Ezek. 14.14 16 18 20. Though these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it they should deliver but their own Souls by their righteousness So we hear this proceeding of God owned by himself by way of Threatening Secondly He hath spoken it by way of Prophecy or Prediction Our blessed Saviour in his Exhortation to his Disciples to uncessantness in prayer by the example of the windows importunity with the unjust Judg in the reddition of that Parable he foretells Luk. 18.1 7 8. that God will indeed avenge his own Elect which cry day and night to him but withall he will bear long with them that is he will long sit still and forbear to appear and vindicate his people notwithstanding the cry of their prayers and the provoking of their Oppressors And in the next words he describes how long to wit so long as that it will be a question whether the Son of man when he cometh shall find faith on the Earth That is as I understand when Christ our Saviour shall come either personally and visibly to the last Judgment or virtually and by his divine working in this life to the rescue of his Church and ruine of their Enemies according to the several Promises and Predictions in Scripture the faith of his people not in the absolute being or nature of it but in regard of that particular use of act of it in beleeving that God will seasonably avenge them and confident staying for it shall even be worn out through pining delay and brought almost to a fail In the Prophecy of the Revelation at the opening of the fifth seal by the Lamb our blessed Redeemer there appeared under the Altar the Souls of them that were slain for the Word of God Rev. 6.9 10 and for the Testimony which they held and they cryed with a loud voyce saying How long O Lord c. white Robes were given unto every one of them and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fufilled These Souls under the Altar are unanimously interpreted to be the Persecuted and Martyred Christians in the Ten primitive Persecutions and more especially according to Mr Mede those under Dioclesians Immâ—nity We see they cry for Avengement and complain of a long putting off How long and nevertheless their answer is that notwithstanding all the delay that hath been they must rest contented and stay yet some time longer Learned Mr Mede conceiveth the time of their yet further deferring to be till the sounding of the Trumpets and their fellow-servants and brethren which in the Interim were to be killed as they to be those who after were slain under Licinius Julianus and the Arrians Rev. 8.2 3 c. Those seven Trumpets he also reckoneth to be so many alarums to the fatal ruines of the Roman Empire God taking punishment by those ruins for the blood of the said Martyrs shed by the Roman Emperors And the Angels adding much incense to the prayers of al Saints upon the golden altar before the Throne and the ascending before God of the smoak of the incense out of the Angels hand with the prayers of the Saints which immediately antecedeth the Trumpets to be a renewing of the memoral of those prayers of the afore-martyred Saints under the the fifth Seal upon which as an answer of that remembrance and of those prayers so long before put up the seven Angels prepare to sound their Trumpets Now betwixt the beginning of the last of the Ten Persecutions and the beginning of the seven Trumpets there was more then the age of a man Mr Mede begineth the fifth Seal at the year of Christ 268. and the Trumpets at 395. it was thus long to wit 127 years ere those prayers of the afflicted Martyrs began to be answered and moreover the time of the continuance of the first six of those Trumpets in which their answer is made up he accounts to be 1260 years more after that Another Prophecy in the same Book we may add to this purpose it is that of the two Witnesses the Text saith They shall prophecy a thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed with sackcloth Rev. 11.3 5 and if any man will hurt them fire proceedeth out of their mouth and devoured their Enemies By those two Witnesses our Divines understand those few Preachers Professors and Maintainers of the Truth of Christ which shall be found during the Gentiles treading under foot the holy City that is the prophane and idolatrous peoples trampling upon the face of the visible Church Those one thousand two hundred and three-score days they compute to intend so many years That sackcloth they take to emblematize their mourning complaining condition And that fire issuing out of their mouths they expound to be their prayers for divine ayd and rescue like as Elijah called for fire to come down from Heaven 2 Kings 1 10. to consume the Captains and their fifties These persons although such precious ones so raised up and impowred by Christ yet we see they are put to walk mournfully and pray continuedly for so great a term of years ere their prayers speed and their state be changed Yea notwithstanding all their patience and constancy in that sad and expecting condition they are at length to be overcome and slain and kept unburied and insulted over by the Beast and his accomplices before they come to receive the issue of their prophecying and praying Rev. 11.7 8 9 10. by their re-advancement This last part of their sorrowful cup seems to be not only a suspense of their long continued prayers but even a breaking off of