The Divine Life, Treatise 3 · Part 3
AND yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.] Doct. When all forsake us, and leave us (as to them) alone, we are far from being simply alone; because God is with us.
He is not without company, that is with the King, though twenty others have turned him off. He is not without Light that hath the shining Sun, though all his Candles be put out. If God be our God, he is our All, and is enough for us: And if he be our All, we shall not much find the want of creatures while he is with us.
For 1. He is with us, who is Everywhere, and therefore is never from us; and knoweth all the waies and projects of our enemies; being with them in wrath, as he is with us in mercy.
2. He is with us who is Almighty, sufficient to preserve us, conquerable by none; and therefore while he is with us, we need not fear what man can do unto us: For they can do nothing but what he will: No danger, no sickness, no trouble or want can be so great as to make it any difficulty to God to deliver us when and how he please.
3. He is with us who is Infinitely wise, and therefore we need not fear the subtilty of enemies; nor shall any of his undertaken works for his Church or us miscarry for want of foresight, or through any oversight. We shall be preserved even from our own Folly, as well as from our Enemies subtilty: For it is not our own wisdome that our greatest concernments do principally rest upon, nor that our safety and peace are chiefly secured by; but it is the Wisdome of our great Preserver. He knoweth what to do with us, and what paths to lead us in, and what is best for us in all conditions. And he hath promised to Teach us, and will be our sure infallible Guide.
4. He is with us who is Infinitely Good, and therefore is only sit to be a continual delight and satisfaction to our souls: that hath nothing in him to disaffect us, or discourage us: whom we may love without fear of overloving; and need not set any bounds to our Love, the object of it being infinite.
5. He is with us, who is most nearly related to us, and most dearly loveth us; and therefore will never be wanting to us in any thing that is fit for us to have. This is he that is with us, when all have left us, and as to man we are alone; and therefore we may well say that we are not alone. Of this I shall say more anon in the application.
Quest. But how is he with us?
Answ. 1. He is with us not only in his Essential presence, as he is everywhere, but as by his Gracious Fatherly presence: We are in his Family, attending on him: even as the eye of a servant is to the hand of his Master: We are alwaies with him, and (as he phraseth it himself in the Parable Luke 15.) all that he hath in ours, that is, all that is fit to be communicated to us, and all the provisions of his bounty for his children. When we awake, we should be still with him: When we go abroad we should be alwaies as before him: Our life and works should be a Walking with God.
2. He is alwaies with us efficiently to do us Good; Though we have none else that careth for us, yet will he never cast us out of his care, but biddeth us cast our care on him, as promising that he will care for us. Though we have none else to provide for us, he is alwiaes with us, and our Father knoweth what we want, and will make the best provision for us, Mat. 6. 32, 33. Though we have none else to defend us against the power of our enemies, he is alwaies with us to be our sure defence: He is the Rock to which we fly, and upon which we are surely built. He gathereth us to himself as the Hen gathereth her Chickens under her wings, Mat. 23. 37. And sure while Love is thus protecting us, we may well say that the Father himself is with us. Though in all our wants we have no other to supply us, yet he is still with us to perform his promise, that no good thing shall be wanting to them that fear him. Though we may have none else to strengthen and help us, and support us in our weakness, yet he is alwaies with us, whose Grace is sufficient for us, to manifest his strength in weakness. Though we have no other to Teach us, and to resolve our doubts, yet he is with us that is our chiefest Master, and hath taken us to be his Disciples, and will be our Light and Guide, and will lead us into the Truth. Though we have none else to be our Comforters, in our agony, darkness or distress; but all forsake us, or are taken from us, and we are exposed as Hagar with Ishmael in a wilderness; yet still the Father of all consolations is with us; his Spirit who is the Comforter is in us: And he that so often speaketh the words of Comfort to us in his Gospel, and saith [Be of good chear; let not your hearts be troubled, neither be afraid, &c.] will speak them (in the season and measure which is fittest for them) unto our hearts. Though all friends turn enemies, and would destroy us, or turn false accusers, as Job's friends, in their ignorance or passion; though all of them should add affliction to our affliction, yet is our Redeemer and Justifier still with us, and will lay his restraining hand upon our enemies, and say to their proudest fury [Hitherto and no further shalt thou go] He is angry with Job's accusing friends, notwithstanding their friendship and good meaning, and though they seemed to plead for God and Godliness against Job's sin: And who shall be against us while God is for us? or who shall condemn us when it is he that justifieth us? Though we be put to say as David, Psal. 142 4. [I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me; refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul:] Yet we may say with him, vers. 5. & 3. [I cryed unto thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the Land of the Living: Bring my soul out of prison that I may praise thy Name: The righteous shall compass me about: for thou shalt d…al bountifully with me: 2, 3 I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble: When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path: in the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.] Thus [God is our refuye and strength; a very present help in trouble.] Psal. 46. 1. Therefore should we not fear though the earth were removed, and though the mountains were carried into the midst of the Sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, &c. vers. 2, 3. Though as David saith, Psal. 41. 