I Proceed to those other affections whereby we are to give unto God (so far as Creatures are capable) that honour which is due to those communicable perfections belonging to the Divine Understanding, Will, Faculties of Acting, namely, his Wisdom, Goodness, Power, Dominion, and superiority over us, and his distribution of future Rewards and Punishments; which should respectively excite in us, Affiance, Love, Reverence, and Obedience, both active and passive. And though each of these graces, have sufficient foundation in every one of the Divine excellencies promiscuously, yet there is some more peculiar reference and correspondence amongst them, according to this order.
I purpose to speak to each of them, severally and briefly.
First, Concerning Affiance; by which I mean an acquiescence of the mind, whereby it is supported against all unnecessary doubts and fears, upon account of the Divine All-sufficiency in general, with more special respect to his Knowledg and Wisdom and Providence, whereby he doth take notice of our conditions, and is able to order all things for the best, and doth not permit any thing to befall us without his knowledg of it, and being concerned for it. This Grace, according to its different relations, is usually distinguished into these three branches: 1. As it respects an act of the judgment in assenting to all divine truths, whether discoverable by Reason or by Revelation, so ‘tis styled Faith. 2. As it imports a resting of the will and affections in the Divine goodness, whether discovered to us by the light of nature or by revelation, so ‘tis styled Trust; and according to the greater measure or degree of it, Confidence and Plerophory. So the Heathen, who have no revelation, can support themselves in their sufferings for that which is good, with the consideration that God will take care of them. 3. As it relates to the expectation and desire after some future good which we stand in need of, or the escaping of some evil we are obnoxious unto, so ‘tis styled Hope. But I shall treat of these promiscuously, because they agree in the general nature of Affiance. And how reasonable and proper this affiance in God is, will appear from these considerations.
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‘Tis necessary to our present state in this world, that there should be something for us, to lean upon, and have recourse unto, as our support and refuge.
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God alone is an all-sufficient stay, upon which the mind of man can securely repose it self in every condition.
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‘Tis necessary to our present state in this world, that there should be something for us to lean upon, and have recourse unto, as our support and refuge. This the ancient Poets have signified in their fable of Pandora’s Box, which when Epimetheus had opened, and saw all manner of evils flying out of it, he suddenly closed it again, and so kept in Hope at the bottom of it, as being the only remedy left to mankind, against all those evils to which they are obnoxious. Every man at his best estate, is but a feeble infirm creature; what from the impotence of his mind, and the disorder of his passions from within; together with the troubles and difficulties that he shall meet withall from without; the great obscurity which there is in the nature of things, that uncertainty which attends the issues and events of them; the mutability of all humane affairs, which cannot possibly be secured by all the imaginable wisdom and foresight which men are capable of. From all which it sufficiently appears, that faith and hope and trust are altogether necessary to the state of men in this world; and that they must always be in an unsafe, unquiet condition, unless they have somewhat to support and relieve them in their exigences. ‘Tis observed of the Hopp, and other such climbing Plants, which are not of strength enough to bear up themselves, that they will by natural instinct lean towards and clasp about any thing that is next, which may help to bear them up; and in the want of a Tree or a Pole, which is their proper support, they will wind about a Thistle or a Nettle, or any other Weed, though in the issue it will help to choak and destroy the growth of them, instead of furthering it. The application is easie, All flesh is grass, and the (Isa. 40. 6) glory thereof, as the flower of the field, of a fading impotent condition, standing in need of something without it self for its protection and support. And a mistake in the choice of such helps, may sometimes prove fatal. Our conditions in this world are often in Scripture represented by a state of warfare, wherein the virtues of Faith and Hope are said to be our Brestplate,1 our Shield, and our Helmet, the chief defensive arms, whereby we are to be guarded against all assaults. And sometimes by a state travelling by Sea, wherein Hope is our Anchor, that which must fix and keep us steddy in the midst of all (Heb. 6. 19) storms.
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God alone is an all-sufficient stay, upon which the mind of man can securely repose it self in every condition. For which reason he is in the Scripture phrase styled the Hope of Israel, the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of such as2 are afar off upon the Sea, the God of Hope. Which Titles he hath been pleased to assume unto himself, to teach us this lesson, that our Faith and Hope should be in (1 Pet. 1. 21) God.