2. God, to show it to be our duty and wisdom, doth immediately propose the very properties of his nature for our relief: Isa. xl. 27, " Why sayest thou, 0 Jacob, and speakest, 0 Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?" — words whose sense are often ready to possess our hearts: I am sure they often lie at the door of mine ; I know not how it is with you. What doth God propose to relieve them in that condition? Why, he doth tell them, verse 28, " Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no search-
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ing of his understanding/' Why, he proposeth three or four of the essential properties of his nature to our consideration to make our refuge : — His eternity ; he is " the everlasting God ;" — his power ; he is '* the Creator of the ends of the earth;" — his unchangeableness; he " fainteth not, neither is weary;" — and his infinite wisdom ; " there is no searching of his understanding/' He proposeth immediately unto our consideration these glorious properties of his nature for our relief and refuge in such a time, when we are so far beyond all re lief and all hope in the world. We are so quite sunk under the weight, so laid out of the way, so thrown away, that we are ready to think that we can see no relief from God himself. * " My way is hid from the LORD ;" — I have had my last trial and hearing ; my judgment is cast out in the court of God, passed over ; God will not determine in my cause/ It is the complaint of the church under the great oppression of the Babylonians, 'God hath passed it over, put off the day of hearing/ What doth God give in this great distress to their relief? Why, he minds them of his glorious properties, of his unchange ableness, eternity, infinite wisdom, and infinite power. God carries it on in that place, but I will go no farther, though in the next words God manifests that he will exert all these holy properties of his nature in a way of covenant mercy to those that believe in him and put their trust in him.
3. It is our wisdom ; because no distress is unspeakably and un controllably great that is capable of any relief or appearance of re lief from any thing but the infinite nature of God. We are exposed, or may be, unto such distresses as nothing can give us the least re lief in but the consideration of God's nature. Suppose a man were by the hands of violence cast into prison or a dungeon, where none was able to relieve him. Ay, but he will say, ' I have relief here; many good people know I am in a dungeon, and they will pray for me, pity me, have compassion upon me/ But a man may be cast into that condition where no man sees him, no man knows of him, where there is none to pity him, — a storm at sea, a dungeon out of knowledge. What shall relieve this man but the sole consideration of his interest in the infinite properties of God ? I have known many in distresses of conscience that have been able to blow off every thing, until God comes to swallow them up with the infiniteness of God. Doubts and fears of their hearts have despised every answer, every word of comfort, that could be given unto them ; but if you could once come to swallow them up in the infiniteness of God, that hath given them some quiet. And the reason of all this is, because our fears are able to pursue our apprehensions [of relief]. Whatever you can apprehend, your fears will go as far as your apprehensions, and weaken it unto you. Swallow up your apprehensions in what is in-
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finite, and fear is swallowed up thereby. Every particular that your apprehension or reason can go through, your fears will go through, and will imbitter it to you. But if you can swallow all up into infi nite wisdom, unchangeableness, mercy, fears and every thing else are swallowed up; and then the soul is at rest. Bring it to a particular promise. While fear and unbelief are at work, they will go as far as you, and give trouble; but if you come to make the Lord himself, in his infinite nature, to be your refuge, there is rest and peace in the soul.
It is matter of counsel and wisdom to make God our refuge, be cause it is a foolish thing to trust in that which is not God ; and because God hath so proposed his nature and properties to us, as is suited to give us relief in every strait and distress whatsoever that may befall us.
" Ye have shamed," saith. he, " the counsel of the poor." There is nothing that wicked men do so despise as the making God a re fuge, — nothing which they scorn in their hearts like it. " They shame it/' saith he. * It is a thing to be cast out of all consideration. The wise man trusts in his wisdom, the strong man in his strength, the rich man in his riches; but this trusting in God is the foolishest thing in the world/