15. The Comfort in God being our God

The Comfort in God being our God

We see here it is brought as a ground of comfort, and so indeed it is. And we may observe from hence, that now by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God is not only become a Father to us, but a God. This is a ground of many comforts. ’Go, tell my disciples,’ now I am risen again; and therefore justice is satisfied; and now they may have lively hope of a better condition hereafter. For God is my God, that hath raised me up, and who will raise up mine too. So that now we are copartners with Christ, sharers with him in the fatherhood of God, and God is God in common with Christ and us. This may well be brought as a ground of comfort. If there were any comfort in the world of sweeter efficacy than this, our Saviour would have sent it to his disciples. Comfort being his main office and his main end, he would have the best comfort after his best resurrection. And he picks this from amongst them all, ’Go, tell them, I go to my Father, and their Father; to my God, and their God.’ And therefore it is a pregnant comfort; and indeed no heart can conceive the comfort of it, that we have interest together with Christ in God, and with the Fatherhood of God. And both these the Scripture joineth together: 2Co 2:6, ’I will be your Father, and your God.’ To unfold the comforts more, God is said to be our God in covenant in Christ. He is the God of Christ, and therefore of us, because he hath made himself over to us. A thing is said to be another man’s when the title is passed to another man. Now, God hath as it were passed over himself to his believing children and members of Christ. He hath made over himself to them to be their God; as he was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, so he is of every good, believing Christian to the end of the world. God maketh himself over to be theirs; and, as the Scriptures’ style is, he is their portion and their inheritance; a blessed portion, a blessed inheritance, more to us than if all the world were ours, than if heaven were ours, than if ten thousand worlds were ours, for he is our God that can create millions of worlds more than this if it were needful. Habet omnia, qui habet habentem omnia: he hath all things that hath him in covenant that hath all things. And therefore when the Scripture saith, ’I go to their God,’ it implieth, I go to him that is all in all to them, that is larger than their hearts can be; for what heart can conceive the fulness of the comforts arising from hence, ’that God is our God’? Many know they need comfort of such a transcendent nature. The heart of man is so distrustful, so faithless, and the conscience is such a clamorous thing, and therefore he cannot think this is too much. I beseech you, therefore, do not lose the comfort of it, that in Christ God is our God; though we can say of nothing else, it is ours. Perhaps we cannot say, great houses are ours, or friends are ours, or inheritances ours. That is no matter. We can say, that is ours which is infinitely more than that. We can say, God is ours in Christ. Nay, being exhorted to say by the Spirit of faith, that God is ours in Christ, all things in the world are ours. As you have it in that place of Scripture, ’All things are yours.’ Why? ’Because you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ ’Whether things present, or things to come, Paul, Apollos, Cephas, life, death, all is yours; you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s;’ that is, all things must by a command from God conspire to make us happy: affliction, or Satan, or death, or trouble of conscience, or desertion, or everything to help us to heaven. The curse is taken away, and there is a blessing hid in everything that befalleth a Christian, to bring him to heaven. Therefore it is a comfort of infinite extent. All is yours, because God is yours.

You shall see the extent of the comforts further by retail, as it were. If God be ours, then all is ours too. What be they? The Scripture telleth you, and I should spend too much time in unfolding of them.

1. If God be ours, his wisdom must needs be ours, to find out ways to do us good; for his infinite wisdom hath found out a way in Christ, by satisfaction of his justice, to bring us to heaven. He can make us go beyond all the policy of our neighbours, for his wisdom is ours.

2. If we [are] in danger, his power is ours, to bring us out.

3. If we have sinned, his mercy is ours, to forgive us. He himself being ours, his mercy must needs be ours. The whole being ours, it followeth out of the strength of reason that the parts also must be ours.

4. In any want, his all-sufficiency is ours, to supply it or to turn it to good, and make it up in a better kind.

5. In a word, God being ours, whatsoever is in God, whatsoever God can do, whatsoever he hath, is ours, because himself is ours. And therefore, I beseech you, make this use of it, to get into Christ by faith; to be one with Christ, that so God may be our God: Get faith above all graces, the grace of union and the grace of communion; that being one with Christ, we are one with him. God being ours, all is ours; yea, the worst thing in the world is ours.

If God be not ours, it is no matter what else is ours. Alas! all things must be taken from us, we know not how soon, and we taken from all things else. What if we had a kingdom, as Saul had, if we be forsaken of God as he was? What if we had paradise? If we offend God, we shall be cast out. What if we had the dignity to be apostles? If with Judas we have not God, what will all come to? What if a man enjoy all the world? If out of Christ, it would yield him no comfort! As the emperor said, I have gone through all varieties of condition, et nihil mihi profuit, but it hath done me no good.* If we had all, what is it but ’vanity of vanities’? and not only so, but ’vexation’? Ecc 1:2; Ecc 2:17. Now, when we have God to be our God, he is able to fill the soul. He is larger than the soul, and he is able to quiet the soul; he is the rest of the soul, the soul is quiet; in him is the centre, as the place of quiet. If God be ours, then the soul resteth in it; for God filleth the soul, and quiets the soul, and hath always fresh comforts for the soul, infinite still to all eternity. There is nothing in the world but we do as it were deflorare, take away the flower of it by use, and it becometh stale. Though a man continue many thousand years in the world, yet he will be weary of all things in the world, because there is no freshness in them. It is finite, and the soul is larger than the comforts of the world. But in God is a spring of fresh comforts to everlasting. Consider the things that enable him to be our God, to fill the soul, and to be larger than the soul; to quiet and calm the soul in all the troubles of it; and then to have fresh springs of comforts. What a comfort is this, to have God for their God!

