The divine life in three treatises

Consider, 1▪ That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator. All-sufficiency, Immutability and indefectible fidelity, are proper to Jehovah. As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be eclipsed, as glorious a body as it is; so it is no wonder for a friend, a pious friend, to fail us, for a time, in the hour of our distress. There are some that will not: but there is none but may, if God should leave them to their weakness. Man is not your Rock: He hath no stability but what is derived, dependant, and uncertain, and defectible. Learn therefore to rest on God alone, and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might.

Consider, 1▪ That Creatures must be set at a sufficient distance from their Creator. Allsufficiency, Immutability and indefectible fidelity, are proper to Jehovah. As it is no wonder for the Sun to set or be ecclipsed, as glorious a body as it is; so it is no wonder for a friend, a pious friend, to fail us, for a time, in the hour of our distress. There are some that will not: but there is none but may, if God should leave them to their weakness. Man is not your Rock: He hath no stability but what is derived, dependant, and uncertain, and defectible. Learn therefore to rest on God alone, and lean not too hard or confidently upon any mortal might.

2. And God will have the common infirmity of man to be known, that so the weakest may not be utterly discouraged, nor take their weakness to be gracelessness, whilst they see that the strongest also have their infirmities, though not so great as theirs. If any of Gods servants lives in constant holiness and fidelity, without any shakings or stumbling in their way, it would tempt some self▪accusing troubled souls, to think that they were altogether graceless, because they are so far short of others. But when we read of a Peters denying his Master in so horrid a manner, with swearing and cursing that he knew not the man, Matth. 26. 74. and of his dissimulation and not walking uprightly,