Part III: Under the Mighty Hand of God

1 PETER v. 6.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.

In the preceding part of this chapter, the apostle presseth the duties of church-officers towards the people, and then the duty of the people both towards their officers and among themselves, which he winds up in one word, submission. For which causes he recommends humility as the great means to bring all to their respective duties. This is inforced with an argument taken from the different treatment the Lord gives to the proud and the humble; his opposing himself to the one, and shewing favour to the other. Our text is an exhortation drawn from that consideration: and in it we have,

1. The duty we are therefore to study. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. And herein we may notice,

(1.) The state of those whom it is proposed to, these under the mighty hand of God, whom his hand has humbled, or stated some way low in respect of their circumstances in the world. And by these are, I think, meant, not only such as are under particular signal afflictions, which is the lot of some, but also those, who, by the providence of God, are any manner of way lowered, which is the lot of all. All being in a state of submission or dependence on others, God has made this life a state of trial; and for that cause he has, by his mighty hand, subjected men one to another, as wives, children, servants, to husbands, parents, masters; and these again to their superiors; among whom, again, even the highest depend on those under them, as magistrates and ministers on the people, even the supreme magistrate, being major singulis, minor universis. This state of the world God has made for taking trial of men in their several stations and dependence on others: and therefore, when the time of trial is over, it also comes to an end. “Then cometh the end—when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power,” 1 Cor. xv. 24, 25. Mean time, while it lasts, it makes humility necessary to all, to prompt them to the duty they owe their superiors, to whom God’s mighty hand has subjected them.

(2.) The duty itself, viz. humiliation of our spirits under humbling circumstances the Lord has placed us in. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Whether it is we are under particular afflictions, which have cast us down from the height we were sometimes in, or whether we p. 553 are only inferiors in one or more relations, or whether, which is most common, both these are in our case, we must therein eye the mighty hand of God, as that which placed us there, and is over us there to hold us down in it; and so, with an awful regard thereto, crouch down under it in the temper and disposition of our spirit, suiting our spirits to our lot, and careful of performing the duty of our low sphere.

(3.) A particular spring of this duty therefore we must consider, that those who cannot quietly keep the place assigned them of God, in their afflictions or relations, but still press upward against the mighty hand that is over them, that mighty hand resists them, throwing them down, and often farther down than before; whereas it treats them with grace and favour that compose themselves under it, to a quiet discharge of their duty in their situation; so, eyeing this, we must set ourselves to humble ourselves.

2. The infallible issue of that course, that he may exalt you in due time. The particle that, is not always to be understood finally, as denoting the end or design the agent proposes to himself, but sometimes eventually only, as denoting the event or issue of the action, John ix. 2. 1 John ii. 19. So here, the meaning is not, humble yourselves, on design he may exalt you, but—and it shall issue in his exalting you. Compare James iv. 10.

(1.) Here is a happy event of humiliation of spirit secured, and that is exaltation or lifting up on high by the power of God, that he, &c. Exalting will as surely follow on humiliation of spirit, suitable to the low condition, as the morning follows the night, or the sun riseth after the dawning. And these words are fitted to obviate the objections that the world and our corrupt hearts are apt to make against bringing down the spirit to the low condition.

Object. 1. If we let our spirit fall, we will lie always among folk’s feet, and they will trample on us. Answ. No: pride of spirit unsubdued will bring men to lie among the feet of others for ever, Is. lxvi. 24. But humiliation of spirit will bring them undoubtedly out from among their feet, Mal. iv. 2, 3. They that humble themselves now will be exalted for ever; they will be brought out of their low situation and circumstances. Cast ye yourselves even down with your low lot, and assure yourselves ye shall not lie there.

Object. 2. If we do not raise ourselves, none will raise us: and therefore we must see to ourselves to do ourselves right. Answ. That is wrong. Humble ye yourselves in respect of your spirits, and God will raise you up in respect of your lot or low condition; and they that have God engaged for raising them, have no reason to say they have none to do it for them. Bringing down the spirit is our p. 554 duty, raising us up is God’s work: let us not forfeit the privilege of God’s raising us up, by arrogating that work to ourselves, taking it out of his hand.

Object. 3. But surely we will never rise high, if we let our spirits fall. Answ. That is wrong too. God will not only raise the humble ones, but he will lift them up on high; for so the word signifies. They shall be as high at length as ever they were low, were they ever so low; nay, the exaltation will bear proportion to the humiliation.

(2.) Here is the date of that happy event, when it will fall out. In due time, or in the season, the proper season for it, Gal. vi. 9.— “In due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” We are apt to weary in humbling trying circumstances, and ay we would have up our head, John vii. 6. But Solomon observes, there is a time for every thing when it does best, and the wise will wait it, Eccles. iii. There is a time too for exalting them that humble themselves; God has set it, and it is the due time for the purpose, the time when it does best, even as sowing in the spring, and reaping in the harvest. When that time comes, your exalting shall no longer be put off, and it would come too soon should it come before that time.

The bent of one’s heart, in humbling circumstances, should lie towards a suitable humbling of the spirit, as under God’s mighty hand placing us in them.

I. Some things supposed in this. It supposeth and bears in it, that,

1. God brings men into humbling circumstances, Ezek. xvii. 24. “And all the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree.”—There is a root of pride in the hearts of all men on earth, that must be mortified ere they can be meet for heaven: and therefore no man can miss, in this time of trial, some things that will give a proof, whether he can stoop or no. And God brings them into humbling circumstances for that very end, Deut. viii. 2.—“The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.”

2. These circumstances prove pressing as a weight on the heart, tending to bear it down, Psal. cvii. 12. “Therefore he brought down their heart with labour.”—They strike at the grain of the heart, and cross the natural inclination: whence a trial natively ariseth, whether, when God lays on his mighty hand, the man can yield under it or not; and consequently, whether he is meet for heaven or not.

3. The heart is naturally apt to rise against these humbling circumstances, and consequently against the mighty hand that brings and keeps them on. The man naturally bends his force to get off the weight, that he may get up his head, seeking more to please himself than to please his God, Job xxxv. 9, 10.—“They cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty: but none saith, Where is God my maker?” This is the first gate the heart runs to in humbling circumstances, and in this way the unsubdued spirits hold on.

4. But what God requires, is, rather to labour to bring down the heart than to get up the head, James iv. 10. Here lies the proof of one’s meetness for heaven; and then is one in the way heavenward, when he is more concerned to get down his heart, than up his head, to go calmly under his burden than to get it off, to crouch under the mighty hand than to put it off him.

Lastly, There must be a noticing of God as our party, in humbling circumstances—“Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it,” Mic. vi. 9. There is an abjectness of spirit, whereby some give up themselves to the will of others in the harshest treatment, merely to please them, without regard to the authority and command of God. This is real meanness of spirit, whereby one lies quietly to be trampled on by a fellow-worm, from its imaginary weight: and none so readily fall into it as the proud, at sometimes to serve their own turn, Acts xii. 22. These are men-pleasers, Eph. vi. 6. with Gal. i. 10.

11. What are these humbling circumstances the mighty hand brings them into. Supposing here, what was before taught concerning the crook in the lot’s being of God’s making, these are circumstances,

1. Of imperfection. God has placed all men in such circumstances, under a variety of wants and imperfections, Phil. iii. 12. We can look nowhere where we are not beset with them. There is a heap of natural and moral imperfections about us: our bodies and our souls, in all their faculties, are in a state of imperfection. The pride of all glory is stained, and it is a shame to us not to be humbled under such wants as attend us; it is like a beggar strutting in his rags.

2. Of inferiority in relations, whereby men are set in the lower place in relations and society, and made to depend on others, 1 Cor. vii. 24. God has for trial of men’s submission to himself, subjected them to others whom he has set over them, to discover what regard they will pay to his authority and commands at second hand. Dominion or superiority is a part of the divine image, 1 Cor. xi. 7. And therefore reverence of them, consisting in an awful regard to p. 556 that ray of the divine image shining in them, is necessarily required, Eph. v. 33. Heb. xii. 9. compare Psal. cxi. 9. The same holds in all other relations and superiorities, viz. that they are so far in the place of God to their relatives, Psal. xxxii. 6. And though the parties be worthless in themselves, that looseth not one from the debt to them, Acts xxiii. 4, 5. Rom. xiii. 7. The reason is, because it is not their qualities, but their character, which is the ground of that debt of reverence and subjection; and the trial God takes of us in that matter turns not on the point of the former, but of the latter.

Now, God having placed us in these circumstances of inferiority, all refractoriness in all things, not contrary to the command of God, is a rising up against his mighty hand, Rom. xiii. 2. because it is mediately upon us for that effect, though it is man’s hand that is immediately on us.

3. Of contradiction, tending directly to baulk us of our will. This was a part of our Lord’s state of humiliation, and the apostle supposes it will be a part of ours too, Heb. xii. 3. There is a perfect harmony in heaven, no one to contradict another there; for they are in their state of retribution and exaltation: but we are here in our state of trial and humiliation, and therefore cannot miss contradiction, be we placed ever so high.

Whether these contradictions be just or unjust, God trysts men with them to humble them, break them off from addictedness to their own will, and to teach them resignation and self-denial. They are in their own nature humbling, and much the same to us, as the breaking of a horse or a bullock is to them. And I believe there are many cases in which there can be no accounting for them, but by recurring to this use God has for them.

