bus invitation into a place of security for the present, Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers. In which invitation four things call for our close attention.

1. The form of the invitation, including in it the qualified fubject, Come, my people. God's own peculiar people, who have chosen God for their protection, and refigned up themselves fincerely to him in the covenant, are the persons here invited, the same which he before called the righteous nation that kept the truth, ver. 2. he means those that remained faithful to God, as many of them did in Babylon, witness their forrow for Sion, Pfal. cxxxvii. per totum; and their folemn appeal to God, that their hearts were not turned back, nor had their steps declined though they were fore broken in the place of dragons, and covered with the shadow of death, Pfal. xliv. 18, 19, 20. These are the people invited to the chambers of security. And the form of invitation is full of tender compaffion; Come, my people; like a tender father that fees a storm coming upon his children in the fields, and takes them by the hand, saying, Come away, my dear children, haften home with me, left the storm overtake you; or as the Lord said to Noah before the deluge, come thou and all thy houfe into the ark, and God shut him in, Gen. vii. 1, 16. This is the form of invitation, Come, my people.

2. The privilege invited to; Enter thou into thy chambers. There is fome variety, and indeed variety rather than contrariety in the exposition of these words.

In this all are agreed, that by their chambers, is not meant the chambers of their own houses, Ezek. xxi. 14. for alas, their houses were left unto them desolate; and if not, yet they could be no security to them now, when neither their own houses, nor their fortified city, was able to defend them before.

Grotius expounds it of the grave, and makes these chambers the fame with the chambers of death. Ite in cubicula, i. e. fepulchra vestra. The grave indeed is a place of security, where God sometimes hides some of his people in troublesome times, as is plain in Isa. lvii. 1, 2. but I cannot allow this to be the sense of this text; God doth not comfort his captives with a natural, against a civil death, but with protection in their troubles upon earth, as is evident from the scope of the whole chapter.

By chambers therefore, others understand the chambers of

Grotius on the place,

Divine Providence, where the faints are hid in evil days. So our Annotators on the place, and no doubt but this is in part the special intendment of the text.

Others understand the attributes and promises of God to be here meant, as well as his providence. And I conceive all three make the sense of the text full, (i. e.) the divine attri butes engaged in the promises, and exercised or actuated in the providences of God; these are the sanctuaries and refuges of God's people in days of trouble.

Calvin understands it of the quiet repose of the believer's mind in God, but that is rather the effect of his security, than the place of it. It is God's attributes, or his name (which is the same thing) to which the righteous fly and are safe, Prov. xviii. 10.

Object. But you will fay, why are they called their cham bers? Those attributes are not theirs, but God's.

Solut. The answer is easy, though they be God's properties, yet they are his people's privileges, and benefits; for when God makes over himself to them in covenant to be their God, he doth, as it were, deliver to them the keys of all his attributes for their benefit and security; and is as if he should say, my wisdom is yours, to contrive for your good; my power is yours, to protect your perfons; my mercy yours, to forgive your fins; my all-fufficiency yours, to supply your wants; all that I am, and all that I have, is for your benefit and comfort. These are the chambers provided for the faints lodgings, and into these they are invited to enter. Enter thou into thy chambers. By entering into them understand their actual faith exercised in acts of affiance and refignation to God in all their dangers. So Pfal. lvi. 3. At what time I am afraid (faith " David) I will trust in thee : " q. d. Lord, if a storm come I will make bold to shelter myself from it under thy wings by faith; look, as unbelief shuts the doors of all God's attributes and promises against us; so faith opens them all to the foul: and fo much of the privilege invited to, which is the second thing.

3. We have here a needful caution for the fecuring of this privilege to ourselves in evil times, Shut thy doors about thee. Or as the Syriac renders בערד behind or after thee, i. e. faith Calvin, Diligenter cavendum ne ulla rimula diaboli ad nos pateat. • Care must be taken that no passage be left open for the devil to creep in after us, and drive us out of our refuge; for so it falls out too often with God's people, when they are at rest in God's name or promises, Satan creeps in by unbelieving doubts and

puzzling objections, and beats them out of their refuge back again into trouble; it is therefore of great concernment, in fuch times especially, not to give place to the devil, as the phrafe is, Eph. iv. 17. but cleave to God by a refolved reliance.

4. Lastly, We are to note with what arguments or motives they are prest to betake themselves to this refuge. There are two found in the text, the one working upon their fear, the other upon their hope.

1. That which works upon their fear, is a fuppofition of a storm coming, the indignation of God will fall like a tempeft; this is supposed in the text, and plainly expressed in the words following, "For the Lord cometh out of his place to punish "the inhabitants of the earth," ver. 21.

2. The other is fitted to work upon their hope, though his indignation fall like a storm, yet it will not continue long; it shall be but for a moment, better days, and more comfortable dispensations, will follow. From all which the general observation is this,

Docr. That the attributes, promises, and providences of God, are the chambers of rest and fecurity, in which his people are to hide themselves, when they foresee the storms of his indignation coming upon the world.

