Isai. XXV. 4. Thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, ivhen the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the toall.
IT is generally thought that no great comfort can arise fi'om meditating upon God : and this is true, as
far as it respects those who are determined to live in sin : but to those who desire to serve and enjoy God, there cannot be a richer source of consolation : a view of his attributes, as displayed in the works of his providence and grace, would soon elevate our minds, and turn our fears and sorrows into " thanksgiving and the voice of melody." We find the prophet breaking forth into rapture, " O Lord, thou art my God ; I will exalt thee; I will praise thy name :" but what was the foundation of this joy ? It was, as he adds, " for thou hast done wonderful things^:" and what those wonders were, he informs us in the words which we are about to consider, in which we may see,
I. What is here supposed respecting the Lord's people —
We forbear to mention the temporal calamities which God's people are called to suffer, because they are common to the wicked as well as to the righteous. But there are many and severe afflictions peculiar to the godly. They are often in great distress,
1. From a sense of guilt and danger —
[When persons first begin to turn to God, tliey are often filled with liorror at the sight of tlieir past iniquities, and ter- rified with apprehensions of the wrath they have so justly merited. However " stout-hearted " any man may have been in the days of his ignorance, he no sooner sees what transgres- sions he has committed, and what a God he has defied, than, like Belshazzar at the sight of the hand-writing on the wall, his loins are loosed with fear, and his knees, as it were, smite one against the other^ The jailor, it should seem, from his treatment of Paul and Silas, was of a very ferocious disposition ; but, when God smote him with a sense of sin, how was his heart appalled ! he " sprang in with trembling, and cried out before his prisoners, Sirs, What must I do to be saved "^ ? " Thus it is, in a greater or less degree, with all : and many in this state have even envied the beasts the privilege of annihilation.]
2. From the persecutions of an ungodly world —
[From the days of Cain, even to this present hour, they who have been born after the flesh have persecuted those who were born after the Spirit*^. And the more eminent any have
a ver. 1. b Dan, v. 5, 6.
<= Acts xvi. 29, 30. ^ Gal. iv. 29. 1 John iii. 12.