" doth his promise fail for evermore?" These jealoufies are apt to creep in upon the minds of men, especially when, 1. God delays to answer our prayers as foon as we expect the return of them; we are all in haste for a speedy answer, forgetting that seasons of prayer are our feed-times; and when we have fown that precious feed, we must wait for the harvest, as the husbandman doth. Even a precious Heman may find a faint qualm of unbelief and despondency seizing him by the long suspension of God's answers, Pfal. lxxxviii. 9, 10, 11. 2. It will be hard to shut the door upon unbelief, when all things in the eyes of our fenfe and reason seem to work against the promise; it will require an Abraham's faith at fuch a time to glorify God by believing in hope against hope, Rom. iv. 18. If ever thou hopest to enjoy the sweet repose and rest of a Christian in evil times, thou must resolve, whatever thine eyes do see, or thy senses report, to hold fast this as a most sure conclufion; God is faithful, and his word is fure; and that although "clouds and darkness be round about him, yet righte" ousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne," Pfal. xcvii. 2. Oh! that you would once learn firmly to depend on God's faithfulness, and fetch your daily reliefs and supports thence, whensoever you are oppreffed and assaulted, either, 1. By spiritual troubles. When you walk in darkness, and have no light, then you are to live by acts of trust and recumbency upon the most faithful one, Ifa. 1. 10. Or, 2. By temporal distresses; so did the people of God of old, Heb. iii. 17, 18. He lived by faith on this attribute, when all visible comforts and supplies were out of fight, But especially, let me warn and caution you against five principal enemies to your repose upon the faithfulness of God, viz. 1. Distracting cares, which divide the mind, and eat out the peace and comfort of the heart, and which is worst of all, they reflect very dishonourably upon God who hath pledged his faithfulness and truth for our security; against which, I pray you bar the door by those two scriptures, Phil. iv. 6. "Be careful "for nothing, but in every thing by prayer and supplication "with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto "God." And that in 1 Pet. v. 7. "Casting all your care upon "him, for he careth for you." 2. Bar the door against unchristian despondency, another enemy to the sweet repose of your souls in this comfortable and quiet chamber of divine faithfulness: you will find this unbecoming and uncomfortable distemper of mind infinuating and creeping in upon you, except you believe and reason it out, as David did, Pfal. xlii. 11. "Why art thou cast down, O my foul? " and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, "for I shall yet praise him." - 3. Bar the door of your heart against carnal policies and finful shifts, which war against your own faith, and God's faithfnt. ness, as much as any other enemy whatsoever. This was the fault of good David in a day of trouble, 1 Sam. xxvii. 1. " And " David faid in his heart, I shall now perish one day by the "hand of Saul; there is nothing better for me than that I "should speedily escape into the land of the Philistines." Alas, poor David! nothing better than this? Time was when thou couldst think on a better way, when thou couldst say, at what time I am afraid I will trust in thee. How dost thou forget thyself in this strait! doth thy old refuge in God fail thee now, can the PhiJiftines secure thee better than the promises? wilt thou fly from thy best friend to thy worst enemies? but what need we wonder at David, who find the same distemper almost unavoidable to ourselves in like cafes? 4. Shut the door against discontents at, and murmurings against, the dispositions of providence, whatever you feel or fear: I perfuade you not to a stoical apathy, and senselessness of the evils of the times, that would preclude the exercife of patience. If the martyrs had all had the dead palsy before they came to the fire, their faith and patience had not triumphed fo gloriously as they did; but on the contrary, beware of grudgings against the ways and will of God, than which, nothing militates more against your faith, and the peace and quietness of your hearts. 5. To conclude, shut the door against all fufpicions and jealoufies of the firmness and stability of the promises, when you find all sensible comforts shaking and trembling under your feet; have a care of such dangerous questions as that, Pfal. Ixxvii. 8. Doth his promise fail? These are the things which undermine the foundation both of your faith and comfort. 6. In a word, having sheltered your fouls in this chamber of reft, and thus thut the doors behind you, all that you have to do is to take your rest in God, and enjoy the pleasure of a foul resigned into the hands of a faithful Creator, by oppofing the faithfulness of God to all the fickleness and unfaithfulness you will daily find in men, Micah vii. 6, 7. yea, to the weakness and fading of your own natural strength and ability; Pfal. Ixxiii. 26. "My fleth and my heart faileth, but God is the Arength " of my heart, and my portion for ever." And so much of the third chamber prepared for believers in the name of their God. Opening to believers the unchangeableness of God, as a fourth chamber of refuge and rest in times of trouble. Sett. I. IT is faid, Prov. ix. 1. Wisdom hath builded her house, She hath hewn out her feven pillars, (i. e.) She hath raised her whole building upon solid and stable foundations; for, indeed, the strength of every building is according to the ground work upon which it is erected. Debile fundamentum fallit opus. The wisdom and love of God have built an house for a refuge and sanctuary to believers in tempestuous and evil times, containing many pleasant and comfortable chambers prepared for their lodgings, till the calamities be over-paft; three of them have been already opened, viz. The power, wisdom, and faithfulness of God. The last of which leads into a fourth, much like unto it, namely, the unchangeableness of God; wherein his people may find as much rest and comfort amidst the vicissitudes of this unstable world, as in any of the former. This world is compared, Rev. xv. 2. to a fea of glass mingled with fire. A fea for its turbulency and instability; a sea of glass for the brittleness and frailty of every thing in it; and a fea of glass mingled with fire, to represent the sharp sufferings and fiery trials, with which the saints are exercised here below. The only support and confort we have against the fickleness and inftability of the creature, is the unchangeableness of God. There is a twofold changeableness in the creature; 1. Natural, the effect of fin. 2. Sinful in its own nature. 