them and of all hope of their enjoying the benefit of them unless they must expect it in another world But yet the next words will resolve us that both their former walking in sackcloth and their slaying at last is to be no more then a suspense or deferring for a time for within three days and a half they are raised up again to life to their feet yea to Heaven in a Cloud in sight of their Enemies that is they attain to an happy end of their labours and sufferings and to an accomplishment of their prayers This last passage the slaying of the Witnesses is conceived by many to be yet behind or in fulfilling unto others it seems to be acted and past It is beyond me peremptorily to determine either way only whereas it appears unlikely to be yet to come when as sundry Nations sometimâ—s following and serving the Beast have cast him off bidden defiance to him and set up the Reformed Religion I will here insert Mr Medes gloss upon it very appositely meeting with that scruple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When they shall be about to finish their testimony for so it is to be translated not when they have finished the Beast which ascendeth out of the bottomless
their place To give some instances Daniel fasts and prays for the return of the captivity in the first year of Darius and he prays That the Lord would haâ—ken and do and not defer but God did defer until the first year of Cyrus which was two years current * Dan. 9.1 19. Darius imperium accepit A. M. 3466. imperavit annis duobus Cyrus Monarchia potitus est A. M. 3468 Vide Annales Usser pag. 145 146. Dan. 10.2 12.13 Luk. 18.7 And again at another time of his fasting and praying he is told in a Vision That from the first day he set his heart to understand and to chasten himself before God his words were heard yet he continued mourning three full weeks and the Angel appearing to him in the end thereof telleth him his answer was stopped in the way just so long to wit one and twenty days God doth hear his own Elect which cry day and night unto him under their pressures but there is a long bearing with their adversaries interposed betwixt his hearing and avenging of them Rev. 6.10 11 The Souls under the Altar that cry with a loud voyce How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not judg and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the Earth They were heard but withall they are told They must rest for a little season until their fellow servants also and their Brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled This little season of stay for the issue of their prayers is computed by a very judicious Commentator to be above a hundred years Mr Mede who begineth the fift Seal an 268. and the first Trumpet which he makes the beginning of the answer of their cry an 395. See his Key Comment part 1. pag. 52. 81 85. In the Song of Solomon the Spouse twice had lost her beloved and missing sought him and seeking was yet disappointed for some time of meeting with him yet this missing and not finding Cant. 3.1.5 6 was not a dereluction or divorce but a stepping aside of him only for a time The prayers of the Saints in the Book of the Revelation are resembled by the smoke of Incense Rev. 8.3.5 their answer or return by voyces thunderings lightenings and earthquakes There is in this resemblance a great congruity to the work of Nature for smoke or such hot and dry vapors ascending into the upper region do produce thunder and lightening which are the voyce of God and inclosed in the Earth do cause Earthquakes but as there is naturally a good time after the exhaling of these vapors for the altering and forming of them ere they break forth into Thunder Lightening or Earthquakes so it is with the Saints prayers there is often an intervall of time betwixt their ascent and effect and as it is the folly of the vulgar to think when they see smoke or vapors gone up out of their sight that they are quite vanished or annihilated so is it for us to judg those prayers of none effect that are a good while a working above ere they come down in visible impressions here below I have thus endevored to shew the diversity of the ways of God towards the prayers of men both in appearing to and hiding from them The second thing proposed now is to follow viz. the diversity of grounds or impulsives whereupon he doth either This will not hold us long as being not altogether so various and intricate First for the Lords appearing unto prayer the difference of grounds may be thus taken He doth appear to prayer 1. In Anger 2. In Favor 1. God doth sometimes hear and grant mens prayers in anger he gives men their desires and it is sometimes not in mercy but in displeasure Numb 11 20 33 Psa 78.21 26.106.15 1 Sam. 8.21 22 so God gave quails to Israel in the wilderness he sent them out of wrath and wrath was the sauce with which they did eat them Thus also God gave a King to Israel in the days of Samuel Questionless the Quails were in themselves very good and wholesom food and did not naturally engender the plague but they asked them lustfully Satius erat non audiri a Dominó quam cum carnibus ejus indignationem vocare Calv. not for need and diffidently not in faith and God gave them accordingly out of anger and with the plague they were the last meat that many of them ever ate they brought them to their graves the graves of them that