore I shall take up the latter onh^, — viz., that it is a commination of what shall be for the farther mi- sery of that wi'etched people ; they shall judicially be given up to a fiffhting asfainst him.
Observation. God oftentimes gives up a sinftd lyeople to a fruit- less contention and fighting with their only supporters and means of deliverance.
Jeremiah had laboured with God for them, and with them for God, that, if possible, peace being made, they might be delivered ; and, to consummate their sins, they are given up to fight against him.