4. Of affliction, Prov. xvi. 19. Prosperity puffs up sinners with pride; and O but it is hard to keep a low spirit with a high and prosperous lot. But God by affliction calls men down from their heights to sit in the dust, plucks away their jay-feathers wherein they prided themselves, rubs the paint and varnish from off the creature, whereby it appears in its native deformity. There are various kinds of affliction, some more, some less humbling, but all of them are humbling.

Wherefore, not to lower the spirit under the affliction, is to pretend to rise up when God is casting and holding down, with a witness, and cannot miss, if continued in, to provoke the Lord to break us in pieces, Ezek. xxiv. 13. For the afflicting hand is mighty.

Lastly, Of sin as the punishment of sin. We may allude to that, Job xxx. 19. All the sin in the world is a punishment of Adam’s p. 557 first sin. Man threw himself into the mire at first, and now he is justly left weltering in it. Men wilfully make one false step, and for that cause they are justly left to make another worse; and sin hangs about all, even the best. And this is over-ruled of God for our humiliation, that we may be ashamed, and never open our mouth any more. Wherefore, not to be humble under our sinfulness, is to rise up against the mighty hand of God, and justify all our sinful departings from him, as lost to all sense of duty, and void of shame.

III. What it is, in humbling circumstances, to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. This is the great thing to be aimed at in our humbling circumstances: and we may take it up in these eight things.

1. Noticing the mighty hand, as employed in bringing about every thing that concerns us, either in the way of efficacy or permission, 1 Sam. iii. 18. “And he said, It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.” 2 Sam. xvi. 10. “And the king said, The Lord hath said unto him, Curse David; who shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so?” He is the Fountain of all perfection, but we must trace our imperfections to his sovereign will. It is he that has posted every one in their relations by his providence; without him we could not meet with such contradictions; for “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he pleaseth,” Prov. xxi. 1. He sends on afflictions, and he justly punishes one sin with another, Is. vi. 10.

2. A sense of our own worthlessness and nothingness before him, Psal. cxliv. 3. Looking to the infinite majesty of the mighty hand dealing with us, we should say, with Abraham, Gen. xviii. 27. “Behold I am but dust and ashes,” and say amen to the cry, Is. xl. 6. “All flesh is grass,” &c. The keeping up of thoughts of our own excellency under the pressures of the mighty hand, is the very thing that swells the heart in pride, causing it to rise up against it. And it is the letting of all such thoughts of ourselves fall before the eyes of his glory, that is the humbling required.

3. A sense of our guilt and filthiness, Rom. iii. 10. Is. lxiv. 6. The mighty hand doth not press us down, but as sinners: it is meet then that under it we see our sinfulness; our guilt, whereby we will appear criminals justly caused to suffer; our filthiness, whereupon we may be brought to lothe ourselves: and then we will think nothing lays us lower than we well deserve. It is the overlooking our sinfulness that suffers the proud heart to swell.

4. A silent submission under the hand of God. His sovereignty challengeth this of us, Rom. ix. 20. “Nay but, O man, who art thou p. 558 that repliest against God?”—And nothing but unsubdued height and pride of spirit can allow us to answer again under the sovereign hand. A view of the sovereign hand humbled and awed the Psalmist into a submission with a profound silence, Psal. xxxix. 9. “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.” Job i. 21. “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” And xl. 4, 5. “What shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth. Once have I spoken, but I will not answer: yea, twice, but I will proceed no farther.” Eli, 1 Sam. iii. 18. “It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.”

5. A magnifying of his mercies towards us in the midst of all his proceedings against us, Psal. cxliv. 3. Has he laid us low? If we be duly humbled, we will wonder he has laid us no lower, Ezra ix. 13. For, however low the humble are laid, they will see they are not yet so low as their sins deserve, Lam. iii. 22.

6. A holy and silent admiration of the ways and counsels of God, as to us unsearchable, Rom. xi. 33. Pride of heart thinks nothing too high for the man, and so arraigns before its tribunal the divine proceedings, pretends to see through them, censures freely and condemns: but humiliation of spirit disposes a man to think awfully and honourably of the mysteries of providence he is not able to see through.

7. A forgetting and laying aside before the Lord all our dignity, whereby we excel others, Rev. iv. 10. Pride feeds itself on the man’s real or imaginary personal excellency and dignity, and, being so inured to it before others, cannot forget it before God. Luke xviii. 11. “God, I thank thee, I am not as other men.” But humiliation of spirit makes it all to evanish before him, as doth the shadow before the shining sun, and it lays the man in his own eyes, lower that any. “Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man,” Prov. xxx. 2.

Lastly, A submitting readily to the meanest offices requisite in or agreeable to our circumstances. Pride at every turn finds something that is below the man to condescend or stoop to, measuring by his own mind and will, not by the circumstances God has placed him in. But humility measures by the circumstances one is placed in, and readily falls in with what they require. Hereof our Saviour gives us an example, (Phil. ii. 8. “He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death), to be imitated, John xiii. 14. “If I then your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another’s feet.”

USE. Let the bent of your heart then, in all your humbling circumstances, be towards the humbling of your spirit, as under the mighty hand of God. This lies in two things.

1. Carefully notice all your humbling circumstances, and overlook none of them. Observe your imperfections, inferiority in relations, contradictions you meet with, your afflictions, uncertainty of all things about you, and your sinfulness. Look through them designedly, and consider the steps of the conduct of providence toward you in these, that ye may know yourselves, and may not be strangers at home, blind to your own real state and case.

2. Observing what these circumstances do require of you, as suitable to them, bend your endeavours towards it, to bring your spirits into that temper of humiliation, that, as your lot is really low in all these respects, so your spirits may be low too, as under the mighty hand of God. Let this be your great aim through your whole life, your exercise every day.

Motive 1. God is certainly at work to humble one and all of us. However high any are lifted up in this world, providence has hung certain badges for humiliation on them, whether they will notice them or not, Is. xl. 6. Now it is our duty to fall in with the design of providence, that, while God is humbling us, we may be humbling ourselves, and that we may not receive humbling dispensations in vain.

2. The humiliation of our spirits will not take effect without our own agency therein: while God is working on us that way, we must work together with him; for he works on us as rational agents, who being moved, move themselves, Phil. ii. 12, 13. God by his providence may force down our lot and condition without us; but the spirit must come down voluntarily and of choice, or not at all: therefore strike in with humbling providences in humbling yourselves, as mariners spread out the sails when the wind begins to blow, that they may go away before it.

3. If ye do not, ye resist the mighty hand of God, Acts vii. 51. Ye resist in so far as ye do not yield, but stand as a rock, keeping your ground against your Maker in humbling providence, Jer. v. 3. “Thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved: thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction. They have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return.” Much more when ye work against him to force up your condition, which ye may see God means to hold down. And of this resistance consider,

(1.) The sinfulness, what an evil thing it is. It is a direct fighting against God, a shaking off of subjection to our sovereign Lord, and a rising in rebellion against him, Is. xiv. 9.

(2.) The folly of it. How unequal is the match? How can the struggle end well? Job ix. 4. What else can possibly be the p. 560 issue of the potsherds of the earth dashing against the Rock of ages, but that they be broken to pieces? We must say, as Job xli. 8. All men must certainly bow or break under the mighty hand.

4. This is the time of humiliation, even the time of this life. “Every thing is beautiful in its season:” and the bringing down of the spirit now is beautiful, as in the time thereof, even as the ploughing and sowing of the ground is in the spring. Consider,

(1.) Humiliation of spirit “is in the sight of God of great price,” 1 Pet. iii. 4. As he has a special aversion to pride of heart, he has a special liking of humility, chap. v. 5. The humbling of sinners, and bringing them down from their heights, wherein the corruption of their nature has set them, is the great end of his word, and of his providences.

It is no easy thing to humble men’s spirits; it is not little that will do it; it is a work that is not soon done. There is need of a digging deep for a thorough humiliation in the work of conversion, Luke vi. 48. Many a stroke must be given at the root of the tree of the natural pride of the heart ere it fall; oft-times it seems to be fallen, and yet it rises again. And, even when the root-stroke is given in believers, the rod of pride buds again, so that there is still occasion for new humbling work.

(3.) The whole time of this life is appointed for humiliation. This was signified by the forty years the Israelites had in the wilderness, Deut. viii. 2. It was so to Christ, and therefore it must be so to men, Heb. xii. 2. And in that time they must either be formed according to his image, or else appear as reprobate silver that will not take it on by any means, Rom. viii. 29. So that whatever lifting up men may now and then get in this life, the habitual course of it will still be humbling.

(4.) There is no humbling after, Rev. xxii. 11. If the pride of the heart be not brought down in this life, it will never be: no kindly humiliation is to be expected in another life. There the proud will be broken in pieces, but not softened; their lot and condition will be brought to the lowest pass, but the unhumbleness of their spirits will still remain, whence they will be in eternal agonies, through the opposition betwixt their spirits and lot, Rev. xvi. 21.

Wherefore beware lest ye sit your time of humiliation; humbled we must be, or we are gone for ever; and this is the time, the only time of it: therefore make your hay while the sun shines; strike in with humbling providences, and fight not against them while ye have them, Acts xiii. 41. The season of grace will not last; if ye sleep in seed-time, ye will beg in harvest.

5. This is the way to turn humbling circumstances to a good p. 561 account: so that instead of being losers, ye would be gainers by them, Psal. cxix. 71. “It is good for me that I have been afflicted.” Would ye gather grapes of these thorns and thistles, set yourselves to get your spirits humbled by them.