Let it therefore raise up our souls to labour after God, and never rest till we have some interest in this great portion, of God to be our God. When we can by faith go out of ourselves to Christ, and lay a right and just claim to God to be our God, this is a comfort which reacheth from everlasting to everlasting. It giveth us forgiveness of sins when we had lost ourselves; because we are in Christ, he hath forgiven us. In all extremities and troubles, when no creature can comfort us, it is his glory to shew himself a God. It reacheth to the resurrection of the body. God is Abraham’s, and Isaac’s, and Jacob’s God when dead, because he was the God of whole Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and therefore of soul and body. And it reacheth from all favours of this world, so far as is for our good, to all eternity. Being our God, he will protect us from all extremities in this world; he will speak comfort to our souls, which nothing can do but God. When we be dead he will raise up our dust, because he is our whole God, the God of our souls and bodies, and we shall be for ever with the Lord. It is a comfort of wonderful extent.

Use. 1. Let us therefore make this use of it. Labour to make him so to us; for as he is to us, so God by his Spirit is our comforter, who being satisfied, giveth us his Spirit. We must make God our God, and then he will be a God to us. These be mutual wheresoever they be; wheresoever God is God to any, they by the Spirit obtained by Christ have grace to make him so to themselves. What is it for us to make God a God to us? It is this: to set up God a throne in our hearts; to give him a sovereignty over all things in the world, that we may say in truth of heart, God is our joy, God is our comfort, God is our rock, God is all in all to us. When we give him supremacy of affection above all the world, we esteem nothing above him; we value him above all esteem; his loving-kindness is better than life itself; for else we do not make him a God to us, and then it is no comfort to hear all the comforts spoken of before. For all to whom he is a God in the covenant of grace, and have hearts to make him so, the Spirit raiseth up their affections to make him a God to themselves. Amor tuus, deus tuus, as it is said of old, what we love most is our god. What we joy most in is our god, what we rely and trust in most is our god, as it was said of the ’wedge of gold,’ Job 31:24. And therefore if anything hath our affections more than God, or equal with God, that we make our god. It is a quære of the greatest concernment in the world to put to our hearts. What do I make my god? as David putteth the quære to himself: ’Now, Lord, what is my hope? is it not in thee?’ And so put this quære to ourselves: Lord, what is my joy, what is my hope, what is my trust, what is my comfort? is it not in thee? If our hearts cannot make an answer to this in some sincerity, surely as yet we have not made God our God. Time may be that he may be so; but till by the Spirit of God we be brought to see an emptiness and vanity in the creature, and nothingness in all in comparison of God, that we can say, ’Whom have I in heaven but thee?’ we have not comfort, because we do not make him ours by a spirit of mutuality. Where there is a covenant of grace there must be a mutual making of God our God, as he maketh himself to us.

Alas! we may be ashamed of it; the best do often forget themselves. Oh how do men value the favours of a man, and the promises of a man; the seal of a man for such and such a benefice; and how doth it grieve them to have the frowns of flesh and blood, the frowns of greatness! But when their consciences tell them they are under guilt of many sins, and God is not in good terms with them, how doth this affect them? And when their consciences cannot say they have promises sealed in Christ of the favours and mercies of God here and hereafter, alas! it is dead comfort: Ἐμοὶ τὸ παρὸν, Give me that which is present, and take you that which is to come, is the language of both. How few can say from sincerity of heart that they make good* to be their God? And therefore it is of greater concernment than we take it.

Use 2. As it is a ground and foundation of comfort, so of all obedience to God, as it is prefixed before the commandments, ’I am the Lord your God,’ Exo 20:2, ’you shall have no other gods but me,’ and do all in obedience to me from this ground. But much more now. Then he was the Lord God that brought them out of Egypt; but now God may prefix, ’I am your Lord God in Christ,’ that have brought you from hell and damnation, that intend you heaven and happiness, and therefore do so and so. Since this is the spring of all obedience, we ought to labour to make it good, and often to examine ourselves, as before, what we make our god, and what we pitch our affections on. Alas! is our soul for anything but God? Hath not God made us for himself? and will our hearts rest in anything but God? Why then should we love vanity, and besot ourselves? When death comes, they may say, as Saul said, ’The Philistines are upon me, and God hath forsaken me,’ 1Sa 13:12. Death is on me, trouble, sickness, vexation of conscience is on me, and God hath forsaken me; I have no God to go to. What a miserable estate is this! And therefore, I beseech you, let us labour to have interest in the covenant of grace, to make it good that God is our God in Jesus Christ. Who giveth us a being to be Christians, to have a new nature, to have a good being, but God? Who maintaineth and preserveth that being but God? And who keepeth and preserveth us till we get into a glorious being in heaven but God, who is all-sufficient, self-sufficient, sole-sufficient, only sufficient? This God is our God now in Christ.