lusted Doubtless Monarchy was and is in it self a good Government and was promised long before as a blessing to that people and as it appeared by the sequel was intended them shortly as a mercy and it is as a mercy promised to the Church of after times Gen. 17.6 16 2 Sam. 7.8 c. 23.3 c. 2 Chro. 2 11 Isai 49.23 Rev. 17.16 21.24 but they asked a King not by vertue of or in the way of promise but rebelliously ambitiously distrustfully and God gave them a King suitably Saul an impious tyrannical despairing King And we may note God gives sometimes evil and unlawful requests in wrath or for correction to others besides the askers The curses or enchantments of malice or witchery God sometimes brings to pass as means of punishment or affliction to those against whom they are intended by the maleficous Judg. 9.20 Vide Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. S. 15 Thus he gave success to Jothams curse upon the men of Sechem Thus he yielded to Satans desire against Job in his goods children and body and thus our Saviour granted the Devils request touching entering into the Gadarens herd of swine Mat. 8.32 yea Satan had his desire of Peter so far as to have him to sift him as wheat Luk. 22.31 though not to destroy his Faith 2. God appeareth to prayer in mercy and favor and this may be more ways then one It may be 1. Out of his general goodness and common pity God hath a propension to shew mercy a disposition to extend favor towards all as they are his creatures as they are in want and misery Vide Aqui. 22. qu. 83 Art 16 Job 34.28 Exo 22.23 Gen. 21.17 as they may put forth and express their natural desires before him He heareth the cry of the afflicted saith Elihu I will surely hear their cry saith he himself of the widow and fatherless child God heard the voyce of the lad Ishmael Under this notion are those hearings and deliverings taken to be of the solitary hungry thirsty and harborless of the imprisoned Psalmus docet non carere effectu preces quae tamen fide in coelum non penetrant Colligit enim quas incredulus non minus quam piis necessitas extorquet preces ex naturae sensu quibus tamen Deum propitium esse ex eventu demonstrat Calv. Instit l. 3. c. 20. sect 15. scultet de prec c. 15. p. 54. of the sick and
stand upon my watch Chap. 2.1 2 3. and set me upon the tower and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer he is yet delayed in his petition and receives an answer of further Judgments yet to come And the Lord answered me and said Write the Vision and make it plain upon tables Chap. 3.2 that he may run that readeth it for the Vision is yet for an appointed time c. So that his hopes were overwhelmed with fears and terrors which he expresseth in this third recourse in prayer to God O Lord I have heard thy speech and was afraid When I heard my belly trembled my lips quivered at the voyce Verse 16. rottenness entered into my bones and I trembled in my self c. The Apostle Paul was earnest by prayer for Israels Conversion and Salvation that is for the Body of that Nation which continued in blindness and stood upon their own and out against the righteousness of God for Justification Brethren my hearts desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved Rom. 10.1 The answer of God unto him in this was That a remnant only should then be called and the rest be judicially hardened for a long time to come Chap. 11.5 7 25. even until the coming in of the fulness of the Gentiles Upon Sauls disobedience and the Lords repenting of his advancement to the Kingdom Samuel prayed a whole night 1 Sam. 15.11 35. yet the Lord rejected Saul from being King over Israel and when this was done Samuel still mourned for Saul Chap. 16.1 till at length the Lord reproved him and sent him to anoint another for that place 2. The holy servants of God have met with stays and disappointments not only in their petitions for others but even in their supplications for themselves and when they have prayed in their own behalf Upright Job that man of Tryals doth in this respect thus make known and bewail his case to his friends Know now that God hath overthrown me and hath compassed me with his Net Job 19.6 7 8. Behold I cry out of wrong but I am not heard I cry aloud but there is no Judgment He hath fenced my way that I cannot pass and he hath set darkness in my paths And in another place he complaineth of thâ— same unto God I cry unto thee and thou dost not hear I stand up and thou regardest m not Cap. 30 20 26 27 28. When I looked for good then evil came upon me and when I waited for light there came darkness My bowels boiled and rested not the days of affliction prevented me I went mourning without the Sun I stood up and I cryed in the Congregation The Prophet David often finds himself in this condition often cries out of it unto God In his 13 Psalm he complains thus for lack of audience How long wilt thou forget me O Lord Psal 13.1 2 3. for ever How long wilt thou hide thy face from me How long shall I take counsel in my Soul having sorrow in my heart dayly How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me Consider and hear me O Lord my God In the 31 Psalm he saith I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind Psa 31.12 I am like a broken vessel In the 69. he 〈…〉 moan thus I am weary of my crying Psal 69.3 my throat is dryed mine eyes fail while I wait for my God Holy