"strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, " a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the "blast of the terrible ones is as the storm against the wall." Neither is there any thing in your experience contradictory to the encouraging reports others have made of God; you must acknowledge, that notwithstanding your own changeableness, who have hardly been able to maintain your hearts in any spiritual frame towards God for one day together, yet his mercies towards you have been new every morning, and great hath been his faithfulness. You have often turned aside from the way of your duty, and have not followed God in a steddy course of obedience; and yet, for all that, his goodness and mercy have followed you all the days of your life, as it is Pfal. xxiii. 6.

2. Confider how often you have doubted and mistrusted the unchangeableness of God, and been forced, with shame and forrow, to retract your folly therein; God hath many times convinced you, that his love to you is an unchangeable love, how many changes foever, in the course of his providence, have passed over you; confult Ifa. xlix. 14. and Pfal. lxxvii. 78. and fee how the cafes are parallel, both in respect of God's constancy to them and you, and the inconstancy of his people's faith then, and yours now; your fears and doubts are the fame with theirs; though his goodness and love have been as unchangeable to you, as ever it was to them.

3. Confider the advocateship and intercession of Jesus Chrift in heaven for you, by virtue whereof the favour and love of God becomes unalterable towards his people. If any thing can be supposed to cool or quench the love of God towards you, nothing in the world is more like to do it than your fin; and this, indeed, is that which you fear will estrange and alienate the heart of your God from you. But, reader, if thou be one that fincerely mournest for all the grief and dishonour of God by thy fin, appliest the blood of sprinkling to thy foul by faith, and makest mortification and watchfulness thy daily business; comfort thyself against that fear from that fingular encouragement given thee in this cafe, I John ii. 1, 2. "My little children, "these things write I unto you, that ye sin not; and if any man

:

fin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Chrift the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our fins." Look as the death of Christ healed the great breach betwixt God and thy foul, by thy reconciliation at first, so the powerful interceffion of Christ in heaven, effectually prevents all new breaches

VOL. IV.

U

betwixt God and thy foul afterwards, fo that he will never totally and finally caft thee off again.

(2.) Shut the door behind you against all objections, scruples, and questionings of God's immutability, and, by a refolved and steddy faith, maintain the honour of God in this point, by thy conftant adherence to it, and dependence upon it; and efpecially fee that thou give him the glory of his unchangeableness.

1. When thou shalt fee the greatest alterations and changes made by his providence in the world. What though thou shouldst live to fee all things turned upside down, the foundations out of course, all things drawing into a fea of confusion and trouble? yet in the midst of those public distractions, and diftreis of nations, encourage thou thyself in this; thy God, and his love to his people, is the fame tor ever. Pfal. xlvi. 1, 2, 3. 4,5. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in "trouble; therefore will we not fear, though the earth be mov. "ed, and the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea, God " is in the midst of her, the stiall not be moved."

2. Live by faith upon God's unchangeableness under the greatest changes of your own condition in this world. Providence may make great alterations upon all your outward com. forts, it may caft you down, how dear foever you be to God, from riches into poverty, from health into fickness, from honour into reproach, from liberty into bondage; thou mayest overlive all thy comfortable relations, and of a Naomi become a Marah. Thou hast lifted me up, and caft me down, said as good a man as you, Pfal. cii. 10. Yet still it is your duty, and will be your great privilege in the midst of all these changes, to act your faith upon the never-changing God, as that holy man did, Hab. iii. 17. "Although the fig-tree shall not bloffom, neither fruit be "in the vine; the labour of the olive shall fail; and the fields "shall yield no meat; the flocks shall be cut off from the fold, "and there shall be no herd in the stall; yet will I rejoice in "the Lord, I will joy in the God of my falvation;" q. d. Suppose a thousand disappointments of my earthly hopes, yet will I maintain my hope in God. O Christian! with how many yets, notwithstandings, and neverthelesses, must thy faith bear up in times of trouble, or thou wilt fink.

3. See thou live upon God's unchangeableness, when age and fickness shall inform thee, that thy great change is at hand; though thy heart and thy flesh fail, comfort thyself with this, thy God will never fail thee, Pfal. Ixxiii. 16. "O God (faith

David) thou haft taught me from my youth, and hitherto ** have I declared thy wondrous works, now also when I am

"old and gray-headed, forsake me not," Pfal. lxxi, 17, 18. 4. Live upon the unchangeableness of God under the greatest and saddest changes of your spiritual condition; God may cloud the light of his countenance over thy foul, he may fill thee with fears and troubles, and the Comforter that should relieve thee may feem to be far off; yet Aill maintain thy faith in the unchangeableness of his loves; trust in the name of the Lord, stay thyself upon thy God, when thou walkest in dark. ness, and haft no light, Isa. 1. 10. Thus shut thy door.

(3.) Improve the unchangeableness of God to thy best advantage in the worst times, by drawing thence such comfortable conclusions as these.

1. If God be an unchangeable God in his promises, and in his love to his people, what should hinder but the people of God may live happily and comfortably in the saddest times, and greatest troubles upon earth. "As forrowful, yet always re"joicing, as poor, yet making many rich, as having nothing, "yet possessing all things," 2 Cor. vi. 10. "Certainly nothing " ought to quench a Christian's mirth, that is not able to sepa" rate him from the love of Christ," Rom. viii. 35.