God is to us in a more special singular manner than to other creatures, because he hath raised us to be a more excellent being, not only as men, we being in the highest rank of creatures next the angels; and so he is a God to us more than to inferior creatures that have a more circumscribed and narrow being. Man hath a large being, a reasonable soul, and is fitted by nature to have communion with God, who is wisdom itself, and with angels; but all this were little comfort unless we had higher degrees of being than this. If God be our God in Christ, we have a spiritual being, which is as much above the dignity and prerogative of our ordinary being as our being by nature is above the basest creature in the world. And so God setteth a style upon us suitable to the excellency of our spiritual being. There is nothing excellent in the world but we are termed by it now, to set out the advancement and excellency of the dignity we have from God in a special manner; to be ’sons,’ ’jewels,’ his ’portion,’ his ’diadem,’ to be whatsoever you can imagine that is glorious and excellent: an excellent condition, though spiritual and concealed from the world. God’s children are concealed men, as you shall see afterward. They be hidden men. The world taketh no notice of them, because their excellency is seen with another eye than the world hath. ’The God of the world blindeth the eyes of worldlings,’ 2Co 4:4. They cannot see into the excellency of God’s children, no more than they know God himself and Christ himself. So you see what it is to be a God in nature and in grace; to be all in all unto us; to have our whole substance and dependence in him. ’In him we live, move, and have our being,’ and well-being. In this our excellency consisteth, that God is our God in Christ, who was God; and that he might bring God and us to good terms together; that he might make God our God. He was Immanuel, God with us, to make God with us in favour and love. The Godhead is nearest the human nature of Christ of any creature. It is nearer to Christ than to the angels; for God hath not taken the angels into hypostatical union, to be in the same person; but God in Christ is so near our nature, that there is an hypostatical union. They make one person, our nature being taken into the second person. By reason of this near union of the Godhead to our nature cometh that comfort and near union between God and our nature, whereby God hath sweet communion with us in Christ. God by his Spirit, though not hypostatically, yet graciously, is one with us, and hath communion with us now as his children. So that sweet intercourse between God and us now, is founded upon the nearness of the Godhead to our nature in Christ, in whom it is nearest of all, in whom it is advanced above the angelical nature. And therefore our blessed Saviour might well say, ’I go to my God, and your God;’ to his God first, and then to our God.

Now we may say, God is our God; and upon good grounds, because God is Christ’s God, and in him our God, which is a point of singular comfort; and therefore I will enlarge myself further in it.

Doct. For God to be our God, especially in having that in our hearts unfolded, in regard of our spirits and best being, is the most fundamental comfort that we have. For from this, that God is our God, cometh all that we have that is good in nature and grace. Whatsoever is comfortable cometh from this spring, that God in Christ is our God, our reconciled God; that God’s nature and ours now are in good terms.

Beloved, what cannot we expect from God, that is now become our God! What he is, what he is able to do, what he hath, all is ours, considering himself is ours. If we have the field, we have the pearl in the field. And therefore the wise merchant in the gospel sold all for the field wherein the treasure was, Mat 13:44. We have the field itself in having God, and we have all that God is or can do for us for our good, even as we have Christ, and all that Christ is, or hath done, and suffered, and enjoyeth; ’all is ours, because we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,’ as the apostle saith. So that having God we have all, because we have him that possesseth all, the creator of all, and preserver of all, and disposer of all. But to clear the objection a little: if God be ours, and all things else, how comes it that we want so many things?

Ans. I answer, It is our own fault for the most part. We want faith to make use of and improve this comfort. And then again, we want nothing that is for our good; want itself is for our good. And observe this, our God is so powerful a God, that he maketh the worst things we suffer a means to convey the greatest good oftentimes to us. If God be our God and Father in Christ, why have we sins? Why vexed with the devil? Why persecuted with men? Why frightened thus, and thus, and thus? All this is for our good. God is our God by these, and in the midst of these; and is never more our God than in the greatest extremity of all, for then we come nearest the fountain. There is a near and sweet communion between this God and us, when we take of the fountain. When the means are drawn away, the conduits of conveyance, and we have nothing to go to but God immediately, there is sweet communion and sweetest comfort in heaven; we shall have God in Christ, who will be all in all unto us. We shall need no magistracy, ministry, food, raiment, or defence against cold or injury; we shall be out of the reach of Satan and all enemies; God will be all in all immediately. The same God is all in all to us, either by means or immediately. When means fail, he conveyeth his sweetness and his power immediately, but ordinarily by means. And what sight doth in heaven, faith doth now in some proportion; for as sight in heaven seeth God in Christ all in all, and enjoyeth that happy vision, so faith seeth God to be all in all, and Christ to be all in all. Though in an inferior degree to sight and clearness of vision, yet for the capacity of this life we enjoy God now as they do in heaven. We have inward comforts when most deserted. God was never more near our blessed Saviour than on the cross, when he cried, ’My God, my God,’ &c., for then he found invincible strength supporting him in the great undertaking under the wrath of his Father. And so God is never nearer than in extremity; in strength, though not in sense and feeling; and oftentimes in feeling itself. We never have sweeter comforts than in the want of all outward comforts whatsoever, when nothing else can comfort us but the presence of God. And we must know besides, that the state of a Christian in this world is an hidden condition; for it is to the eye of faith, not of sense; and therefore God is a God to his, though the world see it not. There is a secret, hidden influence, a secret passage between heaven and earth, that none seeth. Who observeth the influence of the sun, or the sweet influence of the stars upon the earth? Light we see, but there is a secret influence pierceth deeper than the light, to the very bowels of the earth, whence metals come. Where no light comes, there is an influence, though not discerned; and much more can there be influence of strength and power and hidden comfort, though there be no sight. Cannot God be our God in regard of strength, supporting and supplying, though there be no visible and sensible comfort, though we see it not ourselves? Certainly the soul is upheld by an invincible strength in the worst condition that can be. Therefore this is true, that God is our God in all conditions.

Use. Let us make use of this. To what use is riches and friends, if we do not use them? To what use is God and Christ, if we use them not? Nostrorum* est, utamur nostro bono. He is ours, let us use him for our special good on all occasions. Oh that we had faith answerable to our prerogative. It is a prerogative more than heaven and earth, that God is ours; and had we faith suitable, what kind of persons should we be in grace and comfort, and whatsoever is good? Therefore labour to make use of it. But more of this after we have spoken of some rules of trial, because whatsoever I may say this way may be misapplied. They be excellent comforts. But perhaps, saith the distressed soul, they belong not to me, to whom it doth belong. Perhaps it belongeth to me, saith another that is a stranger and a carnal man, to whom it doth not belong. Therefore our Saviour giveth some notes of distinctions, to know whether God be our God or no. Not to be much in the argument, yet to be plain in it.

