Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

its design through it.

Its motions are

irresistible and uncontroulable.

"It per

It is true

All its products and issues are exceeding beneficial to the saints. formeth all things for them." we often prejudge its works, and unjustly censure its designs; and under many of our straits and troubles, we say, "All these things are against us; but Providence neither does nor can do any thing that is really against the true interest and good of the saints; for what are the works of Providence, but the execution of God's decree, and the fulfilling of his word? And there can be no more in Providence than there is in them, Now there is nothing but good to the saints in God's purposes and promises; and therefore whatever Providence does in their concerns, it must be, as the text speaks, the performance of all things for them.

And if so, how cheering, supporting, and encouraging, must the consideration of these things be, in a day of distress and trouble! With what life and hope will it inspire our hearts and prayers, when great pressures lie upon us!

[ocr errors]

Doctrine. The amount of all

you have

in this doctrinal conclusion that it is the

duty of the saints, especially in times of straits, to reflect upon the performances of Providence for them in all the states and through all the stages of their lives.

The church, in every work of mercy, -owns the hand of God; "Lord thou hast wrought all our works in, or for, us," Isa. xxvi. 12. And it has been the pious and constant practice of the saints in all generations, to preserve the memory of the more remarkable providences that have befallen them in their times as a precious treasure. "If thou be a Christian indeed," says Baxter," I know thou hast, if not in thy book, yet certainly in thy heart, a great many precious favors upon record. The very remembrance and rehearsal of them is sweet. How much more sweet was the 'actual enjoyment!" Thus Moses, by divine direction, wrote a memorial of the victory obtained over Amalek, as the fruit and return of prayer, and built there an altar with this inscription, " JEHOVAHNISSI, The Lord my banner," Exod. xvii. 14,15. For this end you find psalms indited to bring to remembrance, Psal. lxx. the title; parents giving suitable names to

their children, that every time they looked upon them, they might refresh the memory of God's mercies, 1. Sam. i. 20; the very places where eminent providences have appeared, new named, with no other design than to perpetuate the memorial of those sweet providences which so refreshed them there; hence Bethel took its name, Gen. xxviii. 19, and that well of water where Hagar was seasonably refreshed by the angel in her distress. Yea, the saints have given, and God has assumed to himself, new titles on this very account. Abraham's JEHOVAH-JIREH, and Gideon's JEHOVAH-SHALOM were ascribed to him for this reason. And sometimes you find the Lord styles himself, "The God that brought Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees;" then "The Lord God that brought them out of Egypt;" then "The Lord that gathered them out of the north country;" still reminding them of the gracious providences which in all those places he had wrought for them.

Now there is a two-fold reflection on the providential works of God. One is entire and full, in the whole complex and perfect frame thereof. This blessed sight

is reserved for the perfect state. It is in that mount of God, where we shall see both the wilderness and Canaan, the glorious kingdom into which we are come, and the way through which we were led to it. There the saints shall have a ravishing view of that beautiful frame; and every part shall be distinctly discerned, as it had its particular use, and as it was connected with the other parts, and how effectually and orderly they all wrought to bring about that blessed design of their salvation, according to the promise in Rom. viii. 28, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God;" for it is certain, that no ship at sea keeps more exactly by the compass which directs its course, than Providence does by that promise.

The other view of Providence is partial and imperfect in the way to glory, where we only view it in its single acts, or, at most, in some of its more observable actions.

Betwixt these two there is the same difference as betwixt the sight of the disjointed wheels and scattered pins of a watch, and the sight of the whole united

in one frame, and working in one orderly motion; or betwixt an ignorant spectator's viewing some remarkable vessel or joint of a dissected body, and the accurate anatomist's discerning the course of all the veins and arteries of the frame, as he follows the several branches of them through the whole, and plainly sees the proper places, figure, and use of each, with their mutual respect to one another.

O how ravishing and delightful a sight will that be, to behold, at one view, the whole design of Providence, and the proper place and use of every single act, which we could not understand in this world! All the dark, intricate, puzzling providences, at which we are now sometimes so stumbled and sometimes amazed, which we can reconcile neither with the promise nor with each other, nay, which we so unjustly censure and bitterly bewail as if they had fallen out quite cross to our happiness, we shall then see to be unto us, as the difficult passage through the wilderness was unto Israel, CC the right way to a city of habitation.”

And though our present view of Providence is so short and imperfect, in com

« VorigeDoorgaan »