1. In the manner of it. "I cried," saith he, "unto thee." The word is frequently used in this case in Scripture ; and it is natu- rally expressive of the principal actings of faith in a distressed con- dition.
There are four things that faith will do in a condition of distress in believers; and they are all of them comprised in this expression, " I cried:" —
(1.) It will make the heart sensible of the affliction. God abhors the proud and the stubborn, that think by their own spirits to bear up under their pressures. Isa. xlvi. 12, " Hearken unto me, ye stout- hearted, that are far from righteousness." Persons that think to bear themselves up, when God dealeth with them, by their stout heart, are such whom, of all others, God most despises and abhors : they are " far from righteousness." Now, crying doth include a sense of evils and pressures the soul is exercised withal, and that we do not despise God when we are chastened, as well as that we do not utterly faint, but cry unto the Lord.
(2.) The next act of faith is a holy complaint unto God in such a state and condition. So the psalmist tells us, Ps. cii., " A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his com- plaint before the Lord." He often mentions " his complaint, coming with his complaint unto the Lord." And God takes nothing more kindly than when we come to him with our complaints ; not repining at them, but spreading them before the Lord, as from whom alone we expect relief: for it declares we believe God concerns himself in our state and condition. There is no man so foolish, whatsoever he suffers, as to go unto them with his complaints whom he supposes are not concerned in him, nor have any compassion for him. It is a professing unto God that we believe he is concerned in our condition, when we cry unto him, and pour out before him our complaints.
(3.) There is in it an endeavour to approach unto God ; as you do when you cry after one whom you see at a distance, and are afraid he will go farther from you. It is the great work of faith to cry out after God at a distance, when you are afraid lest at the next turn he should be quite out of sight. Crying to the Lord, supposes him to be withdrawing or departing.
(4.) There is earnestness in it. It is expressive of the greatest earnestness of spirit we can use, when we cry out in any case.
Thus he behaves himself during the condition described : — He had a sense of his distress; he makes his complaint unto the Lord; he
240 GOD THE SAIKTS* EOCK.
cries out after him, for fear he should withdraw himself, and that with earnestness, that God might come in to his help.
2. The matter of it is, — that God would " lead him to the rock ;" that is, that God woidd give him an access unto himself by Jesus Christ, in whom God is our rock and our refuge in all our distresses; that he would but open a way through all his dark and overwhelm- ing entanglements, that he might come unto himself, there to issue the troubles and perplexities that he was exercised withal.
That which I would speak to you, from the words thus opened, is this:—
Observation. In the most overwhelming, calamitous distresses that may befall a believing soul, faith still eyes a reserve in God, and de- lights to break through all to come unto him; though, at the same time, it looks upon God as the author of those calamities.
I have told you before, in the opening of the words, what I intend by these overwhelming distresses. They are of two sorts; inward and outward: —
First. Inward, in perplexities upon the soul and conscience about sin; when the soul is in darkness, and hath no apprehension of any ground upon which it may have acceptance with God ; when it is pressed with the guilt of sin, and abides in darkness upon that ac- count, and hath no light.
Secondly. Outward ; and these are of two sorts : —
1. Private; in afflictions, losses, sickness, pains, poverty, either as to ourselves or those who are near unto us, and wherein we are con- cerned. These may sometimes have such an edge put upon them as to prove overwhelming.
2. Public, in reference unto the church of God; when that is in great distress, when there is no prospect of relief, no beam of light ; when the summer is past, and the harvest ended, — expectations come to an issue, and no relief ensues. This is an overwhelming distress to them whose heails are in the ways of God, and have a concern in his glory, — when Zion is in the dust, and the bones of the children of Zion lie scattered like wood upon the face of the earth
These are the heads of overwhelming distresses. And I say, faith looks upon them as proceeding from God. Is the soul in distress upon the account of sin? They are God's rebukes, God's arrows; — it is God that hath caused this darkness. Is it troubled or pressed upon the account of afflictions or dangers? " Affliction," saith faith, "doth not spring out of the earth, or troubles from the ground; — these things are from God." Is it with respect unto the church of God? " Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers?" Is it not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? It is, therefore, his wrath and indignation in all these things. Yet, notwithstand-