(1.) God is their God in this peculiar manner I speak; that is, in the covevant of grace, not otherwise; and I speak not what God is by creation of man, for so the devil is God’s, and every creature. But the question is, Whom God is a God to in the nearest bond of the covenant of grace? That is the only comfortable relation that can be; for if God be not our God in that, all other comforts will be nothing. It is better we be no creatures at all, than not creatures in the covenant of grace. It is therefore worthy the commending to you, especially considering our naughty hearts are prone to deceive us. Satan, and melancholy, and temptations do make some refuse the comfort, and some presumptuous persons to snatch at it when it doth not belong to them. Those to whom God is a God indeed, in a sweet relation of the covenant of grace to be their God, as to the patriarchs, prophets, and Christ and the apostles, he giveth his Holy Spirit to witness so much to them. Though the voice of the Spirit is not always heard in the best children of God, yet he giveth them the Holy Spirit, that though it doth not always witness, yet it always works something in them which may be an evidence that they are God’s.

(2.) Now the spirit of adoption and sonship is known by a spirit of supplication especially. Whom God is a God to, he vouchsafeth a spirit of prayer, to go to him in all their necessities, which is an issue or branch of their faith. He giveth them faith to believe it, and prayer to make use of it; for God will not give this great privilege without hearts to make use of it, which is done by faith and prayer; and prayer is nothing but the frame of faith, Acts 9:11. As soon as Paul was a good man, presently after his conversion, ’behold he prayeth.’ The child crieth as soon as born, and the child of God is known by his praying; as soon as he is converted, an intercourse is opened between God and the soul, which a Christian soul will never neglect. If they are placed in the worst condition, they will pray to God, or at least sigh and groan, which is a prayer that God can make sense of.

Those that have any strong places of defence, in trouble they will be sure to fly to that; in times of war they will betake them to their castle and place of munition. And so they that be God’s, in time of danger run presently to God; he is their rock, their refuge, and place of defence. [They] repair to him by faith and prayer. ’The name of the Lord is a tower of defence: the righteous in trouble fly thither, and they are safe,’ Pro 18:10. A man may know what his god is by his retiring in times of extremity. Your carnal man, if he hath any place to retire to, it is to his friends, to his purse, to bring him out. He will go to that which his instinct will specially lead him to in times of trouble. As every creature, together with the nature of it, hath received an instinct from God to go to the place of refuge wherein it is safe—as the weakest creature hath strongest refuge—the conies, a poor weak creature, hide themselves most strongly, out of instinct they have of their own weakness—so God’s child, being privy of his weakness, and need of support and strength, hath the strongest support that may be, and runneth to his God. Worldly men have many shifts, as the wily fox hath; but a Christian hath but one, but that is a great one: he goeth to his God in time of need. And therefore you may know who is in covenant with God in times of extremity, especially by a spirit of faith, a spirit of prayer. In times of extremity, no man but a Christian can pray with any comfort, with any sweet familiarity, ’Abba, Father;’ but they be like Pharaoh, ’Go, Moses, pray to your God,’ Exo 9:28. He hath no such familiarity with God as to pray for himself. And so carnal men will say, ’Pray to your God.’ And many, like devils, will have no communion with God in their prosperity, but their whole life is a provoking of God to enmity, by swearing, loose, debauched, irregular carriage, hateful even to moral men. Their hearts tell them they be even like Satan, ’What! dost thou come to torment us before our time?’ Mat 8:29. What hast thou to do with me? What have they to do with God? They have scarce a Bible in their chambers; if one, it is for fashion’s sake. And that they may not appear to be naught, they will hold conformity in public assemblies; but for private familiarity, they have nothing to do with it. The show of religion goeth under an opprobrious name, but if they would put off the show it were nothing, and not make ostentation of what they are not; but they have no communion with God in prayer. They will go for God’s people, and own him for their God, when they have no trading with him so much as by prayer. Take heed we deceive not ourselves, I beseech you; salvation dependeth upon it.

