BY DIVINE PROTECTION. 173
with the enemies of his name, ' Si Deus homini non placu- erit, Deus non erit.' But it may be observed, that deliver- ance came not to that people until Jeboram was weary of waiting, and then instantly God gives it in. When God hath tired the patience of corrupted men, he will speak peace to them that wait for him. Thus it is not with the saints of God, only being perplexed in their spirits, dark in their apprehensions, and fainting in their strength, they break out ofttimes into passionate complaints (as Je- remiah for a cottage in the wilderness), but yet for the main holding firm to the Lord.
And the reasons of this quailing are,
(1.) The weakness of faith, when the methods of God's proceedings are unfathomable to our apprehensions. While men see the paths wherein the Lord walketh, they can fol- low him through some difficulties ; but when that is hid from them, though providence so shut up all other ways, that it is impossible God should be in them, yet if they can- not discern (so proud are they) how he goeth in that where- in he is, they are ready to faint and give over. God is pleased sometimes to make darkness his pavilion and his secret place, 'A fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous round about him;' Psal. 1. 3. When once God is attended with fire, darkness, and tempest, because we cannot so easily see him, we are ready to leave him. Now this the Lord usually doth in the execution of his judgments; * Thy righ- teousness is like the great mountains, thy judgments are a great deep ;' Psal. xxxvi. 6. His righteousness, his kind- ness, is like a great mountain that is easy to be seen, a man cannot overlook it, unless he wilfully shut his eyes ; but his judgments are like the great deep. Who can look into the bottom of the sea, or know what is done in the depths there- of? God's works in their accomplishment are oftentimes so unsuited to the reasons and apprehensions of men, that very many who have been strong in their desires, and great in ex- pectation of them, upon their bringing forth to light, have quite rejected and opposed them as none of his, because distant from what they had framed to themselves. It is evi- dent from the gospel, that the people of the Jews were full of expectation and longing for the great work of the coming of the Messias,just at the season wherein he came, yet being
174 RIGHTEOUS ZEAL ENCOURAGED
come, because not accommodatedto their pre-imaginations, they rejected him, ' as having neither form nor comeliness in him to be desired ;' Isa. hii. 2. And the prophet Amos telleth many, ' who desired the day of the Lord, that, that day should be darkness to them and not light;' Amos v. 18. 20. So in every generation many desires of the accomplish- ment of God's work are shaken off from any share therein, by finding it unsuited to their reasons and expectations.
Now when the Lord is pleased thus to walk in darkness, many not being able to trace him in his dispensations, are ready to lie down and sink under the burden. David seems to profess, that he had nothing at such a time to uphold him but this, that God must be there or nowhere. * I had said (saith he) that it was in vain to walk as 1 do, but that I should have condemned the generation of thy children ;' Psal. Ixxiii. 15. And truly God never leaves us without so much light, but that we may see clearly where he is not, and so by recounting particulars we may be rolled where he is, though his goings there be not so clear. Ask if God be in the counsels of men who seek themselves, and in the ways of those who make it their design to ruin the generation of the just. If you find him there, seek no farther; if not, let that give you light to discern where he makes his abode, that you turn not aside to the flocks of others.
(2.) A reducing the works of providence to inbred rules of their own. But this I cannot pursue.
Be tender toward fainters in difficult seasons. If they leave waiting on the Lord, because the evil is of him ; if they cast in their lot with the portion of the ungodly, they will in the end perish in their gainsaying ; but as for such, as what for want of light, what for want of faith, sit down and sigh in darkness, be not too hasty in laying farther burdens on them. When first the confederacy was entered into, by the Protestant princes in Germany, against Charles the Fifth, Luther himself for a season was bewildered, and knew not what to do, until being instructed in the fundamental laws of the empire, he sat down fully in that undertaking, though the Lord gave it not the desired issue.'" Our Saviour Christ asks, ' if, when he comes, he shall find faith on the earth ;• Luke xviii. 8. It is his coming with the spirit of judgment
"' Skid. Com. lib. 8.
BY DIVINE PROTECTION. 175