(1.) Humiliation of spirit is a most valuable thing in itself, Prov. xvi. 32. It cannot be bought too dear. Whatever one is made to suffer, if his spirit is thereby brought down, he has what is well worth bearing all the hardship for, 1 Pet. iii. 4.

(2.) Humility of spirit brings many advantages along with it. It is a fruitful bough, well loaden, where ever it is. It contributes to one’s ease under the cross, Matth. xi. 30. Lam. iii. 27, 28, 29. It is a sacrifice particularly acceptable to God, Psal. li. 17. The eye of God is particularly on such for good, Is. lxvi. 2.—“To this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Yea, he dwells with them, Is. lvii. 15. And it carries a line of wisdom through one’s whole conduct, Prov. xi. 2.—“With the lowly is wisdom.”

Lastly, Consider it is a mighty hand that is at work with us; the hand of the mighty God: let us then bend our spirits towards a compliance with it, and not wrestle against it. Consider,

(1.) We must fall under it. Since the design of it is to bring us, down, we cannot stand before it; for it cannot miscarry in its designs, Is. xlvi. 10.—“My counsel shall stand.”—So fall before it we must, either in the way of duty or judgment, Psal. xlvi. 4. “Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies, whereby the people fall under thee.”

(2.) They that are so wise as to fall in humiliation under the mighty hand, be they never so low, the same hand will raise them up again, James iv. 10. In a word, be the proud never so high, God will bring them down. Be the humble never so low, God will raise them up.

Directions for reaching this humiliation.

1. General Directions.

Direction 1. Fix it in your heart to seek some spiritual improvement of the conduct of providence towards you, Micah vi. 9. Till once your heart get a set that way, your humiliation is not to be expected, Hos. xiv. 9. But nothing more reasonable, if we would act either like men or Christians, than to aim at what is so grievous to the flesh unto the profit of the spirit; that if we are losers at one hand, we may be gainers at another.

2. Settle the matter of your eternal salvation, in the first place, p. 562 by betaking yourself to Christ, and taking God for your God in him, according to the gospel-offer, Hos. ii. 19. Heb. viii. 10. Let your humbling circumstances move you to this, that while the creature dries up, you may go to the Fountain: for it is impossible to reach due humiliation under the mighty hand, without faith in him as your God and Friend, Heb. xi. 6. 1 John iv. 19.

Lastly, Use the means of soul-humbling in the faith of the promise, Psal. xxviii. 7. Moses smiting the rock, in the faith of the promise, made waters gush out, which otherwise would not have appeared. Let us do likewise in dealing with our rocky hearts. They must be laid on the soft bed of the gospel, and struck there, as Joel ii. 13.—“Turn to the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful,”—or they will never kindly break or fall in humiliation.

II. Particular Directions.

1. Assure yourselves that there are no circumstances so humbling that you are in, but you may get your heart acceptably brought down to them, 1 Cor. x. 13.—“But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” This is truth, 2 Cor. xii. 9.—“My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”—And you would be persuaded of it with application to yourselves, if ever you would reach the end, Phil. iv. 13. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” God allows you to be persuaded of it, whatever is your weakness and the difficulty of the task:—“For our sakes this is written: that he that plougheth should plough in hope, and he that thresheth in hope, should be partaker of his hope, 1 Cor. ix. 10. And the belief thereof is a piece of the life of faith, 2 Tim. ii. 1. If you have no hope of success, your endeavours, as they will be heartless, so they will be vain. “Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees,” Heb. xii. 12.

2. Whatever hand is, or is not, in your humbling circumstances, do you take God for your party, and consider yourselves therein as under his mighty hand, Micah vi. 9. Men in their humbling circumstances overlook God: so they find not themselves called to humility under them; they fix their eyes on the creature-instrument, and instead of humility, their hearts rise. But take him for your party, that ye may remember the battle, and do no more, Job xli. 8.

3. Be much in the thoughts of God’s infinite greatness: consider his holiness and majesty, fit to awe you into deepest humiliation, Is. vi. 3.—5. Job met with many humbling providences in his case, but he was never sufficiently humbled under them, till the Lord p. 563 made a new discovery of himself unto him, in his infinite majesty and greatness. He kept his ground against his friends, and stood to his points, till the Lord took that method with him. It was begun with thunder, Job xxxviii. 1, 2. Then followed God’s voice out of the whirlwind, chap. xxxviii. 1. whereon Job is brought down, chap. xl. 4, 5. It is renewed till he is farther humbled, chap. xlii. 5, 6. “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

4. Inure yourselves silently to admit mysteries in the conduct of providence towards you, which you are not able to comprehend, but will adore, Rom. xi. 33. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” That was the first word God said to Job, chap. xxxviii. 2. “Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” It took him by the heart, stuck with him, and he comes over it again, chap. xlii. 3. as that which particularly brought him to his knees to the dust. Even in these steps of providence, which we seem to see far into, we may well allow, there are some mysteries beyond what we see. And, in those which are perplexing and puzzling, sovereignty should silence us; his infinite wisdom should satisfy, though we cannot see.

5. Be much in the thoughts of your own sinfulness, Job xl. 4. “Behold I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.” It is overlooking that which gives us so much ado with humbling circumstances. While the eyes are held, that they cannot see sin, the heart riseth against them; but when they are opened, it falls. Wherefore whenever God is dealing with you in humbling dispensations, turn your eyes upon that occasion, on the sinfulness of your nature, heart, and life, and that will help forward your humiliation.

6. Settle it in your heart, that there is need of all the humbling circumstances, you are put in. This is truth, 1 Pet. i. 6.—“Though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations.” God brings no needless trials upon us, afflicts none but as their need requires, Lam. iii. 33. “For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” That is an observable difference betwixt our earthly and heavenly Father’s correction, Heb. xii. 10.—“they, after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.” Look to the temper of your own hearts and nature, how apt to be lift up, forget God, carried away with the vanities of the world; what foolishness is bound up in your heart. Thus you will see the need of humbling circumstances for ballast, and of the rod for the fool’s back; and if at any time you cannot see that need, believe on the ground of God’s infinite wisdom, that does nothing in vain.

7. Believe a kind design of providence in them towards you. God calls us to this, as the key that opens the heart under them, Rev. iii. 19. Satan suggests suspicions to the contrary, as the bar which may hold it shut, 2 Kings vi. 33.—“This evil is of the Lord, what should I wait for the Lord any longer?” As long as the suspicions of an ill design in them against us reigns, the creature will, like the worm at the man’s foot, put itself in the best posture of defence it can, and harden itself in sorrow: but the faith of a kind design will cause it open out itself in humility before him.

Case. O! if I knew there were a kind design in it, I would willingly bear it, although there were more of it; but I fear a ruining design of providence against me therein. Answ. Now, what word of God, or discovery from heaven, have you to ground these fears upon? None at all, but from hell, 1 Cor. x. 13. What think you the design towards you in the gospel is? Can you believe no kind design towards you in all the words of grace there heaped up? What is that, I pray, but black unbelief in its hue of hell, Is. lv. 1. flying in the face of the truth of God, and making him a liar, 1 John v. 10, 11. The gospel is a breathing of love and good-will to the world of mankind-sinners, Tit. ii. 11. and iii. 4. 1 John iv. 14. and John iii. 17. But ye believe it not, in that case, more than devils believe it. But if ye can believe a kind design there, ye must believe it in your humbling circumstances too; for the design of providence cannot be contrary to the design of the gospel: but contrarywise the latter is to help forward to the other.

8. Think with yourselves, that this life is the time of trial for heaven, James i. 12. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” And therefore there should be a welcoming of humbling circumstances on that view, ver. 2.—“Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” If there is an honourable office, or beneficial employment to be bestowed, men strive to be taken on trials for it, in hope they may be thereupon legally admitted to it. Now God takes trial of men for heaven by humbling circumstances, as the whole Bible teacheth: and shall men be so very loath to stoop to them? I would ask you,

(1.) Is it nothing to you to stand a candidate for glory, to be put on trials for heaven? Is there not an honour in it; an honour which all the saints have had? James v. 11. “Behold we count them happy that endure,” &c. And a fair prospect in it? 2 Cor. iv. 17. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Do but put the case, that God should overlook you in that case, as one p. 565 whom it is needless ever to try on that head; that he should order you your portion in this life with full ease, as one that is to get no more of him: what would that be?

(2.) What a vast disproportion is there between your trials and the glory? Your most humbling circumstances, how light are they in comparison of the weight of it? The longest continued of them are but for a moment, compared with that eternal weight. Alas! there is much unbelief at the root of all our uneasiness under our humbling circumstances. Had we a clearer view of the other world, we would not make so much of either the smiles or frowns of this.

(3.) What think ye of coming foul off the trial of your humbling circumstances? Jer. vi. 29, 30.—“The lead is consumed of the fire: the founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.” That the issue of it be only, that your heart appear of such a temper as by no means to be humbled; and that therefore you must and shall be taken off them, while yet no humbling appears? I think the awfulness of the dispensation is such, as might set us to our knees to deprecate the lifting us up from our humbling circumstances, ere our heart be humbled, Is. i. 5. Ezek. xxiv. 13.