(3.) We may further try whether our claim of God to be our God be a good claim, on good grounds, by our siding, by our part-taking; for those whom God is a God to in a peculiar manner will be sure to side with God. God hath two things in the world he prizes more than all the world; that is, his children and church, his cause and religion. They that be God’s will be sure to side with the church, they will stand and fall with the church; and the cause of religion, they will live and die with it. But a carnal politician, that hath perhaps great parts of nature, he is Ἀλλὰ πρός ἄλλοῦς, as the Grecian calleth him; they be for all turns; they can bring themselves to any figure, like water that will receive any figure (j). Take it, put it into a vessel that is square, it will be square; put it into a round vessel, it will be round. How can they own God for their God when they will not seek him, and they are yet to choose their God and religion? And because they will be sure to be safe in all times, they will own no religion in any time. And, beloved, is it possible any such should say with confidence, God is their God? Will he own them that will not own him, nor his church, nor his cause? You know Jehu crieth out, ’Who is on my side, who?’ Cast her out. And so God, in doubtful times of danger, crieth out, ’Who is on my side, who?’ Stand out; appear, if you be on my side; if you be on my side, own my cause; if you be not on my side, if you have no degree of goodness, it will appear. Christian wisdom is one thing, carnal policy is another thing. ’The wisdom of the flesh is enmity with God,’ Rom 7:8. Many applaud, and think themselves for somebody in this kind; but this wisdom is enmity itself against God. When a man will be wise in a distinct kind of wisdom from God, when he will have a cause severed from God, and will not side with God, he must look that God will account him his enemy, and make him his; but especially in the hour of death and deep extremity, he shall not be able to look God in the face, to whom he hath been a traitor in the church and in the cause of religion. And therefore, as we will be able to own God for our God, especially in doubtful and dangerous times, side with the church, and side with religion. It was objected to that good Jehonadab, a good man, ’Have we anything to do with God’s enemies?’ Jer 35:6, seq. Now there be two sorts of enemies that we are especially to have nothing to do withal if we side with God: enemies within us, and enemies without us. Sin within us. We must take part against our sins; take God’s part and the Spirit’s part against corrupt motions and affections. Divinity must begin from within, else it is faction without. It is not religion, but faction, if the religion begin not in our hearts, and if we hate not sin in ourselves. Where there is true antipathy, the nearer anything is that is opposite to our nature, the more hateful it is. He that hateth a toad, hateth it in his bosom most of all. And he that hates sin as sin, hates it in his own heart most of all. And therefore they that will pretend religion, and be naught in their own particular, it cometh not from a true principle; for they that will side with God, side with God in their own hearts, and be good men in their own particulars. Therefore, I beseech you, try yourselves by this. Likewise, when men esteem God’s enemy wheresoever they see it, and so far as their authority and power reacheth, they will take God’s part in themselves against themselves, and in the world too. I will not enlarge the point, because it cometh in by way of trial, and I cannot but touch it as a trial. Thus you see how we may know whether we be God’s or no, by owning his cause and siding with him. You have some expressions in Scripture to this purpose: Mic 4:5, ’All people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever.’ Every man will walk and converse in the name of his god; they will own their god and take part with him; and we will walk in the name of our God for ever and ever, and own his cause at all times, and constantly, for ever and ever. And likewise in Isa 44:5, speaking of gracious times there, when men shall be bold for the Lord, as in all times some men will. ’One shall say, I am the Lord’s, and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob, and another shall subscribe with his hand to the Lord, and term himself Israel.’ God shall have his tongue, his hand, and all. He shall say, ’I am the Lord’s,’ he shall call himself ’by the name of God,’ he shall subscribe to it, and own the cause.

(4.) Again, If we would know whether God be our God, we must know whether we may lay just claim to our God as a peculiar God to us, or no, and that way in which God sheweth himself to be a God in peculiar respects to us.

Quest. Now how doth God shew himself a God in a peculiar respect to his children?

Ans. He sheweth himself to have a peculiar respect to them,—

[1.] By peculiar gifts, when he gives to them that which he giveth to none else. Shall we imagine God to be our God by common gifts and common graces? No. For thou comest to hear the word; so Herod did. Thou receivest the sacrament; so did Judas, so did Simon Magus. Thou hearest the truth with some joy; so did the ’third ground,’ Mat 13:20. Thou hast excellent parts; so hath the devil himself. But thou art in such a place of the church, teachest others; so did Judas. Are these evidences to try whether we be God’s or no? What then is the peculiar gift and love-token that God bestows upon his favourites? They be the graces of his Spirit, especially in regard of God: an humble broken heart, and a believing heart, and a lowly heart, that goeth out of itself, that goeth unto God by faith, and towards man full of love, which argueth a great deal of self-denial, when a man can love others with denial of his own profit and ease. He that hath a humble, believing, lowly heart, hath more than all the world besides, for he hath God’s peculiar gift. Many poor souls complain as if God had no regard to them, and yet in the mean time they have humble, broken hearts, which is more than if they had all the wealth and worth that the world hath, which have proud hearts, never broken. The return of these favours will be comfort in death and glory in heaven. What will the fruit of a believing heart be? He hath God and Christ. If he hath a lowly large heart to do good, he doth that which in the issue shall further his account at the day of judgment; and there is the love of God shewed in his special favour.

[2.] So the love of God especially shall be a peculiar comfort that the world is ignorant of, especially in times of extremity. Inward peace of conscience, inward joy, and inward comforts, these are signs of love that God bestoweth upon a man, when he will own him in the worst times, and speak peace to his soul when nothing in the world will speak peace. When the lions roar, [when] the great lions of the world roar in extremity, he hath inward peace and joy, and comforts of the Holy Ghost. That inward intercourse of God with the soul is a sign of God’s peculiar love. When God speaketh peace to the soul, when he sheweth the light of his countenance, which David in Psa 4:7 prefers before all outward comforts whatsoever—God’s revealing of himself, as the Scripture calleth it—when God revealeth himself to his to be theirs, with peace, and joy, and comfort accompanying it, this is peculiar.

[3.] Again, A peculiar favour and love-token of God is to have seasonable and sanctifying correction. To have corrections when they be seasonable; when we be in a way of straying, and God will bring us home by correction; and when we have sanctified correction, we find by experience that all is turned to our good. If I find anything turn me to my God, I know I am his; if my cross be seasonable and sanctified, he is my God, for he takes that course with me which he takes with his own people. These be singular signs of God’s love, when he bestoweth the graces of his Spirit, his comforts, peace, and joy, though not largely, yet so much as shall sustain the soul. And then, when he seasonably meeteth us, and will not suffer us to thrive in an evil course. Oh it is a judgment of judgments to he hardened in sinful courses of life; how can it but end in desperation at length? And therefore it is a great favour to be chastised; it sheweth ’we are sons, and not bastards.’ Thus we see how we may lay just claim to this, that God is our God in a peculiar manner.

