Directions How to Use The Shield of Faith to Quench Enticing Temptations. 2/3

           Direction 2.  A second way to engage God is by faith’s expecting act; when thou hast been with God expect good from God.  ‘I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,’ Ps. 5:3.  For want of this many a prayer is lost.  If you do not believe, why do you pray? and if you believe, why do you not expect?  By praying, you seem to depend on God; by not expect­ing, you again renounce your confidence and ravel out your prayer.  What is this but to take his name in vain, and to play bo‑peep with God? as if one that knocks at your door should, before you came to open it to him, go away and not stay to be spoken with.  Oh Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of the prom­ise, and you cannot miss of the ruin of your lusts.

           Question.  O, but, saith the poor soul, shall not I presume to expect when I have prayed against my corruptions that God will bestow on me so great a mercy as this is?

           Answer (1.)  Dost thou know what it is to presume?  He presumes that takes a thing before it is granted.  He were a presumptuous man indeed that should take your meat off your table who never was invited.  But I hope your guest is not over-bold that ventures to eat of what you set before him.  For one to break into your house, upon whom you shut the door, were presumptuous; but to come out of a storm into your house when you are so kind as to call him in, is no presumption, but good manners.  And, if God opens not the door of his promise to be a sanc­tuary to poor humbled sinners fleeing from the rage of their lust, truly then I know none of this side heaven that can expect welcome.  God hath promised to be a king, a lawgiver, to his people.  Now it is no presumption in subjects to come under their princes’ shadow and expect protection from them, Isa. 33:21, 22. God there promiseth he ‘will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ships pass thereby.’ ‘For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.’  God speaks to his people as a prince or a state would to their sub­jects.  He will secure them in their traffic and mer­chandise from all pirates and pickroons; they shall have a free trade.  Now, soul, thou art molested with many pirate lusts that infest thee and obstruct thy commerce with heaven—yea, thou hast complained to thy God what loss thou hast suffered by them; is it now presumption to expect relief from him, that he will rescue thee from them, that thou mayest serve him without fear who is thy liege‑lord?

           Answer (2.)  You have the saints for your prece­dents, who, when they have been in combat with their corruptions, yea, been foiled by them, have even then acted their faith on God, and expected the ruin of those enemies which for the present have overrun them.  Iniquities prevail against me, Ps. 65:3—he means his own sins and others' wrath.  But see his faith.  At the same time they prevailed over him he beholds God destroying of them, as appears in the very next words, ‘As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away.’  See here, poor Christian, who thinkest thou shalt never get above deck.  Holy David has a faith not only for himself, but also [for] all be­lievers—of whose number I suppose thee one—‘as for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away!’  And mark the ground he hath for his confidence, taken from God's choosing act, ‘Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts,’ ver. 4.  As if he had said, ‘Surely he will not let them be under the power of sin or want of his gracious succour whom he sets so nigh himself.’  This is Christ’s own argument against Satan in the behalf of his people.  ‘The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jeru­salem rebuke thee,’ Zech. 3:2.