2. God’s interest in these people, and pray that God will remember that: “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee.” True, the church, the saints, are despicable in the world; wherefore men do think to tread them down; the saints are, also, weak in grace, but have strong corruptions, and, therefore, Satan, the god of this world, doth think to tread them down; but the saints have a God, the living, the eternal God, and, therefore, they shall not be trodden down; yea, they “shall be held up, for God can make them stand” (Rom 14:4).
It was Haman’s mishap to be engaged against the queen and the kindred of the queen; it was that that made him he could not prosper; that brought him to contempt and the gallows. Had he sought to ruin other people, probably he might have brought his design to a desired conclusion, but his compassing the death of the queen spoiled all. Satan, also, when he fighteth against the church, must be sure to come to the worst, for God has a concern in that; therefore, it is said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” but this hindereth not, but that he is permitted to make almost what spoils his will of those that do not belong to God. Oh, how many doth he accuse, and soon get out from God, against them, a license to destroy them! as he served Ahab, and many more. But I say this is a great block in his way when he meddles with the children; God has an interest in them. Has God cast away his people? God forbid!” (Rom 11:1,2). The text intimates that they, for sin, had deserved it and that Satan would fain have had it been so, but God’s interest in them preserved them: God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew.” Therefore, when Satan accuses them before God, Christ, as he pleaded for his own worth and merit, pleaded also against him for the interest that God has in them.
And though this, to some, may seem an indifferent plea, for what engagement lieth, may they say, upon God to be so much concerned with them, for they sin against him and often provoke him most bitterly? Besides, in their best state, they are altogether vanity and a very thing of naught: What is man (sorry, man), that thou art mindful of him,” or that thou shouldest be so?
I answer, Though there lieth no engagement upon God for any worthiness in man, yet there lieth a great deal upon God for the worthiness in himself. God has engaged himself with his having chosen them to be a people to himself, and by this means they are so secured from all that all can do against them that the apostle is bold, upon this very account, to challenge all despite doing its worst against them, saying, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” (Rom 8:33). Who? saith Satan; why, that will I. Ay, saith he, but who can do it and prevail? “It is God that justifies; who is he that condemns?” (ver. 34). In these words, the apostle clearly declares that charges against the elect, though they may be brought against them, must prove ineffectual as to their condemnation because their Lord God still will justify it, for that Christ has died for them. Besides, a little to enlarge, the elect are bound to God by a sevenfold cord, and a threefold one is not quickly broken.
