his saints. Think not any thing small which God accounts worthy to bestow on his. If he hath meted out liberty for them, and you give them slavery, you will have a sad reckoning.

(2.) In point of ordinances, and Christ-purchased privileges. Here it is dangerous encroaching indeed. God exactly measured Canaan, because it was to be the seat of a national church. If you love your lives, if you love your souls, be tender on this point. Here if you meddle with that which belongs not unto you, were you kings, all your glory would be laid in the dust, 2 Chron. xxvi. 18. Woe to them who cut short the saints of God in the least jot of what he hath allotted to them in spirituals! Is it for any of you, O ye sons of men! to measure out God's children's portion, long since bequeathed them by Christ? Let them alone with what is given them. If God call Israel out of Egypt to serve him, shall Pharaoh assign who, and how they shall go,-first men only, then all, without their cattle? "Nay," says Moses, "we will go as God calls," Exod. x. 26.

Was not one main end of the late tumults to rob God's people of their privileges, to bring them again under the yoke of superstition? What God brake in war, do not think he will prosper in peace. If you desire to thrive, do not the same, nor any thing like it. Take they any thing of yours that belongs to Cæsar, the civil magistrate, restrain them, keep them within bounds; but if they take only what Christ hath given them,-O touch them not, harm them not! The heap is provided for them, let them take for themselves. Think it not strange that every one should gather his own manna. The Lord forbid that I should ever see the magistrates of England taking away liberties, privileges, ordinances, or ways of worship, from them to whom the Almighty hath made a free grant of them!

(3.) If in taking what God hath measured out for them, they should not all comply with you in the manner and measure of what they take, do them no harm, impoverish not their families, banish them not, slay them not. Alas! your judgments, were you kings and emperors, is not a rule to them. They must be tried by their own faith. Are their souls, think you, more precious to you than themselves? You say they take amiss;-they say, No, and appeal to the Word. Should you now smite them? Speak, blood; is that the way of Jesus Christ? Should it be as you affirm, you would be puzzled for your warrant. To run when you are not sent, surely in

1 "Nero primus in Christianos ferociit, tali dedicatore damnationis nostræ etiam gloriamur, qui enim scit illum, intelligere potest, non nisi aliquod bonum grande Nerone damnatum."-Tertul. Apol.

"Nova et inaudita est ista prædicatio, quæ verberibus exigit fidem.”—Greg., Epist. lii.

3 Magistrum neminem habemus nisi solum Deum; hic ante te est, nec abscondi potest, sed cui nihil facere possis.

this case is not safe. But what if it should prove, in the close, that they have followed divine directions? Do you not then fight against God, wound Jesus Christ, and prosecute him as an evil-doer? I know the usual colours, the common pleas, that are used for the instigation of authority to the contrary. They are the very same, and no other, that have slain the saints of God this twelve hundred years. Arguments for persecution are dyed in the blood of Christians for a long season;- -ever since the dragon gave his power to the false prophet, they have all died as heretics and schismatics. Suppose you saw in one view all the blood of the witnesses of Christ, which had been let out of their veins by vain pretences,-that you heard in one noise the doleful cry of all pastorless churches, dying martyrs, harbourless children of parents inheriting the promise, wildernesswandering saints, dungeoned believers, wrested out by pretended zeal to peace and truth;-and perhaps it may make your spirits tender as to this point.

Use 2. See the warrantableness of our contests for God's people's rights. It was Jephthah's only argument against the encroaching Ammonites, Judg. xi. By God's assistance they would possess what the Lord their God should give them. If a grant from heaven will not make a firm title, I know not what will. Being called by lawful authority, certainly there is not a more glorious employment than to serve the Lord in helping to uphold the portion he hath given his people. If your hearts be upright, and it is the liberties, the privileges of God's saints, conveyed from the Father, purchased by Christ, you contend for,-go on and prosper, the Lord is with you. XII. Observation. The works and labours of God's people are transacted for them in heaven, before they once undertake them.

The Israelites were now going to Canaan: God doth their work for them beforehand; they did but go up and take possession. Joshua and Caleb tell the people, not only that their enemies' defence was departed from them, but that they were but bread for them, Numb. xiv. 9,—not corn that might be prepared, but bread, ground, made up, baked, ready to eat. Their work was done in heaven. "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world," Acts xv. 18. All that is done here below, is but the writing of a visible copy, for the sons of men to read, out of the eternal lines of his own purpose. Use. Up and be doing, you that are about the work of the Lord. Your enemies are bread ready to be eaten and yield you refreshment. Do you think if our armies had not walked in a trodden path, they could have made such journeys as they have done of late? Had not God marched before them, and traced out their way from Kent to Essex, from Wales to the north, their carcases had long ere this been cast into the field. Their work was done in heaven before they began 7

VOL. VIII.

it. God was gone over the mulberry-trees, 2 Sam. v. 24. The work might have been done by children, though he was pleased to employ such worthy instruments. They see, I doubt not, their own nothingness in his all-sufficiency. Go on, then; but with this caution, search by all ways and means to find the footsteps of the mighty God going before you.

The trembling condition of the oppressing nations round about, when God appeared so gloriously for his people, is held out, verse 7. Verse 7. "I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction: the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble."

You have here three things considerable.

1. The mention of two nations, enemies of the church: Cushan and Midian.

2. The state and condition of those nations: the tents of the one in affliction, and the curtains of the other in trembling.

&c.

3. The view the prophet had of this, I saw it, saith he: "I saw,"

1. For the first;-these two nations, Cushan and Midian, were the neighbouring people to the Israelites, being in the wilderness when God did such great things for them.

