The souls exaltation A treatiseThe soules exaltation A treatise

Secondly, there is another work on Gods part, that howsoever the soul stands Godward, and Christward, and it cleaves to him as Job did that would trust in him, though he killed him; yet ⟨p. 222⟩God may withdraw the sweet refreshing operation, and the sensible conveyance of his mercy and compassion from his soul, and he frowns upon him, and plucks away the hold, and lets in his indignation upon him: the first of these two can never be without sin, and it is a heinous sin when our souls sit loose from God, and when we shall separate our selves from the mercy and goodness of God, and are weary of Gods presence in his ordinances, as many wicked men are, and are weary of the promises, and say as those in Job did, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways: this is a cursed sin, and this never was, nor could not be in our Saviour: but now that the Lord may pluck away the sense of his love and favour, and take away the operation and conveyance of his mercy; this God may justly do as he seeth good: this was not a sin in Job, that God did take away the sense of his love and mercy, and seemed to be his enemy, but if Job had gone away from God, as God did from him, then he had sinned, but he held God still: this was not a sin in Job, that God did thus forsake him, though haply it was through his sin deserving it: all this did befall our Saviour Christ, and yet he was full of holiness, and hangs upon God, and said, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And God was angry with him, because he had our sins upon him; but the first of these was not in Christ, he did not depart from God: the second was inflicted upon our Saviour, and that might be justly; this ads much ⟨p. 223⟩light to those passages; those two ardent petitions of those two worthy lights, Moses and Saint Paul, Exodus 32.32. Moses perceiving that the Lord was ready to destroy the Israelites for their sin, he saith, Now if thou pardon this sin, thy mercy shall appear, but if thou will not, then raze me out of the book of life which thou hast written: and in Rom. 9.3. Saint Paul foreseeing the rejection of the Jews, and that God would throw them away for sixteen hundred years together;