And the reason of all this is (to give you the hint intimated before) Because the people of God take their eye off God and the promise, and fix it upon Second causes: 1because they do not wisely consider Gods times, how that the Churches despairing times, are Gods helping times: Now will I rise, &c. They do not wisely ponder Gods methods: Moses might have remembered how that God when he made Abraham a promise of bringing his seed out of Egypt; he showed him also, as in a glass, the Methods he would use in doing of it, in that Emblem of the smoking furnace, 2and the burning Lamp, the smoking furnace passeth before Abraham first an Emblem of black opposition, of sad and affrighting discouragement and trouble; and then comes the burning Lamp, an Emblem of JOYFUL AND GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.3 Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Alas, Moses might have thought with himself, and have said to God, Lord, this opposition of Pharaoh, this doubling of thy peoples bondage, is nothing else but the vision thou showedst to thy servant ABRAHAM; whereby we know assuredly the WORK IS BEGUN, it is the arrow of the Lords deliverance: we are now, Lord, in the SMOKING FURNACE; the BURNING ⟨p. 30⟩LAMP WILL APPEAR SHORTLY; O hasten it, Lord, and help thine Israel well through this Smoking furnace, that they may not be weary nor faint in their minds, nor sin against thee by IMPATIENCE and UNBELIEF till thou pleasest to cause the BURNING LAMP TO ARISE upon us, &c. And with these words he might have quieted and stilled the people also. But the people of God have their failings and faintings, their short spiritedness and short sightedness; they look not to the time and methods of God; they eye not the ends and aims which God hath in these kind of dispensations of his providence: and hence it is that they give way to Unbelief and misgiving thoughts.
And the reason of all this is (to give you the hint intimated before) Because the people of God take their eye off God and the promise, and fix it upon Second causes: 1because they do not wisely consider Gods times, how that the Churches despairing times, are Gods helping times: Now will I rise, &c. They do not wisely ponder Gods methods: Moses might have remembred how that God when he made Abraham a promise of bringing his seed out of Egypt; he shewed him also, as in a glasse, the Methods he would use in doing of it, in that Embleme of the smoking furnace, 2and the burning Lamp, the smoking furnace passeth before Abraham first an Embleme of black opposition, of sad and affrighting discouragement and trouble; and then comes the burning Lamp, an Embleme of JOYFUL AND GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.3 Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Alas, Moses might have thought with himself, and have said to God, Lord, this opposition of Pharaoh, this doubling of thy peoples bondage, is nothing else but the vision thou shewedst to thy servant ABRAHAM; whereby we know assuredly the WORK IS BEGUN, it is the arrow of the Lords deliverance: we are now, Lord, in the SMOKING FURNACE; the BURNING ⟨p. 30⟩LAMP WILL APPEAR SHORTLY; O hasten it, Lord, and help thine Israel well thorow this Smoking furnace, that they may not be weary nor faint in their mindes, nor sin against thee by IMPATIENCE and UNBELIEF till thou pleasest to cause the BURNING LAMP TO ARISE upon us, &c. And with these words he might have quieted and still'd the people also. But the people of God have their failings and faintings, their short spiritednesse and short sightednesse; they look not to the time and methods of God; they eye not the ends and aims which God hath in these kinde of dispensations of his providence: and hence it is that they give way to Ʋnbelief and misgiving thoughts.
- 1Why the people of God reason thus unbelievingly in their straits. Isa. 33.10. Isa. 15.17.
- 2Gen. 15.7.
- 3Psal. 97.11.
