If you have an experience of this power upon your hearts, it will recover all your recoiling, wandering thoughts, when you find you cannot live without it. It is so as to every ordinance whatever; unless we can have some experience of the benefit of it, and of the power and efficacy of the grace of God in it, we can never expect to abide in our profession of it. What will you bear witness unto? an empty, bare pro- fession, that neither honoureth God nor doth good to your own souls s
If you would, then, be established in this truth, of not being ashamed of the gospel, recall to your minds what benefit you have received by it. Have you received any advantage by hearing the word? hath it at any time restored your souls when you have been wandering? hath it comforted you when you have been cast down? hath it engaged your hearts unto God? Recall to mind what benefit and advantage you have had by it; and then ask what it hath done, that now you should forsake it. And in every ordinance that you are made par- takers of, inquire diligently what power of God upon your own hearts goes forth in the dispensation of that ordinance. This will confirm and strengthen you; and without this all your profession is vain, and will signify nothing.
SERMON XIX.1
GOD THE SAINTS' ROCK.
u From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed : lead me to the rock that is higher than I." — Ps. lxi. 2.
There are two things in the words: — First, The state wherein the psalmist was. Secondly, The course that he steered in that state. 1 This sermon was preached November 11, 1670.
238 GOD THE SAINTS' ROCK.
His estate is doubly expressed: — 1. From the place where he was, — " From the end of the earth;" and, 2. From the condition he was in, — " His heart was overwhelmed."
And in the course he steered there are two things also: — 1. The manner of it, — " He cried unto the Lord." 2. The matter of that cry, — " Lead me to the rock that is higher than I."
First. There is the state wherein he was. And, —
1. The first description of it (for both parts are metaphorical) is from the place where he was, — " The end of the earth." Now, this may be taken two ways : — either naturally, and then it is an allusion to men that are far distant and remote from help, relief, and comfort ; or, as I may say, ecclesiastically, with reference to the temple of God, which was " in medio terrse," — " in the midst and heart of the land," where God manifested and gave tokens of his gracious presence and favour : as if he had said, " I am at the end of the earth ; far from any tokens, pledges, or manifestations of the love and favour of God, as well as from outward help and assistance."
2. The second description of his state is, that " his heart was over- whelmed." Wherein we have two things: —
(1.) A confluence of calamities and distresses. (2.) The effect they had upon him; — his heart was overwhelmed, and fainted under them. As long as the heart will hold up, they may be borne, — " The spirit of a man will bear his infirmity;" but when "the spirit is wounded," and the heart faints, a confluence of calamities greatly oppresses.
What is meant by "overwhelmed," himself declares in another place, Ps. cii. The title of the psalm is, " A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed." And he describes that condition in the psalm itself, verses 3, 4, etc., " My days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth. My heart is smitten, and withered like grass ; so that I forget to eat my bread. By reason of the voice of my groaning rny bones cleave to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness : I am like an owl of the desert. I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top. Mine enemies reproach me all the day ; and they that are mad against me are sworn against me. For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mingled my drink with weeping, because of thine indignation and thy wrath : for thou hast lifted me up, and cast me down." To be overwhelmed, is to be under a con- fluence of all manner of distressing calamities. Ps. cxlii. 3, 4, he describes again what it is to be overwhelmed : " When my sphit was overwhelmed within me, I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me : refuge failed me ; no man cared for my soul." So that to have a confluence of manifold dis- tresses, with an eye to the indignation of God as the spring of those
GOD THE SAINTS' ROCK. 239
distresses, until the spirit sink and faint under it, is to have the heart overwhelmed. This is his state and condition.
Secondly. The course he takes in this state, as we have already ob- served, is also doubly expressed : —