9. Think with yourselves, how it is by humbling circumstances the Lord prepares us for heaven: Col. i. 12. “Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light,” with 2 Cor. v. 5. The stones and timber are laid down, turned over and over, and hewed ere they be set up in the building; and not just set up as they come out of the quarry and wood. Were they capable of a choice, such of them as would refuse the iron tool would be refused a place in the building. Pray, how think ye to be made meet for heaven, by the warm sunshine of this world’s ease, and getting all your will here? Nay, sirs, that would put your mouth out of taste for the joys of the other world. Vessels of dishonour are fitted for destruction that way; but vessels of honour for glory by humbling circumstances. I would here say,

1st, Will nothing please you but two heavens, one here, another hereafter? God has secured one heaven for the saints, one place where they shall all get their will, wish and desire; where there shall be no weight on them to hold them down: and that is in the other world. But ye must have it both here and there, or ye cannot digest it. Why do ye not quarrel too, that there are not two summers in one year; two days in the twenty four hours? The order of the one heaven is as firm as that of the years and days, and ye will not reverse it: therefore choose ye whether ye will take p. 566 your night or your day first, your winter or your summer, your heaven here or hereafter.

2dly, Without being humbled with humbling circumstances in this life, ye are not capable of heaven, 2 Cor. v. 5. “Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” Ye may indeed lie at ease here in a bed of sloth, and dream of heaven, big with hopes of a fool’s paradise, wishing to cast yourselves just out of Delilah’s lap into Abraham’s bosom: but without ye be humbled ye are not capable,

(1.) Of the Bible-heaven, that heaven described in the Old and New Testament. Is not that heaven a lifting up in due time? But how shall ye be lifted up that are never well gotten down? Where will your tears be to be wiped away? What place will there be for your triumph that will not fight the good fight? How can it be a rest to you, who cannot away with labour?

(2.) Of the saints’ heaven, Rev. vii. 14. “And he said unto me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” This answers the question anent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the saints with them there: they were brought down to the dust with humbling circumstances, and out of these they came before the throne. How can ye ever think to be lifted up with them, with whom ye cannot think to be brought down?

(3.) Of Christ’s heaven, Heb. xii. 2.—“Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of God.” O consider how the forerunner made his way, Luke xxiv. 26. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” And lay your accounts with it, that if ye get where he is, ye must go thither as he went, Luke ix. 23. “And he said, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

10. Give up at length with your towering hopes from this world, and confine them to the world to come. Be as pilgrims and strangers here, looking for your rest in heaven, and not till ye come there. There is a prevailing evil, Is. lvii. 10. “Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way: yet saidst thou not, There is no hope.” —So the Babel building is still continued, though it has fallen down again and again: for men say, “The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars,” Is. ix. 10. This makes humbling work very longsome, we are so hard to quit our grip of the creature, to fall off from the breast and be weaned. But fasten p. 567 your gripes on the other world, and let your gripe of this go: so shall ye be humbled indeed under the mighty hand. The faster you gripe the happiness of that world, the easier will it be to accommodate yourselves to your humbling circumstances here.

Lastly, Make use of Christ in all his offices, for your humiliation under your humbling circumstances. That only is kindly humiliation that comes in that way, Zech. xii. 10. “And they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn,” &c. That you must do by trusting on him for that effect,

(1.) As a priest for you. You have a conscience full of guilt, and that will make one uneasy in any circumstances, and far more in humbling circumstances; it will be like a thorn in the shoulder on which a burden is laid. But the blood of Christ will purge the conscience, draw out the thorn, give ease, Is. xxxiii. 24. and fit for service, doing or suffering, Heb. ix. 14. “How much more shall the blood of Christ—purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”

(2.) As your prophet to teach you. We have need to be taught rightly to discern our humbling circumstances: for often we mistake them so far, that they prove an oppressing load; whereas, could we rightly see them, just as God sets them to us, they would be humbling, but not so oppressive. Truly we need Christ, and the light of his word and Spirit, to let us see our cross and trial, as well as our duty, Psal. xxv. 9, 10.

(3.) As your king. You have a stiff heart loath to bow even in humbling circumstances: take a lesson from Moses what to do in such a case, Exod. xxxiv. 9. “And he said—Let my Lord, I pray thee, go amongst us, (for it is a stiff-necked people), and pardon our iniquity, and our sin.” Put it in his hand that is strong and mighty, Psal. xxiv. 8. He is able to cause it melt, and like wax, before the fire, turn to the seal.

Think on these directions, in order to put them in practice, remembering that if ye “know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” Remember, humbling work is a work that will fill your hand while you live here, and that you cannot come to the end of till death; and humbling circumstances will attend you, while you are in this lower world. A change of them ye may get; but a freedom from them ye cannot, till ye come to heaven. So the humbling circumstances of our imperfections, relations, contradictions, afflictions, uncertainties, and sinfulness, will afford matter of exercise to us while here. What remains of the purpose of this text, I shall comprise in, p. 568

There is a due time, wherein those that now humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, will certainly be lifted up. We shall take,

First, A general view of this point. And consider, I. Some things supposed and implied in it. It bears,

1. That those who shall share of his lifting up, must lay their accounts, in the first place, with a casting down, Rev. vii. 14. John xvi. 33. “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” There is no coming to the promised land, according to the settled method of grace, but through the wilderness; nor entering into this exaltation, but through a strait gate. If we cannot away with casting down, we will not taste of the sweet of the lifting up.

2. Being cast down by the mighty hand of God, we must learn to lie still and quiet under it, till the same hand that casts us down raise us up, if we would share of this promised lifting up, Lam. iii. 27. It is not the being cast down into humbling circumstances by the providence of God, but the coming down of our spirits under them by the grace of God, that brings us within the compass of this promise.

3. Never humbled in humbling circumstances, never lifted up in the way of this promise. Men may keep their spirits on the high bend in their humbling circumstances, and in that case may get a lifting up, Prov. xvi. 19. But note this, that what they get will be a lifting up, to the end they may get the more grievous fall. “Surely thou didst set them in slippery places, thou castedst them down in a moment,” Psal. lxxiii. 18. But they who will not humble themselves in humbling circumstances, will find their obstinacy a need-nail, that will keep their misery ever fast on them without remedy.

4. Humility of spirit in humbling circumstances ascertains a lifting up out of them some time with the good-will and favour of Heaven, Luke xviii. 14. “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself, shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Solomon observes, Prov. xv. 1. that “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” And so it is, that while the proud through their obstinacy, do but wreathe the yoke faster about their own necks, the yielding humble ones, by their yielding, make their relief sure, 1 Sam. ii. 8, 9, 10. “He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory—He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail. The p. 569 adversaries of the Lord shall be broken in pieces.”—So the cannon-ball breaks down a stone-wall, while the yielding packs of wool take away its force.

5. There is an appointed time for the lifting up of those that humble themselves in their humbling circumstances, Hab. ii. 3. “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” To every thing there is a time, as for humbling, so for lifting up, Eccles. iii. 3. We know it not, but God knows it, who has appointed it. Let not the humble one say, I will never be lifted up: there is a time fixed for it, as precisely as for the rising of the sun, after the long and dark night, or the return of the spring after the long and sharp winter.

6. It is not to be expected, that immediately upon one’s humbling himself, the lifting up is to follow. No, one is not only to lie down under the mighty hand, but lie still waiting the due time; humbling work is longsome work: the Israelites had forty years of it in the wilderness. God’s people must be brought to put a blank in his hand, as to the time, and while they have a long night of walking in darkness, must trust, Is. l. 10. “Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.”

7. The appointed time for the lifting up is the due time, the time fittest for it, wherein it will come most seasonably. “And let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not,” Gal. vi. 9. For that is the time God has chosen for it: and be sure his choice, as the choice of infinite wisdom, is the best; and therefore faith sets to wait it, Is. xxviii. 16.—“He that believeth shall not make haste.” There is much of the beauty of a thing depends on the timing of it, and he has fixed that in all he does, Eccles. iii. 11. “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.”

Lastly, The lifting up of the humbled will not miss to come in the appointed and due time, Hab. ii. 3. Time makes no halting, it is running day and night: so the due time is fast coming, and, when it comes, it will bring the lifting up along with it. Let the humbling circumstances be ever so low, ever so hopeless, it is impossible but the lifting up from them must come in the due time.

II. A word in the general to the lifting up abiding those that humble themselves. There is a twofold lifting up.

1. A partial lifting up, competent to the humbled in time during this life, Psal. xxx. 1. “I will extol thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.” This is p. 570 a lifting up in part, and but in part, not wholly; and such liftings up the humbled may expect while in this world, but no more. These give a breathing to the weary, a change of burdens, but do not set them at perfect ease. So Israel, in the wilderness, in midst of their many mourning times, had some singing ones, Exod. xv. 1. Numb. xxi. 17.

2. A total lifting up, competent to them at the end of time, at death, Luke xvi. 22.—“It came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.”—Then the Lord deals with them no more by parcels and halves, but carries their relief to perfection, Heb. xii. 23. Then he takes off all their burdens, eases them of all their weights, and lays no more on for ever. He then lifts them up to a height they were never at before, no not when at their highest. He sets them quite above all that is low, and therein fixes them, never to be brought down more. Now there is a due time for both these.

1. For the partial lifting up. Every time is not fit for it; we are not always fit to receive comfort, an ease or a change of our burdens. God sees there are times wherein it is needful for his people to be in heaviness, 1 Pet. i. 6. To have their hearts brought down with grief, Psal. cvii. 12. But then there is a time really appointed for it in the divine wisdom, when he will think it as needful to comfort them, as before to bring down, 2 Cor. ii. 7. “So that, contraryways, ye ought rather to forgive, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with over-much sorrow.” We are in that case in the hand of God, as in the hand of our physician, who appoints the time the drawing plaister shall lie to, and when the healing plaister shall be applied, and leaves it not to the patient.

