strength, when it is made perfect in our weakness. There are communications of joy; hence, "I will go to the altar of God, says David, to God my exceeding joy;" my superlative and top joy. He comes also by manifestations; he manifests his everlasting love, saying, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee." Thus he is said to manifest himself to his people, as he does not manifest himself to the world, John xiv. 22, 23. he manifests the secret of his covenant, Psalm xxv. 14.-He comes likewise by his operations, and the vital influences of his grace, setting the graces of his Spirit aloft: he gives the former and the latter rain. Perhaps after the soul has been long without these influences, then he pours water on the thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; then the operation is powerful, subduing sin, weakening corruption, healing diseases; then comes sweet intercourse and familiarity between him and them; mutual embracements, mutual love, mutual care and concern.

Remark 5." That there are different degrees of his "comings and approaches to his people." He sometimes comes and shews himself through the lattice; and sometimes is said to walk with them in the galleries: sometimes he makes them ride in state, as it were, and in his chariot, paved with love: sometimes they are represented as sitting at one table, like husband and wife: how are they feasted there, when the King sits at his table? O wonder, that we who fed upon the devil's husks, should be invited by the King of glory, to sit down at the table with him! Yea, it may be spoke with astonishment, that the fellowship he allows, is such, as that they are said to bed as well as board with him; "Behold, our bed, which is king Solomon's! also, our bed is green:" representing, the greatest communion with God in Christ, by similes drawn from the mar riage-supper, and the marriage-bed; but it is strawed with the green flowers of holiness, which forbids vain and vile thoughts. His coming to allow the highest degree of fellowship, brings in the highest strains of holiness, as well as comfort.

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Remark 6. That the Lord, in his comings, exer"cises sovereignty in many respects." Sovereignty with respect to the persons; some being admitted to the inner court, while others are but in the outer court all their days, Sovereignty is exercised with respect unto the frequency of his comings; to some he comes and visits them once a day, or once a month they will get a discovery of him, or a meeting with him; others may, for many years, go mourning without the Sun, so as it may be twenty years betwixt the sweet Bethel and the Peniel visit: some may go from year to year, and from communion to communion; yet, like Absalom never see the King's face. He exercises sovereignty with respect to the time and season of his coming; his first sweet visit he makes, is in the day of espousals; this is the day wherein the man is changed, and brought from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, from sin to holiness, from hell to heaven, and to the contrary of what he was. When he retires inward, and looks to the hell of lusts he was troubled with, he finds them disappearing for a time at least, lying, as it were, expiring, during the sweet impressions of the Lord's presence, the new nature, the joy and peace in believing: but afterward, through the remains of corruptions, beginning to work and war against him, he needs the Lord's coming again and again with new succour and relief; and the Lord exercises a sovereignty in the season of his new visit. I shall mention some of the special times and seasons. We cannot limit the holy One of Israel; but there are these following times, wherein he is pleased to come in a sweet and satisfying way to his people.

(1.) After the saddest and darkest night, as it was with Job, after he was made to cry, "O that I knew where I might find him!" And after all the thick and black clouds he was under, what a blessed visit got he? And what a glorious discovery, that made him say, "I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye hath seen thee; wherefore I loath and abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes?" Yea, sometimes the Lord comes in a sweet manner, when

they are at the point of giving over, and ready to despair, and to think he will be favourable no more, then he comes skipping on the mountains; "When I said, My foot slippeth, thy mercy held me up." See Psalm xxxi. 22. "I said in my haste, I am cut off from thine eye; nevertheless, thou heardst the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee." He may come when their strength is gone, Deut. xxxii. 36.

(2.) He comes when the springs of sublunary enjoyments are qute dried up, and they see nothing but emptiness and vanity of vanities written upon them; then he may bow the heavens and come down. Thus, when Elijah was obliged to retire to the wilderness, and hide himself from Jezebel, God visited him there, and provided him with meat and drink, in the strength whereof he travelled forward.

