It is said, Heb. x, 38, " If any man draw back, my soul [the Lord's] shall have no pleasure in him." What is it to draw back? It is to decline from his steadfastness of believing. So the apostle interprets it, verse 39, " We are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe." Drawing back is opposed to believing. In these drawers-back that come not up to steadfastness in believing, nor labour so to do, the Lord's " soul hath no pleasure;" — that is, he exceedingly abhors and abominates them ; which is the force of that expression. His delight is in those who are steadfast in adhering to the promises; in them his soul takes pleasure.
When the Jews treated with our Saviour about salvation, they ask
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84 THE STRENGTH OF FAITH.
him, " What shall we do, that we might work the work of God?" John vi. 28, — that work of God by which they might come to he accepted with him ; which is the cry of all convinced persons. Our Saviour's answer is, verse 29, " This is the work of God, that ye be- lieve." " Will ye know the great work, wherein God is so delighted?''' " It is this," saith he, " that ye ' believe,' and be steadfast therein."
Hence, also, are many exhortations that are given us by the Holy Ghost to come up hereunto ; as Heb. xii. 12; Isa. xxxv. But I shall not farther insist on testimonies, which exceedingly abound to this purpose. The farther demonstrations of the point ensue : —
2. The next shall consist in the farther improvement of the first testimony concerning the glory of God, arising from our being stead- fast in believing.
This is granted by all, that God's ultimate end in all things he doth himself, and in all that he requires us to do, is his own glory. It cannot be otherwise, if he be the first, only independent being, and prime cause of all things, and their chiefest good. God having, then, placed his glory in that which cannot be attained and brought about without believing, m answer to his present constitution of things, it must needs be acceptable to him ; as is a suitable means to a designed end to any one's acting in wisdom and righteousness.
Bear in mind, I pray, what it is that I mean by believing. Though the word be general and large, yet in my intendment it is restrained to the particulars insisted on, — namely, the constant establishment of our souls in receiving the Lord Jesus, tendered unto us in the truth and from the love of the Father, for the pardon of sins, and accepta- tion of our persons before God. This, I say, according to God's con- stitution of things in the covenant of grace, is necessary to bring about that end of glory to himself which he aims at. Hence he sums up his whole design to be " the praise of his glorious grace," Eph. i. 6.
In Prov. xxv. 2, if I mistake not, this is clearly asserted, " It is the glory of God to conceal a thing," or " to cover a matter." I told you before what is the glory of God. It is not the splendour and majesty of his infinite and excellent perfections, which arise not from any thing he doth, but from what he is ; but it is the exaltation, ma- nifestation, and essence of those excellencies. When God is received, believed, known to be such as he declares himself, — therein is he glo- rified; that is his glory. This glory, saith the Holy Ghost, arises from the covering a matter.
What matter is this? It is not the glory of God to cover every matter, all things whatever; yea, it is his glory to " bring to light the hidden things of darkness." The manifestation of his own works " declares his glory/' Ps. xix. 1. So doth the manifestation of the good works of his people, Matt. v. 16. It is, then, things of some
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peculiar kind that are here intended. The following opposition dis- covers this, " The honour of kings is to search out a matter/' What matter is it that it is the glory of the king to find out? Is it not faults and offences against the law? Is it not the glory of magistrates to find out transgressions, that the transgressors may be punished? This is the glory of the magistrate, to inquire, find out, and punish offences, transgressions of the law. It is, then, in answer hereunto, a sinful thing, sin itself, that is the matter or thing which it is the glory of God to cover. But what is it to cover a sinful matter? It is that which is opposed to the magistrate's finding it out ; — what that is, we have a full description in Job xxix. 16, 17, " The cause I knew not, I searched out, and I brake the jaws of the wicked." It is to make judicial inquisition after, to find out hidden transgressions, that the offenders may be brought to condign punishment; so that God's concealing a matter is his not searching, with an intention of pvtnish- ment, into sins and sinners, to make them naked to the stroke of the law. It is his hiding of sin from the condemning power of the law. The word here used is the same with that of David, Ps. xxxii. 1, " Blessed is the man whose sin is covered." And in sundry other places is it used to the same purpose ; which is expressed, Mic. vii. 19, by " casting all our sins into the bottom of the sea." That which is so disposed of is utterly covered from the sight of men. So doth God express the covering of the sins of his people, as to their not appear- ance to their condemnation, — they shall be " cast into the bottom of the sea." Hence are our sins, in the New Testament, said d<pisvai, which we translate " forgiven," and "to forgive;" and a<pe<rig, "for- giveness," in twenty places. The word signifies properly to " remove" or "dismiss" one; apa pry para upiivai,is "peccata missa facere," — "to send or remove away our sins out of sight ; " the same in substance with that which is here called " to cover." And so is the word used in another business, Matt, xxiii. 23, ' Afqxari to fSapvrspa, rov vo/iov, — " You have omitted the weightier things of the law;" that is, you have laid them aside, as it were, out of sight, taking no care of them. Now, the bottom of all these expressions of removing, hiding, cover- ing, and concealing sin, which gives life and significancy to them, making them import forgiveness of sin, is the allusion that is in them to the mercy-seat under the law. The making and use of it we have, Exod. xxv. 17, 18. It was a plate of pure gold, lying on the ark, called rns^ or " a covering." In the ark was the law, written on tables of stone. Over the mercy-seat, between the cherubims, was the oracle representing the presence of God. By which the Holy Ghost does signify, that the mercy-seat was to cover the law, and the condemning power of it, as it were, from the eye of God's justice, that we be not consumed. Hence is God said to cover sin, because