[Use or
Application.]
Use
First. Is the almighty power of God engaged
for the saints' defence? surely then they will have a hard pull, the saints’
enemies, who meddle with them who are so far above their match. The
devil was so cunning, he would have Job out of his trench, his hedge down
before he could fall on. But so desperate are men, they will try the
field with the saints, though encircled with the almighty power of
God. What folly were it to attempt or sit down before such a city,
which cannot be blocked up so as no relief can get in? the way to heaven
cannot. In the church's straitest siege, ‘there is a river which
shall make glad this city of God,’ with seasonable succours from heaven. The
saints' fresh-springs are all from God, and it is as feasible for sorry man to
stop the water-courses of the clouds, as to dam up those streams, which
invisibly glide like veins of water in the earth, from the fountain-head of his
mercy into the bosom of his people. The Egyptians thought they had
Israel in a trap, when they saw them march into such a nook by the
sea-side. ‘They are entangled, they are entangled;’ and truly so
they had been irrecoverably, had not that almighty power which led them on,
engaged to bring them off with honor and safety.
Well, when they are
out of this danger; behold they are in a wilderness where nothing is to be had
for back and belly, and yet here they shall live for forty years, without trade
or tillage, without begging or robbing of any of the neighbor nations; they
shall not be beholden to them for a penny in their way. What cannot almighty
power do to provide for his people? what can it not do to protect them against
the power and wrath of their enemies? Almighty power stood between
the Israelites and the Egyptians, so that, poor creatures, they could not so
much as come to see their enemies. God sets up a dark cloud as a
blind before their eyes, and all the while his eye through the cloud is looking
them into disorder and confusion. And is the Almighty grown weaker
now-a-days, or his enemies stronger, that they promise themselves better
success? No, neither; but men are blinder than the saints' enemies
of old, who sometimes have fled at the appearances of God among his people,
crying out, ‘Let us flee, for the Lord fighteth for them.’ Whereas
there be many now-a-days will rather give the honor of their discomfitures to
Satan himself, than acknowledge God in the business; more ready to say that the
devil fought against them, than God. O you that have not yet worn
off the impressions which the almighty power of God hath at any time made upon
your spirits, beware of having anything to do with that generation of men,
whoever they are. Come not near their tabernacle, cast not thy lot
in amongst them, who are enemies to the saints' of the most High; for they are
men devoted to destruction. He ripped open the very womb of Egypt,
to save the life of Israel his child, Isa. 43:3.
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