2. Your deliverances are wonderful, if you consider your deliverances are great deliverances. We read of such;1 And the Lord saved them with a great deliverance; or with a great salvation.2 Thus said Sampson, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant. Now any great transactions are remembered and recorded. Your deliverances are great, if we consider these things; 1. They are commanded deliverances by the great God; ⟨p. 118⟩his word of command brings all our deliverances about, whether at Sea or Land. Which made the Church in distress pray,3 Thou art my King, O God, command deliverances for Jacob. He commands every thing tending to deliverance at Sea; in order to deliverance, he commands the Winds;4 He maketh the storm a calm. He also commands the Seas; he says to the proud Waves, So far, and no further. You read of a decree set to the Sea,5 that it cannot pass; Though the Waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it. 6It is the great God only that rides Lord Admiral at Sea, to command the Seas and the Waves thereof. God is said to shut up the Sea with doors, and set bars upon it. Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. Xerxes presumed he could tame the Hellespont, for attempting his Bridge of Boats; but all this was in vain, this is a flower in Gods Crown alone, to command the Sea. Your deliverances are a fruit and effect of Gods commanding Power, therefore great. 2. They are great deliverances, as they are the curious workmanship (as I may call them) ⟨p. 119⟩of the Attributes of a great God. Deliverance is said to be wrought for us,7 it is the handy work of God;8 If God will work, 9who can let? (as the Prophet saith.) And he seems to speak it upon the account of the deliverance of his People; For your sake I have sent down to Babylon, and have brought down all their Nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in their ships. In every deliverance there is the excellent work of the Attributes of God; we may in such a deliverance say, Here is the Power of God, and here is the Wisdom of God, and here is the Love of God, and here is the Faithfulness of God, &c. For as God in the confounding of the Languages at Babel, said, Go too, let us go down, (as if he directed himself to his glorious Attributes, compassing about his glorious Throne) Come, let us go down.
2. Your deliverances are wonderful, if you consider your deliverances are great deliverances. We read of such;1 And the Lord saved them with a great deliverance; or with a great salvation.2 Thus said Sampson, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant. Now any great transactions are remembred and recorded. Your deliverances are great, if we consider these things; 1. They are commanded deliverances by the great God; ⟨p. 118⟩his word of command brings all our deliverances about, whether at Sea or Land. Which made the Church in distress pray,3 Thou art my King, O God, command deliverances for Jacob. He commands every thing tending to deliverance at Sea; in order to deliverance, he commands the Winds;4 He maketh the storm a calm. He also commands the Seas; he says to the proud Waves, So far, and no further. You read of a decree set to the Sea,5 that it cannot pass; Though the Waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it. 6It is the great God only that rides Lord Admiral at Sea, to command the Seas and the Waves thereof. God is said to shut up the Sea with doors, and set bars upon it. Hithorto shalt thou come, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed. Xerxes presumed he could tame the Hellespont, for attempting his Bridge of Boats; but all this was in vain, this is a flower in Gods Crown alone, to command the Sea. Your deliverances are a fruit and effect of Gods commanding Power, therefore great. 2. They are great deliverances, as they are the curious workmanship (as I may call them) ⟨p. 119⟩of the Attributes of a great God. Deliverance is said to be wrought for us,7 it is the handy work of God;8 If God will work, 9
- 11 Chron. 11. 14.
- 2Judg. 15. 18.Iudg. 15. 18.
- 3Psal. 44. 4.
- 4Psal. 107. 29.
- 5Jer. 5. 22.Ier. 5. 22.
- 6Job 38. 8, 11.Iob 38. 8, 11.
- 7Isai. 43. 13, 14.
- 8Gen. 11. 7.
- 9Or as some take it of the Trinity, as in the Creation; it is Gods coming down, when Persons are delivered in eminent dangers. We read of hands at work under the wings we see not, so the curious works of providence in our deliverances till they come forth O then how shall we admire them.