(3.) He comes, sometimes remarkably, when they are, or before they be engaged in great duty or danger, that they may be in the better case to perform duty, and bear up under danger. Joshua was to lead forth the armies of Israel, against the armies of Canaan. God comes to him, and says, "Fear not, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Thus before Paul was exposed to his shipwreck, Christ came and comforted him by his angel; "Fear not, Paul, for thou must be brought before Cæsar; and lo, I have given thee all these that sail with thee."

(4.) Sometimes he comes very sweetly, when they are, or have been exposed to suffering for his sake: when the fury of devils and the wrath of men have been let loose, then the Lord hath been pleased to make good that promise, Isa. xliii. 2." When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee," &c. This was accomplished literally in the three children, cast into the fiery furnace; because they would not worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden image, then they had the sweet presence of Christ himself. This care the Lord many times takes of his children, when men cast their names into the black furnace of reproach and calumny; because they will not bow to the idol of their usurped

authority, or arbitrary dictates and dogmatisms, instead of the institutions of Christ: this care he expresseth, by granting his spiritual presence in that case; " If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory, and of God, resteth on you,” 1 Peter iv. 14.

(5.) He cometh sometimes when they are attending upon him in solemn ordinances; there they use to hear the voice of their Beloved, in the preaching of the word, and especially in commemorating his death in this sacrament we have in view; he hath made himself known in the breaking of bread; some have got so much of his presence there sometimes, as to be content to be carried in a death-chariot to the communion-table above. But then, to add no more on this head,

(6.) He comes sometimes to his people at death; when expiring breath is sitting upon their lips, he hath bowed his heaven, and stood by comforting them; though herein also he exerciseth sovereignty, hiding himself from some of his dear saints, at their last moments, yet sometimes he makes them sing sweetly of his presence, in the midst of the dark trance between time and eternity, saying with David, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet will I fear no evil, for thou art with me," Psal. xxiii. 4. And when a believer finds him thus coming, well may he say, "O death! where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" 1 Cor. xv. 55. But I proceed,

II. To the second head of the method, viz. To speak of some of these mountains and hills over which he comes: and here the text gives occasion to observe, 1. The nature and kind of these mountains in general, that stand up and intervene betwixt Christ and us. 2. The multitude of them, they are mountains and hills, in the plural number. 3. The qualities of them, both mountains and hills. 4. The impassability of them as insuperable by us, and such as could be overleaped by none but himself, our Beloved, who is like a roe, or a young hart, leaping and skipping upon them.

1st, As to the nature and kind of these mountains in

general, they may be all reduced to one kind, and that is, they are mountains of distance and separation betwixt God and us: and they are therefore all called "The mountains of Bether," in the last verse of this chapter. Now, the mountain of distance is manifold, in respect of the various tops, and heads, and risings of the vast mount of distance between God and us, both natural and moral. O how great is the distance betwixt God and the creature; betwixt him who is infinite, and us who are finite nothings! O what a distance is there betwixt his high and lofty habitation, and the dust of which we are, and in which we crawl! What a distance does sin and guilt make, betwixt a holy just God, and us sinful wretches! What a distance on account of our unworthiness, that we should be tak en notice of by him; for, what are we that the blessed and self-sufficient God should look after us! What a distance, on account of justice requiring satisfaction, which we cannot give, nor ever shall be able to do! What a distance between God and our nature, in which the satisfaction is to be made, if ever the distance be made up! Such is the distance betwixt God and us as dust, and vile dust; as creatures, and sinful creatures: may it not be a wonder of wonders, if ever there shall be a meeting betwixt God and dust, betwixt a holy God and sinful creatures, betwixt a just God and guilty creatures! When the mountain of sin, and of a broken law, the mountain of the law-curse, the mountain of incensed justice, and divine wrath, are standing in the way, who can come and overleap these mountains? "Who is sufficient for these things?--The voice of our Beloved? Behold, he cometh!" And, in his condescension, is said to " Bow the heavens and come down," Psalm xviii. 9. he is said to "Rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains may flow down at his presence," Isa. Ixiv. 1. He overleaps the mountain of sin and guilt, by becoming sin for us, and paying our debt, and undergoing the punishment that was due to us. He overleaped the mountain of a broken covenant, by coming to fulfil all righteousness in our room: the mountain of incensed justice, by comBb

VOL. IX.