Heman also was in this very plight O Lord God of my Salvation I have cryed day and night before thee Psal 88.1 and with what success He tells presently Verse 4 5. I am counted with them that go down into the pit I am as a man that hath no strength Free among the dead like the slain that lie in the grave whom thou rememberest no more and they are cut off frâ—â— thy hand And again a little after Lord I have called upon thee I have stretched out my hands unto thee Yet had he no better speed Vers 9.14 Lord why castest th u off my Soul why hidest thou thy face from me Nay the greatest Example possible we have for this to wit that of our blessed Saviour who in his Passion is pâ—rsonated by David in these words My God My God Psa 22 12. Mat. 27.46 why hast thou forsaken me Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring O my God I cry in the day time and thou hearest not and in the night season and am not silent Part of which words he audibly uttered or rather cryed out when he hung upon the Cross I will add hereunto only one Instance and it is as great as can be added to the former It shall be taken from the contâ—nual experience of all true Christians that are or ever were in the world Our blessed Saviour teacheth all his to pray Thy Will be done in Earth as it is done in Heaven And again Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil Now although these things are and ought to be dayly prayed for yet it must needs be acknowledged as it is experienced by all the Saints of God on Earth that never doth any of them attain to in this life an absolute conformity to the Will of God like that of the Angels and Saints in Heaven nor to a sinless distance from all temptations Bellar. T. 4 de Justif lib. 4. cap. 13. Chamier T. 3. l. 11. c. 7. s 21. Bellarmine would infer from hence a capacity of perfection in the Saints â—â—edience in this life for otherwise saith he these petitions in the Lords prayer are in vain taught and used This Inference we deny There are divers things allowed yea commanded and necâ—ssary to be prayed for which yet may never be granted and there are sundry things as those petitions specified which are to be prayed for every day and yet they may in their just and full measure never be attained till our last day and end come 3. Yea when the servants of God have called upon God in and for his own Cause and Concernment yet the Lord hath sometimes hid himself from their prayer Eliah whom the Apostle James brings in for a singular pattern of prevalency in prayer he maketh intercession to God against Israel in the Lords Cause as well as his own saying Lord they have killed thy Prophets Rom. 11.2 3. and digged down thine Altars and I am left alone and they seek my life Yet after this things went still on in Israel in relation to the matters of God as they did before he never lived to see any redress The people of God in Psal 44. call out upon God and expostulate with him as one that seemed to sleep out the time of their heavy Calamities and hid his face purposely from them and put their Case into utter oblivion Psal 44.8 22 23 24. Awake why
praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God Here was no want of hearing but want of perceiving the entertainment and success of prayer We are so dull that God must not only give us our prayers but give us eyes to discern them he must not only hear our prayers but give us ears to hear his answer to them We are so insensible and inconsiderate as not to own yea and to charge God with want of advertency when all is well and to our desires if we had eyes and hearts to see and understand David therefore makes this ingenuous recollection and acknowledgment of his imperfection once for all as touching this case For I said in my haste I am cut off from before thine eyes nevertheless thou heardest the voyce of my supplications when I cryed unto thee Psa 31.22 I said in my haste here he clears and wipes off the many dark and erroneous conceits and speeches he had in his troubled moods used of God in relation to his prayer and states the point aright betwixt God and him confessing Gods audience even at the instant when he had cryed and complained for want of audience and acknowledging his own blind precipitancy in apprehending and uttering the contrary There are two occasions whereupon the people of God are apt thus to misconceive the issue of their prayers 1. The continuance or increase of their afflictions upon them or the delay of their expectations and desires They judg of their audience and acceptance with God by the present course of their providence and will needs gather his ear is not open to them his face is not towards them if his hand do not instantly help them if his arm be not made bare for them and in their sight if his candle do not shine upon their head Thus did Job and his speech of it is notable If I had called and he had answered me Job 9.16 17 yet would I not believe that he had harkened to my voyce and why For he breaketh me with a tempest and multiplyeth my words without cause or as Tremel without remedy others interpret without rendering a cause Job could not believe Gods hearing him because he found it not in his present outward estate but felt what he thought spoke the contrary to wit a storm and tempest of adversities renewed strokes and incisions of the lancing knife of Gods spiritual Chyrurgery Mr