An exposition with practical observations continued upon the thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second,…

Secondly, His food is every green thing.

(Whence learn; God gives food to all creatures convenient to their nature.)

He gives green things, grass to the beasts of the field; but he doth, not feed man with grass, he feedeth man with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock (Psal. 81.16.) And as the Lord provides suitable food for the bodies of men, so ⟨p. 343⟩for their souls he hath spiritual green pastures for them (Psal. 23.1, 2.) The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want; he maketh me to lye down in green pastures; that is, in his Word and Ordinances. They are green pastures for his people; he makes them lie down in the Promises and in the Commandments, in the holy Prophecies and Histories of the written word; all which are written for our instruction or learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope (Rom. 15.4.) that is, that our faith having the truth of the Word (especially in the promises) to feed upon, our hope may be said to wait for the good of the Word patiently. The holy Scriptures (I say) are the green pastures which the Lord hath provided for the souls of men to feed in, and grow fat upon. The Scriptures are a bare common, a dry heath to unbelievers, they find nothing there which is food for them; but to believers they are fat pastures, and full of such green things as are most suitable to their taste, and nourishing to their souls. Thus spake the Prophet (