5, 6, 7. [Mine enemies speak evil of me: when shall he dye, and his name perish? And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to it self; when he goeth abroad he telleth it: All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt: An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him; and now that he lyeth, he shall rise up no more: Yea my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, that did eat of my bread, hath lift up his heel against me—] Yet we may add as he, v. 12. [And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.] Though (as Psal. 35. 7, &c. Without cause they have hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul: 11. And false witnesses did rise up, they laid to my charge things that I knew not; they rewarded me evil for good: 15, 16. In my adversity they rojoyced, and gathered themselves together; the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not; they did tear and ceased not; with hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon me with their teeth: 20. For they speak not peace, but they devise deceitful matters against them that are quiet in the Land.] Yet vers. 9. [My soul shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoyce in his salvation: 10. All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like unto thee, who deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, yea the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him.] Though friends be far off, the Lord is nigh to them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit: Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.] Psal. 34 18, 19. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants; and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.] v. 22. Therefore [I will be glad and rejoyce in his Mercy, for he hath considered my trouble, and hath known (and owned) my soul in adversity: and hath not shut me in the hand of the enemy—When my life was spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength failed because of mine iniquity, and my bones were consumed; I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance; they that did see me without fled from me: I was forgotten, and as a dead man out of mind: I was like a brokrn vessel: I heard the slander of many: fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life: But I trusted in thee O Lord: I said, Thou art my God: my times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me: Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: Save me for thy mercies sake.—O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues, Psal. 31.] Thus God is with us when men are far from us, or against us: His people finde by happy experience that they are not alone. Because he is nigh them, evil shall not come nigh them, unless as it worketh for their good. He is their hiding place to preserve them from trouble: the great water-floods shall not come nigh them: he will compass them about with songs of deliverance.] Psal. 32. 6, 7.
3. And as God is with us thus Relatively and Efficiently, so also Objectively for our holy converse. Whereever our friends are, God is still at …and to be the most profitable, honourable and delightful Object of our thoughts. There is enough in him to take up all the faculties of my soul. He that is but in a well furnished Library may find great and excellent employment for his thoughts many years together: And so may he that liveth in the open world, and hath all the visible works of God to meditate upon: But all this were nothing if God were not the sense of Books and Creatures, and the matter of all these noble studies: He that is alone, and hath only God himself to study, hath the matter and sense of all the Books and Creatures in the world, to employ his thoughts upon. He never need to want matter for his meditation, that hath God to meditate on. He need not want matter of discourse (whether mental or vocal) that hath God to talk of, though he have not the name of any other friend to mention. All our Affections may have in him the highest and most pleasant work. The soul of man cannot have a more sweet and excellent work than to Love him: He wanteth neither work nor pleasure, that in his solitude is taken up in the believing contemplations of Eternal Love, and of all his blessed Attributes and works. O then what happy and delightful converse may a Believer have with God alone! He is alwaies present, and alwaies at leisure to be spoken with; and alwaies willing of our access and audience: He hath no interest cross to our felicity, which should move him to reject us (as worldly great ones often have) He never misunderstandeth us, nor chargeth that upon us which we were never guilty of: If we converse with men, their mistakes, and interests, and passions, and insufficiencies, do make the trouble so great, and the benefit so small, that many have become thereby aweary of the world, or o… humane society, and have spent the rest of their daies alone in desert places. Indeed so much of God as appears in men, so much is their converse excellent and delightful: and theirs is the best that have most of God: But there is so much of vanity, and self, and flesh, and sin in the most or all of us, as very much darkneth our Light, and dampeth the pleasure, and blasteth the fruit of our societies and converse. O how oft have I been solaced in God, when I found nothing but deceit and darkness in the world! How oft hath he comforted me, when it was past the power of man! How oft hath he relieved and delivered me, when all the help of man was vain! It hath been my Stay and Rest, to look to him, when the creature hath been a broken staff, and deceitful friends have been but as a broken tooth, or a foot that is out of joynt (as Solomon speaketh of confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble, Prov. 25. 29.) Verily as the world were but an horrid dungeon without the Sun, so it were a howling wilderness, a place of no considerable employment or delight, were it not that in it we may live to God and do him service, and sometime be refreshed with the light of his countenance, and the communications of his Love. But of this more anon.