Caryls Notes upon this place are God may be doing us good when the signs he gives us may speak evil he hears and answers us praying to him when we think to hear him thundering terribly against us Afflictions continued is no evidence that prayer is not heard yet usually it is very inevident to an afflicted person that his prayer is heard prayer may be heard and answered when greatest afflictions are upon us even while we are praying the Lord may be thundering he may be breaking us when we are beseeching him So he The Church in the Lamentations saith unto God Lam. 3.42 43 Thou hast covered thy self with a cloud that our prayers should not pass through and she apprehended so upon this ground Thou hast covered with anger and persecuted us thou hast slain thou hast not pityed Because God hath covered them with anger against their sins therefore they collected he had covered himself with a cloud against their prayers Because he had persecuted them therefore their prayers pierced not to him 2. Again sometimes it is because of the amplitude or greatness of the success of their prayers and the extraordinariness of Gods workings for them When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion we were like them that dream Psa 126.1 3 the Lord hath done great things for us Their deliverance was so great that they were surprized and amazed with it it overcame their conceit and belief When Peter was ready to be brought out to his death Acts 12. and the Church had prayed instantly and without intermission for him the Lord by an Angel brought him out of prison and he presently came to the house where the Saints were assembled together and praying for him but when he knocked at the door and the Damsel knowing his voyce ran in and told them he was there delivered up to their prayers it was incredible to them they said of the maid Thou art mad they said of his appearance It is his Angel when their eyes saw him They were astonished Great returns cannot easily or quickly find entrance and credit in our minds they are like the great draught of fishes which the Disciples caught upon the command of our Saviour to cast forth the net when they had taken it the net brake and their ship began to sink with it so are our hearts on such an occasion they cannot well at first receive they cannot land with or hold with the larger incomes of prayer This is the first distinction necessary to be observed there is also another to be added Secondly We must again distinguish when the Lord doth indeed and really hide himself from prayer This may be 1. Either by way of absolute and flat denyal of the prayer 2. Or only in way of delay or deferring for a time This difference should be well heeded every real hiding of God from prayer is not negative is not a rejection and casting of it back as denyed and every denyal is not final and resolute God doth often defer what he intends to grant nay what he hath already granted in Heaven yea sometimes he hath in a sort expresly denyed the Petition when it hath indeed been but in effect a delaying and the repulse hath been in order to a concession When the woman of Canaan cryed so vehemently upon our Savior in behalf of her daughter vexed with a Devil Mat. 15 22 and he gave her a treble put off the end proved it was no peremptory denyal but only a delay for the tryal and manifestation of her great faith When the Israelites under their sore distress by the Philistins and others cryed unto the Lord with confession of their sin in forsaking him and serving Baalim and the Lord answered them that for those their sins relapsed into after many former deliverances in the like case he would now deliver them no more Let them go and cry unto the gods whom they had chosen Judg. 16.10 c. and let them deliver them in the time of their tribulation This was not a simple abjection or a concluding denyal but a sharp and minatory rebuke to work them to a more serious humiliation and reformation and to make way so for a better answer to their prayer which afterwards they had It hath been alway ordinary with God to suspend the answer of those prayers which he doth presently hear and assent to and to put a distance of time betwixt the grant and the execution of them and that for many good reasons which may come to be discovered in
to hide himself from his people in these late troubles was in their divisions and breaches among themselves in opinions practises and party-makings and it is probable the Lord will have them first to be at one again among themselves ere he manifest himself among them Then for simplicity and truth take only that speech of the Lord in the Prophet Isaiah Isai 63.8 For he said Surely they are my people children that will not lye so he was their Saviour with that of the Psalmist Mercy and Truth are met together Truth shall spring out of the Earth and Righteousness shall look down from Heaven Psal 85.10 11. So necessary and neerly alyed is sincerity and veracity unto the recovery of Gods presence aspect and audience 3. The third and last Direction for the Cure of this evil is Let our satisfaction be placed and sought in God himself When the stream or rivelet is cut off or dryed up the way to help that is to go to the fountain it self Doth the Lord withhold from us this or that blessing which we ask of him our best remedy for that is to seek the fruition of God himself his