An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

2. He is a God of consolation, and that supposeth him to be alone the efficient cause of it. That if we would have our sad and darkened hearts filled with joy, it is God alone that can do it: So that as he is called, The God of all grace, because there is no grace, whether outward or inherent that we are made partakers of; but it cometh alone, and freely from God the fountain: So is he also the God of all comfort, because it's he alone that worketh this comfort in us. The least affliction, the least sin in its guilt, would be enough to overwhelm us, did not God come in with comfort. David under the sense of Gods wrath for his sins, and complaining of his broken bones, Psal. 51. doth earnestly pray to God, To restore joy to him again. Alas he was never able to bring joy more into his soul: But as when the Sun is set, all the men in the world cannot make it rise again, it would be perpetual night, if God did not make the Sun to arise. So the godly heart humbled for sin, would find continual blackness and horror, would be in a perpetual hell, if God did not create light in that soul. Hence Gal. 5. Joy is made the fruit of the Spirit, because it's the Spirit of God that can only comfort the heart truly. Indeed there is much carnal and worldly joy, that men may for a while sport themselves with, but this is no true enduring comfort; It is but a vapour, a dream, a blaze, like the tickling upon a scratch, that leaveth more smart afterwards. He is therefore a God of consolation, because God only can vouchsafe it.

2. He is a God of consolation, and that supposeth him to be alone the efficient cause of it. That if we would have our sad and darkned hearts filled with joy, it is God alone that can do it: So that as he is called, The God of all grace, because there is no grace, whether outward or inherent that we are made partakers of; but it cometh alone, and freely from God the fountain: So is he also the God of all comfort, because it's he alone that worketh this comfort in us. The least affliction, the least sinne in its guilt, would be enough to overwhelm us, did not God come in with comfort. David under the sense of Gods wrath for his sins, and complaining of his broken bones, Psal. 51. doth earnestly pray to God, To restore joy to him again. Alas he was never able to bring joy more into his soul: But as when the Sun is set, all the men in the world cannot make it rise again, it would be perpetual night, if God did not make the Sunne to arise. So the godly heart humbled for sinne, would find continual blackness and horrour, would be in a perpetual hell, if God did not create light in that soul. Hence