2. If God be an unchangeable God in his love to his people; then it becomes all that have special interest in this God, to be unchangeable and immoveable in the ways of their obedience towards him: God will not cast you off, see that you cast not off your duties, no, not when they are furrounded with difficulties; he loves you, though you often grieve him by sin; see that you still love him, though he often grieve and burden you by affliction: he will own you for his people under the greatest contempts and reproaches of the world; fee that you own and honour his ways and truths, when you are under most reproach from a vile world,

CHAP. X.

Opening the care of God for his people in times of trouble, as the fifth chamber of rest to believers.

Sect. I. CARE, in the general notion of it, as it is applied to the creature, imports the studiousness and folicitousness of our thoughts, for the fafety and welfare of ourselves, or those we love and highly value. Now, though there be 80 such thing properly in God, at whose dispose and pleasure all events are, and to whose counsels and appointments all difficulties must give way; yet he is pleased to accommodate himself to our weakness, and express his regard and love to his people, by such things as one creature doth to another, to which it is endeared by relation or affection. To this purpose we may find many fignificant synonymous expreffions in scripture, all importing the care of God over his people, in a pleafant variety of notion and expression, as Nah. i. 7. "The Lord " is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth "them that trust in him."

He knoweth them, i. e. he hath a special, tender, and careful eye upon them, to see their wants supplied, and to protect them in all their dangers; for in the common and general sense he knoweth them that trust not in him, as well as those that do; and farther to clear this sense of the place, it is faid, Pfal. xl. 17. "The Lord thinketh on them." Importing not only fimple cogitation, but the immoration or abiding of his thoughts upon them, as our thoughts are wont to do upon that which we highly esteem, especially when any danger is near it. And yet farther, to clear this sense, it is said, Job xxxvi. 7. "He " withdraweth not his eye from the righteous." As when Moses was exposed in the ark of bulrushes, where his life was in imminent hazards by the waters of Nilus on one fide, and the Egyptian cut-throats on the other; his sister Miriam kept watch at a distance, to see what would be done to him. Her eye was never off that ark wherein her dear brother lay; fear and care engaged her eye to keep a true watch for him. Thus the Lord withdraweth not his eye from the righteous. To the same purpose is that expression, Deut. xxxiii. 3. " Yea, he loved "the people; all his faints are in thy hand." That which we dearly love and prize above ordinary, we keep in our own hands for its security, as not thinking it safe enough in any other hand or place. And once more, Ifa. xlix. 16. God is said to engrave them upon the palms of his hands, alluding to what is customary among men, who, when they would charge their memories with something of special concernment, use to change a ring, or bind a thread about the finger, to put them in mind of it. Thus is the care of our God expressed to us in scripturenotions. The amount of all which is given to us in that one proper and full expression of the apostle, 1 Pet. i. 7. He careth for you. To open this chamber of divine care, as a place of sweetest rest, to our anxious and perplexed minds, in times of difficulty and hazard, it will be necessary that you seriously ponder,

1. The grounds and reasons

2. The extent and compass of the care of God.
3. The lovely properties

(1.) The grounds and reasons of God's care for his people; which are,

1. The strict and dear relations in which he is pleased to own them. Believers are his children, and you know how naturally children engage and draw forth the father's care for them. This is the argument Christ uses, Mat. vi. 31, 32. "Therefore, take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? Or "what shall we drink? Or wherewithal shall we be cloathed? "For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all " those things." Children, especially when young, disquiet not themselves about provisions for back or belly, but leave that to the care of their parents, from whom, by the tye and bonds of nature and love, they expect provision for all those wants: Every one takes care for his own; much more doth God for his own children, and, indeed, he expects his children should live upon his care; as our children in their minority, do upon

ours.

2. God's precious estimation and value of them, engage his constant care for them. Believers are his jewels, Mal. iii. 17. his peculiar people, 1 Pet. ii. 6. his special portion or treasure in this world, Deut. xxxii. 9. and as such he prizes and esteems them above all the people of the earth, and accordingly exerciseth his special care in all the dangers they are exposed to. Special love engageth peculiar care.

3. The dangers and fears of the people of God, in this world, are many and great; and were it not for the Lord's affiduous and tender care over them, they must neceffarily be ruined, both in foul and body by them. The church is God's vineyard, its enemies as fo many wild boars to root it up: Upon this account he faith, Ifa. xxvii. 3. "I the Lord do keep " it, lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." And, indeed, it is well for Ifrael, that he that keepeth it, never flumbereth nor fleepeth, Pfal. cxxi. 4. that our houses are in peace, that we and our dear relations fall not as a prey into cruel and bloody hands skilful to destroy, that we find any rest, or comfort in so evil and dangerous a world, it is wholly and only to be ascribed to the care of God over us and ours.

4. Jesus Christ hath folemnly recommended all the people of God to his particular care. It was one of the last expressions of Chrift's love to them at the parting hour, John xvii. 11." And " now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world;