presence and favor and to satisfie our selves and make up all defects therewith Whatsoever wants we lie under in respect of externals yea or internals Habet omnia qui habet habentem omnia Augustin all the particulars we lack are equivalently yea eminently and transcendently to be had in the enjoyment of God if we have him we have them and more God communicateth himself unto his creature two ways Either as an Agent or as an End either effectively or objectively either by way of operation or by way of rest and complacency Though we have not his operative or effective communications in the production of every of those works and events which we think behoveful for us yet if we have the objective or terminative communications of him as our end rest or chiefest portion and good it is enough Nay this participation of God is far above the other He communicateth himself in his acts and operations to all his creatures but as an end of rest and complacency only to his blessed Angels and Saints That communication is more remote this immediate that more earthly this is heavenly that more reserved and limited this is full and satisfying There is a staying upon God by faith the vertue whereof is to give us the thing we beg for in prayer before it be given us and whether ever it be brought forth in rerum naturâ or in a providential course or under a sensitive enjoyment yea or no. Faith giveth us that acquiescence in God and such an assurance of the performance of the petitions we ask of him either in kind or equivalently and such a clear foresight of what is to come as that however there be a great distance and many impediments and delays betwixt as and our prayers yet there is a kind of presence and possession of them unto us Joh. 8.56 By it Abraham saw Christs day with rejoycing By it he and the other Patriarchs before the obtaining of the earthly or heavenly Canaan Heb. 11.13 saw afar off and embraced them in their promises By it Davids eye saw his desire upon his enemies Psa 54.3 7 when as yet they were up against him and in pursuit of his Soul By vertue of it we have this confidence that if we ask any thing according to his Will 1 Joh. 5.14 15 he heareth us and if we know that he hear us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him He saith not we know that we shall have the petitions but we know that we have them that is because either we are as sure of them as if we had them in our hands already or we have them in the fountain or myne in having interest in and u ition of God David when he would still and quiet all murmuring and impatient thoughts in the hearts of the righteous at the delay of their deliverance and the flourishing of wicked men and prosperous success of their evil courses he prescribeth this medicine Delight thy self also in the Lord Psal 37.4 and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart If they be disanimated by the aforesaid dealings of divine Providence so that they know not how to go on against such discouragements in trusting in the Lord and doing good the things immediately before exhorted unto he delivereth them this as a cordial Delight thy self in the Lord. All the discomforts from present crosses and wants may be sweetened and swallowed up by this the satiating solace that is to be had in God And if the mind be impatiently bent to have its desires fulfilled this is the way to have them and that out of hand if he do not effect them in created events he will supply them in affording himself if he do not perform them in providences he will bless them in blissâ—ul consolations to thy Soul and as Elkanah said to Hannah 1 Sam. 1.8 Am not I better to thee then ten sons Is not God better to thee then ten thousand prayers When Esau and Jacob met by Peniel and were in their strains of courtesie about Jacobs present Gâ—â— 33.9 11. Esau having a good earthly estate in Mount Seir told Jacob I have enough my brother and Jacob said to him again I have enough Interpreters observe the word which Esau useth translated enough signifieth much and the word for Jacob's enough signifieth all Esau hath much but Jacob hath all And the reason of Jacob's fuller expression well may be because though his estate in worldly possessions was probably far less then Esau's yet he was Israel a Prince with God he had God for his portion to him he had continual recourse by prayer and if he got not by that means every thing he might ask or not instantly yet he had God himself his presence and favor and so he had all And that reason himself might imply when together with his profession to have enough or all he saith because God hath dealt graciously with me There is in God a full store-house and well-spring of comforts to make up the defects of whatsoever other things we fail of If the Lord hide himself from us in things subsidiary or subservient or the means conducing to the end and not in the main matter or ultimate end it self to wit his favor Spirit and Kingdom we may well satisfie our selves What we are short of in those intermediate and accessive things we may find and enjoy in God David when all was taken and gone at Ziklag 1 Sam. 30.6 encouraged himself in the Lord his God The Penman of Psal 73. Psal 73.25 26 when all went on the wicked mans side and against the people of God finds a rock for his heart and an everlasting portion of God and him he sets up as his only and