2. For the total lifting up. When we are sore oppressed with our burdens, we are ready to think, O to be away, and set beyond them all, Job vii. 2, 3. “As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: so am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed for me.” But it may be fitter, for all that, that we stay a while, and wrestle with our burdens, Phil. i. 24, 25. “Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all, for your furtherance and joy of faith.” A few days might have taken Israel out of Egypt into Canaan; but they would have been over soon there, if they had made all that speed; so they behoved to spend forty years in the wilderness, till their due time of entering Canaan should come. And be sure the saints, entering heaven, will p. 571 be convinced that the time of it is best chosen, and there will be a beauty in that it was no sooner.

And thus a lifting up is secured to the humble.

III. The certainty of the lifting up of those that humble themselves under humbling circumstances. If one would assure you, when reduced to poverty, that the time should certainly come yet, that ye should be rich; when sore sick, that ye should not die of that disease, but certainly recover, that would help you to bear your poverty and sickness the better, and ye would comfort yourselves with that prospect. However one may continue poor, and never be rich, may be sick and die of his disease; but whoever humble themselves under their humbling circumstances, we can assure them from the Lord’s word, they shall certainly, without all peradventure, be lifted up out of, and relieved from their humbling circumstances; they shall certainly see the day of their ease and relief, when they shall remember their burdens as waters that fail. And ye may be assured thereof from the following considerations.

1st, The nature of God, duly considered, insures it, Psal. ciii. 8, 9. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide; neither will he keep his anger for ever.” The humbled soul looking to God in Christ, may see three things in his nature jointly securing it.

1. Infinite power that can do all things. No circumstances are so low, but he can raise them; so entangling and perplexing, but he can unravel them; so hopeless, but he can remedy them, Gen. xviii. 14. “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?” Be our case what it will, it is never past reach with him to help it: but then is the most proper season for him to take it in hand, when all others have given it over, Deut. xxxii. 36. “For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants; when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.”

2. Infinite goodness inclining to help. He is good and gracious in his nature, Exod. xxxiv. 6—9. And therefore his power is a spring of comfort to them, Rom. xiv. 4. Men may be willing that are not able, or able that are not willing; but infinite goodness joining infinite power in God, may ascertain the humbled of a lifting up in due time. That is a word of inconceivable sweetness, 1 John iv. 16. “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. He has the bowels of a Father towards the humble, Psal. ciii. 13, “Like as a father pitieth his children: so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.” Yea, bowels of mercy, more tender than a mother to her sucking child, Is. xlix. 15. p. 572 Wherefore, howbeit his wisdom may see it necessary to put them in humbling circumstances, and keep them in them for a time, it is not possible he can leave them in them altogether.

3. Infinite wisdom, that does nothing in vain, and therefore will not needlessly keep one in humbling circumstances, Lam. iii. 32, 33. “But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies: for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.” God sends them on for humbling, as the end and design to be brought about by them: when that is obtained, and there is no more use for them that way, we may assure ourselves they will be taken off.

2dly, The providence of God, viewed in its stated methods of procedure with its objects, insures it. Turn your eyes which way you will on the divine providence, ye may conclude thence, that in due time the humble will be lifted up.

1. Observe the providence of God, in the revolutions of the whole course of nature, day succeeding to the longest night, a summer to the winter, a waxing to a waning of the moon, a flowing to an ebbing of the sea, &c. Let not the Lord’s humbled ones be idle spectators of these things: they are for our learning, Jer. xxxi. 35—37. “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Will the Lord’s hand keep such a steady course in the earth, sea, and visible heavens, as to bring a lifting up in them after a casting down, and only forget his humbled ones? No.

2. Observe the providence of God in the dispensations thereof about the man Christ, the most noble and august object thereof, more valuable than a thousand worlds, Col. ii. 9. Did not providence keep this course with him, first humbling him, then exalting him, and lifting him up? first bring him to the dust of death, in a course of sufferings thirty-three years, then exalt him to the Father’s right hand in eternity of glory? Heb. xii. 2. “Who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Phil. ii. 8, 9. “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” The exaltation could not fail to follow his humiliation, Luke xxiv. 26. “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” p. 573 And he saw and believed it would follow, as the springing of the seed doth the sowing of it, John xii. 24. There is a near concern the humbled in humbling circumstances have herein.

(1.) This is the pattern providence copies after in its conduct towards you. The Father was so well pleased with this method in the case of his own Son, that it was determined to be followed, and just copied over again in the case of all the heirs of glory, Rom. viii. 22. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born amongst many brethren.” And who shall not be pleased to walk through the darkest valley treading his steps?

(2.) This is a sure pledge of your lifting up. Christ in his state of humiliation, was considered as a public person and representative, and so he is in his exaltation. So Christ’s exaltation ensures your exaltation out of your humbling circumstances, Is. xxvi. 19. “Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise: awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust.” Hos. vi. 1, 2. “Come, let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us: he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” Eph. ii. 6. “And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Yea, he is gone into the state of glory for us, as our forerunner, Heb. vi. 20. “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever.”

(3.) His humiliation was the price of our exaltation, and his exaltation a full testimony of the acceptance of its payment to the full. There are no humbling circumstances ye are in, but ye would have perished in them, had not he purchased your lifting up out of them by his own humiliation, Is. xxvi. 19. Now, his humbling grace in you is an evidence of the acceptance of his humiliation for your lifting up.

3. Observe the providence of God towards the church in all ages. This has been the course the Lord has kept with her, Psal. cxxix. 1—4. Abel was slain by the wicked Cain to the great grief of Adam and Eve, and the rest of their pious children: but then there was another seed raised up in Abel’s room after, Gen. iv. 25. Noah and his sons were buried alive in the ark more than a year; but then they were brought out into a new world and blessed. Abraham for many years went childless; but at length Isaac was born. Israel was long in miserable bondage in Egypt; but at length seated in the promised land, &c. We must be content to go by the footsteps of the flock: and if in humiliation, we will surely follow them in exaltation too.

4. Observe the providence of God in the dispensations of his grace towards his children. The general rule is, 1 Pet. v. 5. “For God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” How are they brought into a state of grace? Is it not by a sound work of humiliation going before, Luke vi. 48. And ordinarily the greater measure of grace that is designed for one, the deeper is their humiliation before, as in Paul’s case. If they are to be recovered out of a backslidden case, the same method is followed: so that deepest humiliations ordinarily make way for the greatest comforts, and the darkest hour goes before the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon them, Is. lxvi. 5—13.

Lastly, Observe the providence of God at length throwing down wicked men, however long they stand and prosper, Psal. xxxvii. 35, 36. “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree; yet he passed away, and lo he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” They are long green before the sun, but at length they are suddenly smitten with an east-wind, and wither away; their lamp goes out with a stink, and they are put out in obscure darkness. Now, it is inconsistent with the benignity of the divine nature to forget the humble to raise them, while he minds the proud to abase them.

3dly, The word of God puts it beyond all peradventure, which, from the beginning to the end, is the humbled saint’s security for a lifting up, Psal. cxix. 49, 50. “Remember the word unto thy servant, upon which thou hast caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction; for thy word hath quickened me.” His word is the great letter of his name, which he will certainly see to cause to shine, Psal. cxxxviii. 2. “For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name;” and in all generations has been safely lippened to, Psal. xii. 6. Consider,

1. The doctrines of the word, which teach faith and hope for the time, and the happy issue the exercise of these graces will have. The whole current of scripture, to those in humbling circumstances, is, “Not to cast away their confidence, but to hope to the end;” and that for this good reason, that “it shall not be in vain.” See Psal. xxvii. 14. “Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” And compare Rom. ix. 33. Is. xlix. 23. “For they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.”

2. The promises of the word, whereby Heaven is expressly engaged for a lifting up to those that humble themselves in humbling circumstances. James iv. 10. “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” Matth. xxiii. 12. “And p. 575 he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” It may take a time to prepare them for lifting up, but that being done it is secured: Psal. x. 17. “Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble; thou wilt prepare their heart; thou wilt cause thine ear to hear.” They have his word for deliverance, Psal. l. 15. And though they may seem to be forgotten, they shall not be always so; the time of their deliverance will come, Psal. ix. 18. “For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.” Psal. cii. 17. “He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer.”

3. The examples of the word sufficiently confirming the truth of the doctrines and promises, Rom. xv. 4. “For whatsoever things were written afore-time, were written for our learning; that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” In the doctrines and promises the lifting up is proposed to our faith, to be reckoned on the credit of God’s word: but, in the examples, it is, in the case of others, set before our eyes to be seen, James v. 11. “Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord: that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy. There we see it in the case of Abraham, Job, David, Paul, and other saints; but, above all, in the case of the man Christ.