(5.) To name but one more, to distinguish a spirit of presumption from a spirit of faith and truth, that God is our God, is this,

[1.] If we have grace to answer his dealings towards us, when we can echo to God’s dealings. God hath chosen us, if we have grace to choose him for our God. We may know he hath called us effectually, when we answer God’s call. When he biddeth us believe, he giveth an influence of power to be able to say, ’I believe; Lord, help my unbelief,’ Mark 9:24. We may know he loveth us, when we reflect love again, and love him. We may know he compasseth us, when we embrace him. We may know he delighteth in us, when we delight in him and his servants. Whence is the strength of this argument? From hence. All good things, whatsoever we do from God,* is by reflection. God shineth on us first; God owneth us for his first, and God must do so in order of causes. God being the spring of all goodness, he must begin. ’We love him because he loved us first,’ 1Jn 4:19, else we could never love him. Therefore if we love him and truth, he loveth us. That is sure. ’What have I in heaven but thee, and in earth of comparison of thee?’ Psa 73:25. Surely he owneth us, because in order of causes we can have nothing but from him first.

[2.] And then again, out of the nature of conscience; if we can go boldly to him as a reconciled God, notwithstanding guilt of conscience, it is a sign he hath obtained peace of conscience, because it is the nature of conscience, if it hath not peace from God, not to dare to appear in God’s presence. So then, when there is inward peace and love answering to God’s love, choice answerable to God’s choice, apprehending of him answerable to his apprehension, this reflection, and return, and rebounding back to God, is an invincible argument that God hath first shined upon that soul. God sometimes will let us see things in the effect, and hide them in the cause. Perhaps he will not persuade by his Spirit that he loveth us, hath chosen us, and that we are his; but he will work something in our hearts, because he will have us search our spirits, what good thing he hath wrought, what love, what choice of the best side are in any of these. Surely then God is theirs. Though there be not an open voice, yet they may know God hath loved this soul and spoken peace to that soul, because we can return nothing to God, but he must shine on us first.

Therefore, beloved, let us make use of this, and let us take heed of sacrilegious usurpations, that we do not usurp upon God’s house or God in a peculiar respect. Indeed, we may come to God as his creatures—We are the workmanship of thy hands—and say the truth, though we be in a wicked course of life. But to say, ’Thou art my God in Christ,’ ’I am thine, thou hast chosen me for thine,’ when we have not chosen him for our God, nor loved him nor his cause, nor sided with him, nor have any stamp of him on the soul, have nothing but common favour, that castaways have as well as we, and the devils as well as we—for the devils go beyond all men in parts—and yet to usurp the prerogative of being God’s in a peculiar manner, and to be bold with the holy things of God, as if we were of his family, this is a dangerous usurpation; take heed of it. And therefore they that live in courses of rebellion, and resolve not to mend, they take the holy things of God, as the psalmist speaks, Psa 50:16-17, in an holy indignation, ’What art thou, that takest my word in thy mouth, since thou hatest to be reformed?’ Thou art an enemy to God and goodness, and wilt be so; thou art in a course of rebellion, and wilt be so. The devil’s works you do and will do. Can we not take the word of the covenant into our mouths, and shall we take the seal of the covenant? Therefore resolve to amend, else have nothing to do with God; do not add one sin to another. ’It is the children’s food, and not for dogs,’ Mat 15:27; it belongeth to them of the family. If thou be none of the family, what hast thou to do with them? If thou be of the family, whatsoever thy infirmities are, thou mayest come boldly, for the seals are to strengthen our weak faith. When the father is father of a child, the father will not cast away the child for breaking out with deformity or lameness. When God hath taken us into his family, infirmities cannot discard us. But I speak of them that in a wilful opposite course of sin shew they never had to do with God in familiar intercourse. God never gave them a spirit to alter their natures. Propriety,* and proportion, and suitableness of disposition go together: propriety joineth with suitableness; where God owneth any man, he makes them like himself by his word and Spirit, that their natures shall be even and agreeable to holy things, shall have a taste of holy things. And where there is not suitableness of holy things, there is no propriety. Will God own a man, and not make him suitable? Will God take his friend, and not give him a friendly nature? He will not, for he first fitteth our natures for communion with himself, else there can be no propriety. Let us not deceive ourselves, but if we find some beginnings of grace, and can say without arrogancy or usurpation, ’Doubtless thou art our Father, our God,’ Isa 63:16; we be not worthy to be thine, but we be thine; if we find something that castaways cannot have, some grief of heart for sin, some faith, some little measure of love, some love of truth and inclination to the best things, then we may come boldly to increase our familiarity and communion with God. But otherwise it is dangerous to come to God. We approach ’a consuming fire,’ Heb 12:29. ’Who shall dwell in everlasting burnings?’ Isa 33:14. Say they in Isaiah, And if God be not in covenant with us, Oh, he will be ’a consuming fire,’ everlasting burnings, and we but stubble; and it will increase spiritual judgment in us, hardness of heart, and going on from sin to sin, till we be accursed for sin. Therefore it is a fearful thing to be given up to hardness of heart. They that do continue in sin, God giveth them up to hardness of heart, to be insensible of his dealings with him.

