As the Church at large, so every individual member of it may be in very afflictive circumstances —
[The Jews were reduced to the greatest distress during their captivity in Babylon ; and their once fertile country was become a wilderness ; nor could they remember Zion but with deep sorrow and regret. Thus the people of God at this time may be brought into great tribulation. Through persecution or temptation their " sorrows may be enlarged," and their joys be turned into pain and anguish.]
But God promises to interpose for them in the time of need —
[He repeatedly foretold that he would deliver his people from their Babylonish captivity ; and restore them with joy and triumph to their own land. This was a faint representation of what he would do for the true seed of Abraham under the Christian dispensation. He will revive his people with spiri- tual consolations. He will make their hearts, which now seem barren, or productive only of thorns, to be " fruitful in every good word and work." Paradise itself, before sin had deformed its beauty, was a just emblem of what the soul shall be when God returns to visit it. The harp hung upon the willows shall be strung anew; "joy and gladness" shall succeed to the effusions of sorrow, and the groans of contrition yield to " thanksgivings and the voice of melody." Let but the afflicted soul tarry the Lord's leisure, and it shall surely experience the wished-for deliverance.]
To encourage all to confide in this promise, let us consider,
III. In what respects the recollection of mercies re- ceived may strengthen our expectations of those that are promised —
Nothing could be more animating to the Jews in Babylon than the recollection of what God had done in raising so flourishing a tree from the dead stock of Sarah's womb, and in continuing to water it for so many centuries, notwithstanding the bad fruit it had continued to produce. Nor can any thing be more consoling to us than a retrospective view of God's dealings with us. In them we may behold,
1. His sovereign grace —
[In every thing relative to the raising of the Jewish nation God displayed his sovereignty. And may we not behold the