(1.) Cushan; that is, the tent-dwelling Arabians on the south side, towards Ethiopia,-being, as the Ethiopians, of the posterity of Cush (thence called Cushan), the eldest son of scoffing Ham, Gen. x. 6; enemies and opposers of the church (doubtless) all the way down from their profane ancestors. These now beheld the Israelites going to root out their allies and kindred, the Amorites of Canaan, the posterity of Canaan, the younger brother of their progenitor Cush, Gen. x. 6.

(2.) Midian was a people inhabiting the east side of Jordan, on the borders of Moab; so called from their forefather, Midian, the son of Abraham by Keturah, Gen. xxv. 2. These obtained a temporal blessing for a season, from the love borne to their faithful progenitor. In the days of Jacob they were great merchants, Gen. xxxvii. 28. At this time, in less than four hundred years, they were so multiplied, that they had five kings of their nation, Numb. xxxi. 8. Some knowledge of the true God was retained, as it should seem, until now, amongst some of them, being received by tradition from their fathers. Moses' father-in-law was a priest of this country, Exod. ii. 15, 16,— not altogether unacquainted with Jehovah, Exod. xviii,—and was himself, or his son, persuaded to take up his portion in Canaan, Numb. x. 29, 30. But for the generality of the nation, being not heirs of the promise, they were fallen off to superstition and idolatry. Exceeding enemies they were to the people in the wilderness, vexing 1 2 Kings xix. 9; Jer. xiii. 23; Joseph. Antiq.; Isa. xxxvii. 9.

them with their wiles, and provoking them to abominations, that the Lord might consume them, Numb. xxv. 18. None so vile enemies to the church as superstitious apostates. These two nations then set out all manner of opposers;-gross idolaters, as Cushan; and superstitious, envious apostates, as Midian.

2. Their state and condition severally.

(1.) "The tents of Cushan" were in affliction; the tents, the Arabian Ethiopians of Cush, dwelling in tents,—the habitation for the inhabitant, by a hypallage. They were "in affliction, under vanity, under iniquity, the place of vanity," so variously are the words rendered, nnn, "under affliction, vanity, or iniquity." Sin and the punishment of it are frequently in the Scripture of the same name, so near is the relation. is properly and most usually iniquity; but that it is here taken for the consequent of it,-a consuming, perplexed, vexed condition, can be no doubt. The Cushanites, then, were in affliction, full of anguish, fear, dread, vexation, to see what would be the issue of those great and mighty things which God was doing in their borders for his people:-afflicted with Israel's happiness and their own fears; as is the condition of all wicked oppressors.

2

(2.) "The curtains of the land of Midian," for the Midianites dwelling in curtained tabernacles, by the same figure as before. They trembled,—, "moved themselves, were moved;" that is, shaken with fear and trembling, as though they were ready to run from the appearance of the mighty God with his people. The story of it you have in the Book of Numbers, as it was prophetically foretold by Moses concerning other nations, Exod. xv. 14-16, "The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed; the mighty men of Moab," &c. God filled those nations with anguish, sorrow, and amazement, at the protection he granted his people.

3. The prophet's view of all this: "I saw" it, or "I see" it. Though it were eight hundred and seventy years before, supposing him to prophesy about the end of Josiah or beginning of Jehoiakim, yet, taking it under the consideration of faith, he makes it present to his view.

Faith looketh backwards and forwards,-to what God hath done, and to what he hath promised to do. Abraham saw the day of Christ, so many ages after, because he found it by faith in the promise. Habakkuk saw the terrors of Cushan and Midian so many days before, because faith found it recorded among the works of God, to support itself in seeking the like mercies to be renewed. So that

1 "Tantos invidus habet pœnâ justâ tortores, quantos invidiosus habuerit lau datores."-Prosp. de Vita Contemplativa.

1 Numb. xxv., xxxi.

this is the sum of this verse: "O Lord, faith makes it evident, and presents it before my view, how in former days, when thou wast doing great things for thy people, thou filledst all thine and their enemies with fear, vexation, trembling, and astonishment."

XIII. Observation. Faith gives a present subsistence to forepast works as recorded, and future mercies as promised, to support the soul in an evil day.

I have made the doctrine, by analogy, look both ways, though the words of the text look but one.

The apostle tells us, that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," Heb. xi. 1.

1. "Of things hoped for." It looks forward to the promises, and so gives the substance of them in present possession, confirming our minds and hearts, that they may have a subsistence, as it were, within us, though not actually made out unto us.

2. It is "the evidence of things not seen." It extends itself not only to things promised, but, taking for its object the whole word of God, it makes evident and present things that are past also. The faith commended, verse 3, is of things long since done,-even the "making of the things that are seen of the things that do not appear." "Abraham saw my day," saith our Saviour, John viii. 56. He saw it as Habakkuk saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;faith made it present to him; all the ages between him and his promised seed were as nothing to his keen-sighted faith. Hence the apostle puts the mercies of the promise all in one form and rank, as already wrought, though some of them were enjoyed, and some of them in this life cannot be, Rom. viii. 30, "Whom he hath justified, them he hath glorified:" he hath done it for them already, because he hath made them believe it, and that gives it a present subsistence in their spirit. And for forepast works, they are still mentioned by the saints as if they had been done in their days, before their eyes. Elisha calls up to remembrance a former miracle, to the effecting the like, 2 Kings ii. 14.

There be three things in the past or future mercies which faith makes present to the soul, giving, in the substance of them,-(1.) Their love; (2.) Their consolation; (3.) Their use and benefit.

(1.) The love of them. The love that was in former works, and the love that is in promised mercies, that faith draws out, and really makes ours. The love of every recorded deliverance is given to us by faith. It looks into the good-will, the free grace, the loving-kindness of God, in every work that ever he did for his, and cries, Yet this is mine: this is the kernel of that blessing, and this is mine; for the same good-will, the same kindness he hath towards me also. Were the same outward actings needful, I should have them also. The free