Use 3. If we can in any degree make it good that God is our God and we his people, then let us make use of it for our comfort in all times, that we have a God to go to. Though we have no friend in the world, yet we have him in whom all friends meet. If we have no comfort here, yet we have him in whom all comforts meet, for all concentre in him. He hath father and friends, and worth and grace, and peace and comfort in him; and all is in him. If we go to him, we shall find a confluence of everything that is good, suitable to any necessity of ours. And therefore let us learn to single out of God whatsoever may help us to be in covenant with him. He having made himself over to be ours, let us learn this wisdom, to single out of God whatsoever is peculiar to our present condition; for considering he hath made himself a God to us, he is all-sufficient to every turn. Therefore out of his all-sufficiency, take out whatsoever is fit for any particular exigency. ’Lord, I am in a strait, and want wisdom.’ Thou in Christ hast abundance of wisdom. Christ hath in him all treasures. I now want friends, I want counsel, I want help, I want strength. God hath a fulness of all this for his children. He hath it not only to content himself, and look on his own happiness, but for his friends that be in covenant with him, that be so near him that he will own him to be their God. If you ask, What is religion? it is to know God, to have all-sufficiency in him for any good, and then to make use of him by dependence on him for that good, and by advancing of him in giving him the due honour and thanks of it. And therefore we deserve not the names of religious persons, if we do not study what he is to his creatures in the covenant of grace. Then make use of it by a spirit of dependency, and always giving praise and thanks. This is our whole man, and what is all else? Nothing but trouble and vanity. Get our bonds sealed that he is our God, and then break with all the world beside. Come what can come, or what will come, we are sure to be safe. It is a comfort of wonderful large extent. The use of the sacrament is to seal that God is our God in particular, and that Christ is ours as verily as the bread and wine are ours. And let us desire the Lord to seal to every one of our souls, that are to have communion with him in particular, that he in Christ is ours: Christ with all his merits and fruits of them, forgiveness of sin and life everlasting, as verily as the outward man partakes of the outward seals; and then we shall come and go away with comfort, and be made partakers of that end and use of the sacrament for which our blessed Saviour instituted it.

Having spoken before of common favours, which devils and castaways may have as well as we, I shall enlarge myself a little in this, because it is a point of concernment. As in other sins we be like the devil, so in this sin a man is worse than the devil himself, if a man will be a common swearer, and opposer, and malicious against goodness, being only in love with some idle conceit of his own, which he will have God himself stoop to else he will not to heaven; he will not be saved but by his own foolery. A man that hath a bitter spirit against the power of grace, that is a common blasphemer, that carrieth a spite against religion, for him to say, ’God is his God,’ the devil will as well say so. He will say of Paul and Silas, These are the people of God; but he will not say himself is, Acts 19:15. For a man to live in sins against conscience, defend them, oppose all that opposeth his sins, and yet claim an interest while that disposition standeth in him, it is more than Satanical impudency, and it is extreme hardening of the heart against all goodness; for how many thousands in the church perish and sink to hell under this presumptuous conceit, ’I am God’s, and God is mine,’ when the title is false, and the evidence false. And therefore it is a point deserving thoroughly to be examined continually, what those evidences of graces be that we venture our souls and salvation upon. I will not stand much to press the point. But you see the necessity of it. Consider therefore, I beseech you, what I have said. If God be ours, there will be a separation. Where there is an owning of God for their God, there will be a separation from all that is not his, as well as a gathering to them that be his. The work of God’s Spirit in his children is like fire, which hath two properties: to sever all heterogeneal and strange stuff, and dross, and the like, and gather all the homogeneal stuff of one nature. And so the works of the Spirit gathereth to the soul so much as is good, and refines that, and severeth that which is contrary. The Spirit of God, that telleth them that they be God’s, it is a severing Spirit and a uniting Spirit. It severs contraries, and it uniteth things of the same nature. There is a joining to what is good, and a separating of what is evil.

I will add this farther, that wheresoever on good title we can say, ’I am God’s,’ there is a reflect act of the soul to say, ’God is mine.’ God hath put a light of reason and friendship into man. Now friendship standeth in mutual office of duty and gift. Where this is not, there is no friendship, no reconciliation, no owning on good terms. The end why God saveth a company of men, and bringeth them to heaven; the body of Christ, which we call the church; it is, that he may have eternal communion with them in the heavens, as he hath with the blessed angels; and in Christ a nearer communion than he hath with them. Now how can this communion be, unless we turn to God, unless we have something to answer God’s love?

Again, Note, God is ours, because Christ is ours. The covenant is made first with Christ, and then with us. Whence we see a ground of particular application of that which we call particular faith; a ground of particular application by a Spirit of faith of God to us, and Christ to us; that God in Christ is my God and your God. The ground of this is, as God offereth himself, we must apprehend him; but Christ offers God, and he knoweth how to offer him. He teacheth us how God is to be presented, and he presenteth him as our God and our Father; and therefore let us entertain him as ours. Thus you see a good ground of particular application of God the Father, and Christ to us in particular, in two respects; not only that every one in particular ought to have a particular faith, and not to think a general faith is enough, to believe as the church believeth, but to have a particular faith of the object; not only of the subject, but of the object; that that is his in particular, ’I go to my Father and your Father.’