Lastly, The intercession of Christ, joining the prayers and cries of his humbled people in their humbling circumstances, insures a lifting up for them at length. Be it so, that the proud cry not when he bindeth them, yet his own humbled ones will not do so, they will cry, Psal. xlii. 7, 8. “Deep calleth unto deep, at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the Lord will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.” And though unbelievers may soon be outwearied, and give it over for altogether, sure believers will not do so; but though they may, in a fit of temptation, lay it by as hopeless, they will find themselves obliged to take it up again, Jer. xx. 9. “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay;” and continue to cry on night and day, Luke xviii. 7. knowing no time for giving it over, till they be lifted up, Lam. iii. 49, 50. “Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission, till the Lord look down, and behold from heaven.” Now Christ’s intercession being joined with these cries, there cannot miss to be a lifting up. Consider,

1. Christ’s intercession is certainly joined with the cries and prayers of the humbled in their humbling circumstances, Rev. viii. 3. “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne.” They are by the Spirit helped to groan for relief, Rom. viii. 26. and the prayers and groans which are through the Spirit, are certainly to be made effectual by the intercession of of the Son, James v. 16. And ye may know they are by the Spirit, if so be ye are helped to continue praying, hoping for your suit at last on the ground of God’s word of promise; for nature’s praying is a pool that will dry up in a long drought. It is the spirit of prayer is the lasting spring, John iv. 14. Psal. cxxxviii. 3. “In the day when I cried, thou answeredst me; and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.” Truly there is an intercession in heaven, on the account of the humbling circumstances of the humble ones. “Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?” Zech. i. 12. How then can they miss of a lifting up in due time?

2. He is in deep earnest in his intercession for his people in their humbling circumstances. Some will speak a good word in favour of the helpless, that will be little concerned whether they come speed or not: but our Intercessor is in earnest in behalf of his humbled ones; for he is touched with sympathy in their case, Is. xliii. 9. “In all their affliction he was afflicted”—a most tender sympathy, Zech. ii. 8.—“For he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of his eye.” He has their case upon his heart, where he is in the holy place in the highest heavens, Exod. xxviii. 29. and he keeps exact account of the time of their humbling circumstances, be it as long as it will, Zech. i. 12. Moreover, it is his own business, the lifting up they are to have is a thing that is secured to him, in the promises made to him on the account of his bloodshed for them, Psal. lxxxix. 33, 36. So not only are they looking on earth, but the man Christ is in heaven looking for the accomplishment of these promises, Heb. x. 12, 13. “But this man after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right hand of God; from thenceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.” How is it possible, then, that that looking should be baulked? Moreover, these humbling circumstances are his own sufferings still, though not in his person, yet in his members, Col. i. 24. “Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the affections of Christ in p. 577 my flesh, for his body’s sake which is the church. Wherefore there is all ground to conclude he is in deep earnest.

Lastly, His intercession is always effectual, John xi. 42. “And I knew that thou hearest me always”—It cannot miss to be so, because he is the Father’s well-beloved Son, his intercession has a plea of justice for the ground of it, 1 John ii. 1.—“We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Moreover, he has all power in heaven and earth lodged in him, John v. 22. and, finally, he and his Father are one, and their will one. So, for the present time, both Christ and his Father do will the lifting up of the humbled ones, but yet only in the due time.

Secondly, I proceed to a more particular view of the point. And,

I. We will consider the lifting up as brought about in time, which is the partial lifting up. And,

First, Some considerations for clearing the nature thereof.

1. This lifting up does not take place in every case of a child of God. One may be humbled in humbling circumstances, from which he is to get a lifting up in time. We would not from the promise presently conclude, that we, being humbled under our humbling circumstances, shall certainly be taken out of them, and freed from them ere we get to the end of our journey. For it is certain, there are some, such as our imperfections, and sinfulness, and mortality, we can by no means be rid of while in this world. And there are particular humbling circumstances the Lord may hang about one, and keep about him till they go down to the grave, while, in the mean time, he may lift up another from the same. Heman was pressed down all along from his youth, Psal. lxxxviii. 15. others all their life-time, Heb. ii. 15.

Objection. If that be the case, what comes of the promise of lifting up? Where is the lifting up, if one may go to the grave under the weight? Ans. Were there no life after this, there would be weight in that objection; but, since there is another life, there is none in it at all. In the other life the promise will be accomplished to the humbled, as it was, Luke xvi. 22. Consider, that the great term for accomplishing the promises, is the other life, not this. “These all died in the faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,” Heb. xi. 13. And that whatever accomplishment of the promise is here, it is not of the nature of a stock, but of a sample or a pledge.

Question. But then, may we not give over praying for the lifting up in that case? Ans. We do not know when that is our case: for a case may be past all hope in our eyes, and the eyes of others, in p. 578 which God designs a lifting up in time, as in Job’s, Job vii. 11. “What is my strength that I should hope? and what is mine end that I should prolong my life?” But, be it as it will, we should never give over praying for the lifting up, since it will certainly come to all that pray in faith for it; if not here, yet hereafter. The promise is sure, and that is the commandment: so such praying cannot miss of a happy issue at length, Psal. l. 15. “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” The whole life of a Christian is such a praying waiting life, to encourage whereunto all temporal deliverances are given as pledges, Rom. viii. 23. “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit; even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” And whoso observes that full lifting up at death to be at hand, must certainly rise, if he has given over his case as hopeless.

2. However, there are some cases wherein this lifting up does take place. God gives his people some notable liftings up, even in time, raising them out of remarkable humbling circumstances. The storm is changed into a calm, and they remember it as waters that fail. Psal. xl. 1.—4. Two things may be observed on this.

(1.) One may be in humbling circumstances very long, and sore and hopeless, and yet a lifting up may be abiding them of a much longer continuance. This is sometimes the case of the children of God, who are set to bear the yoke in their youth, as it was with Joseph and David; and of them that get it laid on them in their middle age, as it was with Job, who could not be less than forty at his trouble’s coming, but, after it, lived one hundred and forty, Job xlii. 16. God by such methods prepares men for peculiar usefulness.

(2.) One may be in humbling circumstances long and sore, and quite hopeless in the ordinary course of providence, yet they may get a clear and warm blink of a lifting up, ere they come to their journey’s end. The life of some of God’s children is like a cloudy and rainy day, wherein in the evening the sun breaks out from under the clouds, shines fair and clear a little, and then sets. “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark—But it shall come to pass, that at evening-time it shall be light,” Zech. xiv. 6, 7. Such was the case of Jacob in his old age, brought in honour and comfort to Egypt unto his son, and then died.

(3.) Yet whatever liftings up they get in this life, they will never want some weights hanging about them for their humbling. They may have their singing times, but their songs, while in this world, will be mixed with groanings, 2 Cor. v. 4. “For we that are p. 579 in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened.”—The unmixed dispensation is reserved for the other world: but this will be a wilderness unto the end, where there will be howlings, with the most joyful notes.

Lastly, All the liftings up the humbled meet with now are pledges, and but pledges, samples, and earnest of the great lifting up abiding them on the other side; and they should look on them so.

(1.) They are really so, Hos. ii. 15. “And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came out of the land of Egypt.” Our Lord Jesus is leading his people now through the wilderness, and the manna and water of the rock are earnests for the time of the milk and honey flowing in the promised land. They are not yet come home to their Father’s house: but they are travelling on the road, and Christ their elder brother with them, Cant. iv. 8. who bears their expenses, takes them into inns by the way, as it were, and refreshes them with partial liftings up, after which they must get to the road again. But that entertainment by the way is a pledge of the full entertainment he will afford them when come home.

Objection. But people may get a lifting up in time, that yet is no pledge of a lifting up on the other side: how shall I know it then to be a pledge? Ans. That lifting up, which comes by the promise, is certainly a pledge of the full lifting up in the other world: for, as the other life is the proper time of the accomplishing of the promises, so we may be sure, that when God once begins to clear his bond, he will certainly hold on till it is fully cleared. “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me,” Psal. cxxxviii. 8. So we may say as Naomi to Ruth, upon her receiving the six measures of barley from Boaz, Ruth iii. 18. “He will not be in rest until he have finished the thing this day.” There are liftings up that come by common providence, and these indeed are single, and not pledges of more: but the promise chains mercies together, so that one got is a pledge of another to come, yea, of the whole chain to the end, 2 Sam. v. 12.

Question. But how shall I know the lifting up to come by the way of the promise? That which comes by the way of the promise, does at once come the low way of humiliation, the high way of faith, or believing the promise, and the long way of waiting hope and patient continuance, James v. 7. “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.” Humility qualifies for the p. 580 accomplishment of the promise, faith sucks the breast of it, and patient waiting hangs by the breast till the milk come abundantly.

(2.) But no lifting up of God’s children here are any more than pledges of lifting up. God gives worldly men their stock here, but his children get nothing but a sample of theirs here, Psal. xvii. 14; even as the servant at the term gets his fee in a round sum, while the young heir gets nothing but a few pence for spending-money. The truth is, the same spending-money is more valuable than the world’s stock, Psal. iv. 7. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.” But though it is better than that and their services too, and more worth than all their on-waiting, yet it is below the honour of their God to put them off with it, Heb. xi. 16. “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Secondly, The partial lifting up itself. What they will get, getting this lifting up promised to the humbled. Why, they will get,

1. A removal of their humbling circumstances. God having tried them a while, and humbled them, and brought down their hearts, will at length take off their burden, remove the weight so long hung at them, and so take them off that part of their trial joyfully, and let them get up their back long bowed down: and this one of two ways.

(1.) Either in kind, removing the burden for good and all. Such a lifting Job got, when the Lord turned back his captivity, increased again his family and substance, which had both been disolated. David, when Saul his persecutor fell in battle, and he was brought to the kingdom after many weary days expecting one day to fall by his hand. It is easy with our God to make such turns in the most humbling circumstances.