"The name of the Lord (faith Solomon) is a strong tower; "the righteous run into it, and are safe," Prov. xviii. 10. And his attributes are his name, Exod. xxxiv. 5. For by them he is known, as a man is known by his name, and this his name is a strong tower for his people's security; now what is the use and end of a tower in a city, but to receive and secure the inhabitants when the out-works are beaten to the ground, the wall scaled, and the houses left defolate?

And as it is here resembled to a tower, so in Isa. xxxiii. 16. it is shadowed out unto us by a munition of rocks, " His place " of defence shall be a munition of rocks." How secure is that person that is invironed with rocks on every fide? Yea, you will say, but yet a rock is but a cold and barren refuge, tho other enemies cannot, yet hunger and thirst can invade and kill him there. No, in this rock is a storehouse of provision, as well as a magazine for defence; so it follows, "Bread shall be "given him, and his water shall be sure."

And sometimes it is resembled to us by the wings of a fowl,
spread with much tenderness over her young for their defence,
Pfal. Ivii. 1.
Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make

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my refuge, until these calamities be overpast." So Pfal. xvii. 8. "Keep me as the apple of thine eye, hide me under the tha

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"dow of thy wings." No part of the body hath more guards upon it, than the apple of the eye. God is as careful to preserve his people, as men are to preserve their eyes; and he that toucheth them toucheth the apple of his eye. But we need not go from one metaphor to another, to shew you where the faints refuge is in time of danger; you have a whole bundle of them lying together in that one fcripture, Pfal. xviii. 2. "The Lord " is my rock and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust, my buckler, and the horn of my falvation, and my high tower." Where you find all kinds of defence, whether natural or artificial, under a pleasant variety of apt metaphors, ascribed to God for the security of his people.

Now for the cafting of this great point into as easy and profitable a method as I can; I shall resolve this general truth into these following propositions, which are implied or expressed in the text and doctrine thence deduced; and the first is this;

Prop. 1. That there are times and feasons appointed by God for the pouring out of his indignation upon the world.

Prop. 2. That God's own people are concerned in, and ought to be affected with those judgments.

Prop. 3. That God hath a special and particular care of his people in the days of his indignation.

Prop. 4. That God usually premonishes the world, especially his own people, of his judgments before they befal them.

Prop. 5. That God's attributes, promises, and providences are prepared for the security of his people, in the greatest distresses that befal them in the world.

Prop. 6. That none but God's people are taken into those chambers of security, or can expect his special protection in evil

times.

And then I shall apply the whole in the proper ufes of it.

Demonstrating the first propofition, that there are times and feafons appointed by God for the pouring out of his indignation upon the world.

Sect.

1.

THIS is plainly implied in the text, that there are times of indignation appointed to befal the world; yea, and more than this; not only that such times shall come, but the duration and continuance is also under an appointment.

"Hide thyself for a little moment, until the indignation be " over-paft." The prophet tells us in Zeph. ii. 2. that these stormy times are under a decree, and that decree is there compared to a pregnant woman which is to go out her appointed months, and then to travail and bring forth: Even so it is in the judgments God brings upon the world. We see them not in the days of provocation, fed adhuc foetus in utero latet, but, all this while it is in the womb of the decree, and at the appointed season they shall become visible to the world. As there are in nature fair halcyon days, and cloudy, overcast, and stormy: So it is in providences, Eccl. vii. 14. "God hath fet the one

over-against the other." Yea, one is the occafion of the other; for look as the fun in a hot day exhales abundance of vapours from the earth and sea, these occasion showers, thunder, and tempefts, and those again clear the air, and dispose it to fair weather again. So it is here, prosperity is the occasion of abundance of fin, this brings on adversity from the justice of God to correct it; adversity being sanctified, humbles, reforms, and purges the people of God, and this again by mercy procures their profperity: So you find the account stated in Pfal. cvii. 17. "Fools because of their iniquities are afflicted, then they

cry to the Lord in their troubles, and he saveth them out of "their distresses."

And this appointment of times of distress is both profitable and necessary for the world, especially God's own people in it.

In general, hereby the being and righteousness of God is cleared and vindicated against the atheism and infidelity of the world, Pfal. ix. 16. "The Lord is known by the judgments "that he executeth." Impunity is the occasion of many atheistical thoughts in the world, Jer. xlviii. 11. "Moab hath been

at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and " hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remaineth in him, and "his scent is not changed." So Pfal. lv. 19. "Because they have

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no changes, therefore they fear not God." Kingdoms, families, and particular persons, like standing water and ponds, are apt to corrupt by long continued peace and prosperity; the Lord therefore fees it necessary to purge the world by his judgments; " When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the " world will learn righteousness." Those sermons that God preaches from heaven by the terrible voice of his judgments, startle and rouze the secure world, more than all the warnings and exhortations of his minifters could ever do. Thofe that VOL. IV.

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