God is the Father and the God of all the elect, and only the elect, and of every one of the elect, as we say, in solidum. That is said to be in solidum, when every one applieth the whole to himself, without diminution of any part. The sum is in solidum to every one that will make use of it, to enlighten every creature that shutteth not his eyes. As a common fountain is no man’s in particular; for no man can say, This is my fountain, and yet every man can say, This is mine; so every saint can say of God, He is mine in solidum. Though he were alone, he may say, God is mine. If ten thousand have him, yet God is his God. God careth for all, as if there were but one, and for one, as if none but he. God offers himself, not only to his whole church, but to every one in particular, and therefore of every one he ought to be apprehended. This is founded in all the great points and mysteries of religion. As for instance, what is the ground of all the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer? ’Our Father.’ What interest have we to all the petitions, and to every article of the creed? If there be not a particular application,—’I believe God the Father to be my God, Jesus Christ my Saviour, the Holy Ghost my sanctifier; remission of sins and life everlasting is mine,’—we do no more than the devils. Now every truth in Scripture is written for our comfort, and shall it be no more comfort to us than to the devils? Doth the Scripture intend us no more comfort than the devils? Yes. But the devil may say, for the church there is remission of sins, and a God and Saviour, but not for me; and that is his torment; he cannot come to particulars. So the sacraments are to seal a particular faith. As every one in particular taketh the bread and wine, so by a particular faith every one may say, Christ is mine; his death is mine; bloodshed mine; remission of sins and interest of Christ is mine. It doth not seal a general faith in the clouds, but a particular assurance, that it belongeth to every one. And so in the words of the catechise,* the ministerial questioning of sinners is intended, that every one that believeth should apply it, If thou believest, and if thou believest, thou shalt be saved; and thy sins shall be forgiven thee. So that if we regard prayer and faith, if we regard the sacraments, or the use of the catechise, all enforce a particular faith. If we have not particular faith, we lose the virtue of all. So it is for the commandments. Put case, no man in particular, yet every one ought to ply in particular, that they ought to abstain from such a sin, and perform such a duty. If they do so, they shall be glorified; if not, they shall be punished. And there is the same reason in faith as in obedience. A man is condemned in law, though not named in law; because the general is set down here, and every man ought particularly to apply it; I ought not to have done so and so. So that it overturneth the end of all, if a man labour not for a particular faith. To go farther. Now if I disable this interest of particular faith of God’s love, and Christ’s love, I lose the comfort of weak faith where it is true. What condition were they in now, when Christ biddeth Mary go? Had not some of them denied Christ, and had they not all forsaken him? And yet notwithstanding, ’Go tell Peter,’ and tell them all, ’I go to their Father and their God.’ So that the interest that a soul hath in Christ, who hath true faith, though a weak faith joined with many infirmities, the interest he hath in Christ is not broke off, as you see by the example of the apostles. And therefore I beseech you, let us comfort ourselves in this, labouring for a particular faith, and then labour to maintain our interest, notwithstanding our infirmities and faults, notwithstanding our sins past. Let not Satan rob us of our claim, that God is our God and Father in Christ. Let us learn of Christ; we cannot have a better pattern. What doth Christ on the cross, when he had the sins of all the believing world upon him, and had there been ten thousand times more, it had been all one to so infinite a person, God-man; he had made full satisfaction to God’s justice. But having so much upon him, did it take away his claim of God, as his God? It did not, but still he said, ’My God, my God.’ Was it a claim that did him any good? Was it a useful claim? Yes. For it was made good by his resurrection and ascension; and therefore he might well say, ’I go to my God and your God.’ I have overcome the wrath of God due for sin; and therefore when I, that had all the sins of the world upon me, acknowledged God to be my God, and underwent the burden of God’s wrath, and satisfied for all sin, you may well say, ’My God;’ not only from the pattern of Christ, because he did so, but as a cause. I may say so now, because Christ said so then. For he hath fully satisfied his Father, who had laid that burden on him. You, therefore, that have particular burdens of your sins, and have not that other, but have a conscience troubling you, it is for good; because if you believe, that is taken away. But put case you had the guilt of your own sins, and many sins beside, what is that to this of Christ, who had the guilt of all sin? And therefore let no guile hinder you from a spirit of faith, to say, ’My Father, and my God.’ Is Christ ascended to heaven, to be a mediator of intercession to appear before God? For whom? Is it not for sinners? What work is there in heaven for a mediator, if we were not daily sinners? Christ that hath satisfied for sin, biddeth us, after satisfaction, to think of God as a Father, and think of his ascension; even for this end to appear before God for us as our high priest, to make daily peace for us. His blood is of everlasting efficacy. And if Abel’s blood cried for vengeance, the blood of Christ crieth for mercy, Heb 12:24. As the appearing of the blood of Abel spake for vengeance, so the very appearing of Christ speaks enough for mercy to the sinner.

It is a comfortable clause that in Hos 2:19, where God saith, ’He will marry them in everlasting mercy.’ So that mercy is a part of the jointure of the church. God will marry them in mercy; in what mercy? In pardoning mercy; as the husband is to bear with the wife, the weaker vessel, not to put her away for infirmities. Shall we attribute mercy to men, and not to God? Can a friend bear the infirmities of a friend, and a husband of a wife? And cannot Christ bear the infirmities of his spouse? And therefore never think that our infirmities may hinder our claim. You see it did not here. But ’go to my Father, and your Father.’ This comfort we shall be driven to make use of some time or other, and therefore make use of it now. But you will say, This is not comfort for common sort of Christians. It is not, and I intend it not for them. It is children’s bread, and it must not be cast to dogs. Therefore they that have not God for their God, and live in any sin, they can lay no claim to him, for they serve another god in their hearts. Their vile courses are instead of their god, and in their affections above their God, and therefore let them not think any promise belongeth to them in that course. Let them think of God as ’a consuming fire,’ as ’everlasting burnings,’ while they be such, and that their peace is as the peace that the soul hath when the strong man holdeth all in possession; when the conscience is speechless, and God hath given them up to hardness of heart, which is a desperate peace. This belongeth to them that are resolved not to live in any sin, that have given themselves up to God; and yet by reason of the remainder of corruption are driven to make use of that petition which Christ bids them to pray, ’Forgive us our daily sins.’

Use. Hence issueth this truth, that a Christian may be assured of his salvation in this world. For, first of all, grant that we ought particularly to apply, as God offers himself to us, and that no infirmities nor sins hinders this claim, then what followeth but a Christian, believing and repenting of his sins daily, may be assured that he is in a state of grace, because there be grounds of particular application. That, therefore, which seems to disable that interest, hinders not at all. And therefore labour to maintain that comfortable state of assurance by all means. The grounds of it is, particular application, notwithstanding of all sins and infirmities whatsoever, because Satan envieth it most, because it is a state wherein we honour God most.