(2.) Or in equivalent, or as good, removing the weight of the burden, that though it remains, it presses them no more, 2 Cor. xii. 9, 10. “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities.”—Though they are not got to the shore, yet their head is no more under the water, but lifted up. David speaks feelingly of such a lifting up, Psal. xxvii. 5, 6. “For in the time of trouble he shall hide me, in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me, he shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy, I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto p. 581 the Lord.” Such had the three children in the fiery furnace; the fire burned, but it could burn nothing of them but their bonds: they had the warmth and light of it, but nothing of the scorching heat. Sometimes God lifts up his people this way in their humbling circumstances.

2. A comfortable sight of the acceptance of their prayers, put up in their humbling circumstances. While prayers are not answered, but trouble continued, the hangers on about the Lord’s hand are apt to think they are not accepted nor regarded in heaven, because there is no alteration in their case, John ix. 16, 17. “If I had called, and he had answered me, yea would I not believe that he had hearkened unto my voice; for he breaketh me with a tempest.”—But that is a mistake; they are accepted immediately, though not answered, 1 John v. 14. “And this is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.” The Lord does with them as a father with the letters coming thick from his son abroad, reads them one by one with pleasure, and carefully lays them up to be answered at his convenience. And when the answer comes, the son will know how acceptable they were to his father, Matt. xv. 28. So, &c.

3. A heart-satisfying answer of these prayers, ibid, so as they shall not only get the thing, but see they have it as an answer of prayer; and they will put a double value on the mercy, 1 Sam. ii. 1. Accepted prayers may be very long of answering, many years, as in Abraham and David’s case, but they cannot miscarry of an answer at length, Psal. ix. 18. The time will come when God will tell out to them according to the promise, that they shall change their note, and say, Psal. cxvi. 1. “I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice, and my supplication.” Looking on their lifting up as bearing the signature of the hand of a prayer-hearing God.

4. Full satisfaction, as to the conduct of providence, in all the steps of the humbling circumstances, and the delay of the lifting up, however perplexing these were before, Rev. xv. 3. Standing on the shore, and looking back to what they have passed through, they will be made to say, “He hath done all things well.” These things which are bitter to Christians in the passing through, are very sweet in the reflection on them: so is Samson’s riddle verified in their experience.

5. They get the lifting up, together with the interest for the time they lay out of it. When God pays his bonds of promises, he pays both stock and interest together: the mercy is increased according to the time the man waited on, and the expenses and hardships p. 582 sustained during the dependence of the process. The fruits of common providence are soon ripe, soon rotten: but the fruit of the promise is readily long a ripening, but then it is durable: and the longer it is a ripening, it is the more valuable when it comes. Abraham and Sarah waited for the promise about ten years, at length they thought on a way to hasten it, Gen. xvi. that soon took in the birth of Ishmael, but he was not the promised son. They were coming into extreme old age ere the promise brought forth, Gen. xviii. 11. But, when it came, they got it with an addition, the renewing of their ages, Gen. xxi. 7. and xxv. 1. The most valuable of all the promises was the longest in fulfilling, viz. the promise of Christ, that was four thousand years.

Lastly, The spiritual enemies that flew thick and throng about them in the time of the darkness of the humbling circumstances, will be scattered at this lifting up in the promise, 1 Sam. ii. 1, 5. “And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the Lord,—my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies. They that were full have hired out themselves for bread, and they that were hungry ceased.” Formidable was Pharaoh’s host behind the Israelites, while they had the Red-sea before them; but, when they were through the sea, they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore, Exod. xiv. 30. Such a sight will they that humble themselves under humbling circumstances get of their spiritual enemies, when the time comes for their lifting up.

Thirdly, The due time of this lifting up. That is a natural question of those in humbling circumstances, “Watchman, what of the night?” And we cannot answer it to the humbled soul but in the general, Isa. xxi. 11, 12. So take these general observations on it.

1. The lifting up of the humbled will not be longsome, considering the weight of the matter; that is to say, considering the worth and value of the lifting up of the humble; when it comes it can by no means be reckoned long to the time of it. When ye sow your corns in the fields, though they do not ripen so soon as some garden-seeds, but you wait three months or so, ye do not think the harvest long a-coming, considering the value of the crop. This view the apostle takes of the lifting up in humbling circumstances, 2 Cor. iv. 17. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” So that a believer looking on the promise with an eye of faith, and perceiving its accomplishment, and the work of it when accomplished, may wonder it is come on so short on-waiting. Therefore it is determined to be a time that comes soon, Luke xviii. 7. soon in respect of its weight and worth. p. 583

2. When the time comes, it and only it will appear the due time. To every thing there is a season, and a great part of wisdom lies in discerning it, and doing things in the season thereof. And we may be sure infinite wisdom cannot miss the season by mistaking it, Deut xxxii. 4. “He is a rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment.” But whatever God doth will abide the strictest examination in that as at all other points, Eccles. iii. 14. “I know that whatsoever God doth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doth it, that men should fear before him.” It is true, many times cast up to us as the due time for lifting up, which yet really is not so, because there is some circumstance hid to us, which renders that season unfit for the thing. Hence, John vii. 6. “My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready.” But when all the circumstances, always foreknown of God, shall come to be unfolded, and laid together before us, we will then see the lifting up is in the nick of time, most for the honour of God and our good, and that it would not have done so well sooner.

3. When the time comes that is really the due time, the proper time for lifting up a child of God from his humbling circumstances, it will not be put off one moment longer, Hab. ii. 3. “At the end it shall speak—it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Though it tarry, it will not linger or put off to another time. O what rest of heart would the firm faith of this afford us! There is not a child of God but would with the utmost carefulness protest against a lifting up before the due time, as against an unripe fruit casten to him by an angry father, that would set his teeth on edge. Sith it is so then, could we firmly believe this point, that it will undoubtedly come in the due time, without losing of a minute, it will afford a sound rest. It must be so, because God has said it: were the case never so hopeless, were mountains of difficulties lying in the way of it, at the appointed time it will blow, Heb. Hab. ii. 3. A metaphor from the wind rising in a moment after a dead calm.

4. The humbling circumstances are ordinarily carried to the utmost point of hopelessness before the lifting up. The knife was at Isaac’s throat before the voice was heard. 2 Cor. i. 8, 9. “For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, in so much that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” Things soon seem to us arrived at that point: such is the hastiness of our spirits. But things may p. 584 have far to go down, after we think they are at the foot of the hill. And we are almost as little competent judges of the point of hopelessness, as of the due time of lifting up. But readily God carries his people’s humbling circumstances downward, downward, still downward till they come to that point. Two reasons hereof to be noticed.

(1.) One from the explanatory cause of it. Herein God is holding the same course which he held in the case of the man Christ, the beloved pattern copied after in all the dispensations of providence towards the church, and every particular believer, Rom. viii. 29. He was all along a man of sorrows: as his time went on, the waters swelled more, till he was brought to the dust of death; then he was buried, and the grave-stone sealed; which done, the world thought they were freely quit of him, and he would trouble them no more. But they quite mistook it; then, and not till then, was the due time of lifting him up. And the liftings up that his people get most remarkable, are only little pieces fashioned after this grand pattern.

(2.) Another from the final cause, the end and design providence aims at in it, and that is to carry the believer cleanly off his own entirely, and all created bottoms, to bottom his trust and hope in the Lord alone, 2 Cor. i. 9. “That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead.” The life of a Christian here is designed to be a life of faith: and though faith may act more easily, that it has some help from sense, yet it certainly acts most nobly, when it acts over the belly of sense. Then is it pure faith, when it stands only on its own native legs, the power and word of God, Rom. iv. 19, 20. “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead—neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God:” and thus it must do, when the matter is carried to the utmost point of hopelessness.

Lastly, Due preparation of the heart, for the lifting up out of the humbling circumstances, goes before the due time of that lifting up according to the promise. It is not so in every lifting up: the liftings up of the common providences are not so critically managed; men will have them, will want them no longer, and God flings them to them in anger, ere they are prepared for them, Hos. xiii. 11. “I gave thee a king in mine anger.” They can by no means abide the trial, and God takes them off as reprobate silver that is not able to abide it, Jer. vi. 29, 30.

This due preparation consists in due humiliation, Psal. x. 17. p. 585 And it often takes much work to bring about this, which is another point that we are very incompetent judges of. We would have thought Job was brought very low in his spirit, by the providence of God bruising him on the one hand, and his friends on the other for a long time. Yet, after all he had endured both ways, God saw it necessary to speak to him himself, for his humiliation, chap. xxxviii. 1. By that speech of God himself he was brought to his knees, chap. xl. 4, 5. “And we would have thought he was then sufficiently humbled, and perhaps he thought so himself too. But God saw a farther degree of humiliation necessary, and therefore just begins anew again to speak for his humiliation, which at length laid him in the dust, chap. xlii. 5, 6. And when he was thus prepared for lifting up, he got it.

There are six things, I conceive, belong to this humiliation, preparatory to lifting up.

