Now this is the glory of any people, upon a threefold account. [1.] This alone makes them honourable and precious before God. So says God of them, Isa. xliii. 1, "I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine ; " — those are they of whom I spake. What then? Verse 4, " Thou art precious in my sight, thou art honourable, and I have loved thee." How doth God manifest his valuation of them? Verse 3, Why, he will give all the world, — the greatest, mightiest, wealthiest nations, for them; verse 5, all is as nothing in comparison of them who are his portion, and the lot of his inheritance. The Lord keep this alive upon your hearts, that that may be in your eyes the glory of this nation, on the account whereof it is precious to God, and honourable in his sight.
[2.] Because this presence of Christ makes men comely and excel- lent in themselves, with what eye soever the world may look upon them. The whole world, out of Christ, lies in evil, — under the curse of God and defilement of sin. In all the glittering shows of their wealth and riches, in the state and magnificence of their governm^ents, the beauty of their laws and order (as they relate to their persons), they are, in the eye of God, a filthy and an abominable thing, — a thing that his soul loatheth. Curse and sin v/ill make any thing to be so. But now Christ is to them, and in them, beautiful and glorious, Isa. iv. 2. Christ is so in himself, and he is so unto them, and makes them to be so. There is through him beauty, and excellency, and comeliness, — eveiy thing that may make them lovely and acceptable. That the world looks not on them as such, is not tlieir fault, but the world's misery. It looked on their mastei- — Christ himself, the bright- ness of his Father's glory, who is altogether lovely, the chiefest of ten thousand — with no other eye, Isa. liil 2. They are so in themselves, and are so to Christ. Being exposed, indeed, to many temptations, often- times they are made black and sully [sullied] by them; but yet they are comely still. Cant. i. 5. The ways whex-eby they are made black, for the most part we have expressed, verse 6 ; when the sun shines on them, and they are made keepers of the \dneyard, it comes upon them. Prosperity and public employment oftentimes so sully them, that they
4G4' A GOSPEL PROFESSION
are made black to the reproach of the world ; but yet to Christ, who forgives and washes them, they are comely. Yea, this is all the ex- cellency that is in the world. Sin, with honour, with wealth, with power, with wisdom, is a deformed and contemptible thing: — it is grace only that is beantiful and glorious; it is the gracious only that are excellent in the earth, Ps. xvi. 3.
[3.] This alone makes any tiady useful unto others; and that either for 2)7'eservation or 2')rosperity.
1st. Here lies the preservation of any nation from ruin. Isa. Ixv. 8, " Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith. Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy them all." This is the blessing in the cluster, the hidden and secret blessing, for the sake whereof the whole is not destroyed. The "remnant" left by the Lord of hosts, Isa. i. 9, — that keeps the whole from being as Sodom or Gomorrah. If Elisha, a servant of the Lord, told the kino- of Israel, in his distress, that if he had not regarded the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, he would not so much as have spoken to him; how much more will the Lord himself let a people know, in their distress, that were it not for the regard he hath to his secret ones, he would not take the least notice as to relief of them, or their concernments I Sodom could not be destroyed until Lot was delivered. The whole world owes its preservation and being to them, whom they make it their business to root out of it. They arc as the foolish woman, that pulls do^vn her own house \nth both her iiands. It is not your councils, — you know how they have been divided, entangled, ensnared; it is not your armies, as such, — what have they been, to oppose against the mighty floods that have risen up in tliis nation? and they also have been as a reed driven to and fro with the wind (mankind is no better; John the Baptist says it of himself) ; — but it is this presence of Christ in and Avitli his, that hath been the preservation of England, in the midst of all the changes and revolutions that we have been exercised withal, Mic. v. 5.
2dli/. Not only preservation, but prosperity is from hence also. Mic. V. 7, " And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men." It is the remnant of Jacob of whom he speaks; that is, this people of Christ, with whom he is so present, as hath been manifested. And where are they ? They are in the midst of many people, in their inside, — in their bowels. They are woven, by their relations and em- })loynients, into the bowels of the nations; and *ni that accoimt, there is neither this nor any nation about us, but shall spin out their mercies or their misery from their own bowels. Their ])rovidential