1. Natural, let in by the fall upon all the creation; by reason whereof the sweetest creature is but a fading flower, Pfal. cii, 26. Time, like a moth, frets out the best wrought garment with which we cloath and deck ourselves in this world, temporalia rapit tempus. Our most pleasant enjoyments, wives, children, estates, like the gourd in which Jonas so delighted himself, may wither in a night; fin rings these changes all the world 2. Sinful, from the falseness, inconstancy, and deceitfuinefs of the creature; Solomon puts a hard question which may pose the whole world to answer it, Prov. xx. 6. A faithful man who can find? The meaning is, a man of perfect and universal faithfulness is a phoenix, leldom or never to be found in this world; for when a question in scripture is moved and let fall again without any answer, then the sense is negative; but tho' the believer despair of finding an unchangeable man, it is his happiness and comfort to find an unchangeable God. The unchangeableness of God will appear three ways. 1. By fcripture emblems. 3. By convincing arguments. 1. By fcripture emblems. Remarkable to this purpose is that place, Jam. i. 17. where God is called "the Father of lights, " with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning;" no variableness. The word is, wαραλλαγή, an alronomical term, commonly applied to the heavenly bodies, which have their parallaxes, i. e. their declinations, revolutions, viciffitudes, eclipses, increases and decreases: but God is a Sun that never rifes nor fets, but is everlastingly and unchangeably one and the same; with him is no variableness nor thadow of turning, τροπῆς ἀποσκίασμα. The fun in its zenith cafts no shadow, it is the tropic, or turning of its courfe, that causes the shadow; the very fubitance of turning is with man; but not the least shadow of turning with God. And in Deut. xxxii. 4. Mofes tells us, God is a rock, and his work is perfect. And indeed perfect working necessarily follows a perfect being. Now there is nothing found in nature more folid, fixed, and immutable than a rock; the firmest buildings will decay; a few ages will make them a ruinous heap; but though one age pals away, and another comes, the rocks abide where and what they were; Our God is the rockof ages; and yet one step higher, in Zech. vi. 1. his decrees and purposes are called mountains of brass, that is, most firm, durable, and unchangeable purposes. Thus the immutability of God is thadowed forth to us in fcripture emblems. 2. The fame allo you will find in plain, positive scripture affertions; fuch as these that follow, Mal. iii. 6. "I am the "Lord, I change not, therefore ye fons of Jacob are not con"fumed." And Job. xxiii. 13. "He is in one mind, and who * can turn him?" Men are in one mind to day, and another to morrow; the winds are not more variable than the minds of mon; but God is in one mind, the purposes of his heart never change. Thou art the fame, or as fome translate, Thou art thy felf for ever, Pfal. cii. 27. Thus when Mofes defired to know his name, that he might tell Pharoah from whom he came; the anfwer is, I AM hath fent me, Exod. iii. 14. not I was, or I will be, but I AM THAT I AM, noting the absolute un changeableness of his nature. 3. The unchangeableness of God is fully proved by convincing arguments which divines commonly draw from fuch topics as these, viz. 1. The perfection of his goodness. 2. The purity of his nature. 3. The glory of his name. Arg. 1. From the perfection of his goodness and blessedness, God is optimus maximus, the best and chiefest good, and in that sense, "There is none good but one, which is God," Mark *. 18. From whence it is thus argued, If there be any change in God, that change must either be for the better, or for the worse, or into a state equal with that he possessed before. But not for the better, for then he could not be the chief good; nor for the worse, for then he must cease to be God, the perfection of whose nature is perfectly exclufive of all defects; nor into an equal state of goodness with that he possesled before; that notion would involve Polytheism, and suppose two first and equal beings, besides the vanity of such a change would be abfolutely repugnant to the wisdom of God. Therefore with the Father of lights can be no variableness nor shadow of turning. Arg. 2. The unchangeableness of God may be evinced from the purity, fincerity, and uncompoundedness of his being, in which there neither is, nor can be the least mixture, he being a pure act. From whence it is thus argued ; If there be any change in God, that change must be made either by something without himself; or by something within himself, or by both together. But it cannot be by any thing without himself; for in him all created dependent beings live and move, and enjoy the beings they have; and all the changes that are among them, are from the pleasure of this unchangeable Being, he changeth them, but it is not possible for him, upon whose pleasure they so entirely, and absolutely depend, both as to their beings and workings, to fuffer any change himself from, or by them. Nor can any such change be made upon God by any thing within himself; for that would suppose action and paffion, movens et motum, a mixture and composition in his nature, T2 |