1. A deep sense of sinfulness and unworthiness of being lifted up at all, Job xl. 4. “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.” People may be long in humbling circumstances ere they be brought this length: even good men are prejudiced in their own favours, and may so far forget themselves as to think God deals his favours unequally, and is mighty severe on them more than others. Elihu marketh this wrong in Job under his humbling circumstances, Job xxxiii. 10, 11, 12. And I believe it will be found there is readily a greater keenness to vindicate our own honour from the imputation the humbling circumstances seem to lay upon it, than to vindicate the honour of God in the justice and equity of the dispensation. The blindness of an ill-natured world, still ready to suspect the worst causes for humbling circumstances, as if the greatest sufferers were surely the greatest sinners, Luke xiii. 4. gives a handle for this bias of the corrupt nature. But God is a jealous God, and when he appears sufficiently to humble, he will cause the matter of our honour give way, like a sandy brae under our feet, while we shall be obliged to gripe hastily to the vindication of his.

2. A resignation to the divine pleasure as to the time of lifting up. God gives the promise, leaving the time blank as to us. Our time is always ready, and we rashly fill it up at our own hand. God does not keep our time, because it is not the due time. Hence we are ready to think his word fails; whereas it is but our own rash conclusion from it that fails, Psal. cxvi. 11. “I said in my haste, All men are liars.” Several of the saints have gotten on the finger-ends by this means, and thereby learned to let alone filling up that p. 586 blank. The first promise was thus used by believing Eve, Gen. iv. 1. Another promise was so by believing Abraham, after about ten years on-waiting, Gen. xvi. Another by David, forecited, Psal. cxvi. 11.

If this be the case of any child of God, let them not be discouraged upon it, thinking they were over-rash in applying the promise to themselves: they were only so in applying the time to the promise; a snapper that saints in all ages have made, which they repented, and saw the folly of, and let alone that point for the time to come; and then the promise was fulfilled in its own due time. Let them in such circumstances go and do likewise, leaving the time entirely to the Lord.

3. An entire resignation as to the way and manner of bringing it about. We are ready to do, as to the way of accomplishing the promise, just as with the time of it, to set a particular way for the Lord’s working of it; and if that be not kept, the proud heart is stumbled, 2 Kings v. 11. “But Naaman was wroth, and he went away, and said, Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place.”—But the Lord will have his people broke off from that too, that they shall prescribe no way to him, but leave that to him entirely, as in that same case, verse 14.—“He went down and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God—and he was clean.” The compass of our knowledge of ways and means is very narrow, as if one is blocked up, oft-times we cannot see another: but our God knows many ways of relief, where we know but one, or none at all; and it is very usual for the Lord to bring the lifting up to his people in a way they had no view to, after repeated disappointments from these airths whence they had great expectation.

4. Resignation as to the degree of the lifting up, yea, and as to the very being of it in time. The Lord will have his people weaned so, that however hasty they have sometimes been, that they behoved to be so soon lifted up, and could no longer bear, they shall be brought at length to set no time at all, but submit to go to the grave under their weight, if it seem good in the Lord’s eyes, and in that case they will be brought to be content with any measure of it in time, without prescribing how much, 2 Sam. xv. 25, 26.—“If I shall find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again.— But if he thus say, I have no delight in thee: behold, here am I, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him.”

5. The continuing of praying and waiting on the Lord in the p. 587 case, Eph. vi. 18. “Praying always, with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance.”— It is pride of heart, and unsubduedness of spirit, that makes people give over praying and waiting, because their humbling circumstances are lengthened out time after time, 2 Kings vi. 33. But due humility, going before the lifting up, brings men into that temper, to pray, wait, and hang on resolutely, setting no time for the giving it over, till the lifting up come, whether in time or eternity, Lam. iii. 49, 50.

Lastly, Mourning under mismanagements in the trial, Job xlii. 3.—“Therefore have I uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” The proud heart dwells and expatiates on the man’s sufferings in the trial, and casts out all the folds of the trial on that side, and views them again and again. But when the Spirit of God comes duly to humble, in order to lifting up, he will cause the man to pass, in a sort, the suffering-side of the trial, and turn his eyes on his own conduct in it, ransack it, judge himself impartially, and condemn himself; so that his mouth will be stopped.

This is that humility going before the lifting up in time in the way of the promise.

II. We proceed to consider the lifting up, as brought about at the end of time, in the other world. And,

First, A word as to the nature of this lifting up. Concerning it we shall say these five things.

1. There is a certainty of this lifting up, in all cases of those humbled under humbling circumstances. Though one cannot, in every case, make them sure of a lifting up in time, yet they may be assured, be the case what it will, they will, without all peradventure, get a lifting up on the other side, 2 Cor. v. 1. “For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Though God’s humbled children may both breakfast and dine on bread of adversity and water of affliction, they will be sure to sup sweetly and plentifully. And the believing expectation of the latter might serve to qualify the former, and make easy under it.

2. It will be a perfect lifting up, Heb. xii. 23. They will be perfectly delivered out of their particular trials, and special furnace, be what it will, that made them many a weary day. Lazarus was then delivered from his poverty and sores, and lying at the rich man’s gate, Luke xvi. 22. and fully delivered. Yea, they will get p. 588 then a lifting up from all their humbling circumstances together. All the imperfections will then be at an end, inferiority in relations, contradictions, afflictions, uncertainty, and sin. If it was long a coming, there will be a blessed moment when they shall get altogether.

3. They will not only be raised out of their low condition, but they will be set up on high; as Joseph, not only brought out of prison, but made ruler over the land of Egypt. And they will be lifted up,

(1.) Into a high place, Luke xvi. 22.—“The beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.”—Now they are at best in a low place, but upon this earth; there they will be seated in the highest heavens, Philip, i. 23. with Eph. vi. 10. Often, in their humbling circumstances, they are obliged now to embrace dunghills; then they will be set with Christ on his throne, Rev. iii. 21. “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne.”—Though their belly now cleaves to the earth, and men say, Bow down that we may pass over you, they will then be settled in the heavenly mansions, above sun, moon, and stars.

(2.) Into a high state and condition, a state of perfection. Out of all their troubles and uneasinesses, they will be set into a state of rest; from their mean and inglorious condition, they will be advanced into a state of glory; their weighted and sorrowful life will be succeeded with a fulness of joy; and, for their humbling circumstances, they will be clothed with eternal glory and honour.

4. It will be a final lifting up, after which there will be no more casting down for ever, Rev. vii. 16. When we get a lifting up in time, we are apt to imagine fondly we are at the end of our trials; but we soon find we are too hasty in our conclusions, and the cloud returns, Psal. xxx. 6, 7.—“In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.—Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled.” But then indeed the trial is quite over, the fight is at an end: and then is the time of the retribution and triumph.

Lastly, There will not be the least remaining uneasiness from the humbling circumstances, but, on the contrary, they will have a glorious and desirable effect. I make no question but the saints will have the remembrance of their humbling circumstances they were under here below. Did the rich man in hell remember his having five brethren on the earth, how sumptuously he fared, how Lazarus sat at his gate; and can we doubt but the saints will remember perfectly their heavy trials? Rev. vi. 10. But then they will remember them as waters that fail, as the man recovered to health p. 589 remembers his tossings on the sick bed; and that is a way of remembering that sweetens the present state of health beyond what otherwise it would be. Certainly the shore of the Red sea was the place that, of all places, was the fittest to help the Israelites to sing in the highest key, Rev. xv. 3. And the humbling circumstances of saints on earth, will be of the same use to them in heaven.

Secondly, A word to the due time of this lifting up. There is a particular definite time for it in every saint’s case, which is the due time, but it is hid from us. We can only say in the general,

1. Then is the due time for it, when our work we have to do in this world is over. God has appointed every one their task, fight, trial, and work; and, till that is done, we are in a sort immortal, John ix. 4. and xi. 9. That work is,

(1.) Doing work; work set to us by the great Master, to be done for the honour of God and the good of our fellow creatures, Eccles. ix. 10. We must be content to be doing on, even in our humbling circumstances, till that be done out. It is not the due time for that lifting up, till we are at the end of that work, and so have served our generation.

(2.) Suffering work. There is a certain portion of suffering that is allotted for the mystical body, and the head has divided to the several members of the proportions thereof; and it is not the due time for that lifting up, till we have exhausted the share thereof allotted to us. Paul looked on his life as a going on in that, Col. i. 24.

2. When that lifting up comes, we will see it is come exactly in the due time; that it was well it was neither sooner nor later: for, though heaven is always better than earth, and that it would be better for us, absolutely speaking, to be in heaven than on earth; yet certainly there is a time wherein it is better for the honour of God, and his service, that we be on the earth than in heaven: Philip. i. 24. “Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.” And it will be no grief of heart to them, when there, that they were so long in their humbling circumstances, and were not brought sooner.

USE 1. Let not then the humble cast away their confidence, whatever their humbling circumstances be: let them assure themselves there will come a lifting up to them at length; if not here, yet to be sure hereafter. Let them keep this in their view, and comfort themselves with it, for God has said it, Psal. ix. 18. “The needy shall not always be forgotten.” If the night were never so long, the morning will come at length.

2. Let patience have her perfect work. The husbandman waits for the return of his seed, the sea-merchant for the return of his ships, the store-master for what he calls year-time, when he draws in the produce of his flocks. All these have long patience, and why should not the Christian too have patience, and patiently wait the time appointed for his lifting up?

Ye have heard much of the crook in the lot, the excellency of humbleness of spirit in a low lot, beyond pride of spirit, though joined with a high one: ye have been called to humble yourselves in your humbling circumstances, and assured in that case of a lifting up. To conclude, we may assure ourselves, God will at length break in pieces the proud, be they never so high; and he will triumphantly lift up the humble, be they never so low.