touch breaketh a bubble, and a slight natural expectation is soon discouraged; but to hope against hope, to pray when God forbids praying, to keep waiting when we have not only difficulties in the world, but seeming disappointments from Heaven itself, when the promise and Christ seem to be parting from you and refuse you; yet then to say, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," as Jacob said to the angel (Gen. xxxii. 25, 26), when God saith, "Let me go!"

USE.-Let us turn ourselves towards God for help, and have our eyes on him, and keep them there: "But mine eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord; in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute" (Psalm cxli. 8). Let us not give way to discouragements, though God delay us so long till all our carnal provisions are spent, no meal in the barrel, nor oil in the cruise, and we are brought to the last morsel of bread; though brought to complain for pity to them that will show none, but pour vinegar into our wounds; yea, till our spiritual provisions be spent, faith will hold out no longer, hope can do us no service, patience lost and clean gone; we fall a-questioning God's love and care: I say, though we grow weary, let us strive against it, acquaint God with it, renew faith in the word of promise. There is a holy obstinacy in believing.

To get this eye of faith,

1. There is need of the Spirit's enlightening. Nature is short-sighted (2 Peter i. 9). A man cannot look into the other world, till his eyes be opened by the Spirit of God: "The Father of glory give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints" (Eph. i. 17, 18). There needs spiritual eye-salve to get this piercing eye to look through the curtain of the clouds.

2. When your eye is opened, you must keep your eye clear from the suffusions of lust and worldly affections. A mortified heart only is a fit soil for faith to grow in. The world is a blinding thing (2 Cor. iv. 4). While present things bear bulk in our eye, invisible things are little regarded by us. Dust cast into the eyes hindereth the sight; carnal affections send up the fumes and steams of lust to blind us.

3. The eye being clear, you must ever be looking up out of the world of temptations into the world of comforts and supports, from earth to Heaven: "As seeing him who is invisible" (Heb. xi. 27). And the nothing things of the world, by omnifying and magnifying God. There are the great objects, which darken the glory of the world and all created things. And there we see more for us than can be against us (2 Kings vi. 16). Pharaoh, a king of mighty power, was contemptible in Moses's eyes, because he saw a higher and a more glorious king; so glorious, that all the power and princes of the world are nothing to him.

4. The less sensible evidence there is of the object of faith, the greater and stronger is the faith, if we believe it upon God's word: "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John xx. 29). It extenuateth our faith, when the object must be visible to sense, or it worketh not on us. Faith hath more of the nature of faith, when it is satisfied with God's word, whatever sense and reason say to the contrary: "Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter i. 8). Whatever faith closeth

with upon sure grounds, it is spiritually present to the soul, though few sensible helps. The less we see in the world, the more must we believe. To see things to come as present, and to see things that otherwise cannot be seen, cometh near to God's vision of all things. God saw all things before they were, all things that may be, shall be, visione simplicis intelligentiæ: "Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth" (Prov. viii. 31). So doth faith eye all things, in the all-sufficiency and promise of God, long before they come to pass, and affects the believer with them.

III. From the weakness and imbecility confessed, "Mine eyes fail.” The doctrine is,

DOCTRINE. That sometimes God's people wait so long, that their eyes even fail in waiting; that is, their faith, hope, and patience are almost spent, and they are ready to give over looking.

Two

For the phrase intimateth two things, a trial on God's part and a weakness on ours. First, a trial by reason of God's dispensations. things make our waiting tedious, the sharpness of afflictions and the length of them, long delays of help and great trouble: in the mean time, first, the depth of the calamity, or the sharpness of the trial, may occasion this failing: "My heart panteth, my strength faileth me; as for the light of mine eyes, it is also gone" (Psalm xxxviii. 10). Secondly, the length of troubles, or the protraction of deliverance. As the bodily eye is tired with long looking, so doth the soul begin to be weary, when this expectation is drawn out at length: "Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?" (Psalm cxix. 82.) The delay is tedious.

As to the matter of this failing, there are three things:

First, That the sufferings of God's children may be sometimes long. God ordereth it so that faith, hope, and patience, may have their perfect work (Heb. vi. 12). There is an intervening time, between the promise and the accomplishment. Intervening difficulties: "Hope that is seen, is not hope" (James i. 3, 4; Rom. viii. 24); it is but natural probability, natural courage. Those that have received a great measure of faith, have a great measure of trials: their troubles are greater, that their graces may be the more exercised, that many stubborn humours may be broken (Jer. iv. 3). God useth to suffer his enemies to break up the fallow ground of his people: "The plowers plowed upon my back; they made long their furrows" (Psalm cxxix. 3). We have proud and stiff hearts; therefore the plough of persecution goeth deep, and the seed of the word may thrive the more; till they have done their work, God doth not cut asunder the cords. The Lord of the soil expects a richer crop. The power of the Spirit is more seen: "Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness" (Col. i. 11). Not only patience, but long-suffering, which is patience extended under continued troubles. Men may fret; it is not unwilling, extorted by force; but they are cheerful under the cross. The length of sufferings: some can endure a sharp brunt, but tire under a long affliction. Some go drooping and heavily under it; therefore joyfulness. For these and many other reasons, doth God permit our sufferings to be long.

Secondly, Why faith, hope, and patience, are apt to fail.

1st, Because these graces are weak in the best, and may fail under long and sharp trials: "For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity" (Psalm cxxv. 3). The strongest believer may faint in trouble, therefore

God will not try them above their strength; but, as he sometimes giveth more grace, so sometimes he abateth the temptations. Grace is not so perfect in any, as to be above all weakening by assaults. Who would have thought that a meek Moses could be angry? (Psalm cvi. 33.) There are relics of sin unmortified, such as may be awakened in the best. Who would have thought that David should fall into uncleanness, an old experienced man, who had many wives of his own, when Joseph, a young man, a captive, resisted an offered occasion? But especially do these graces fail in their operation, when the temptation is more spiritual; for these are mystical graces, to which nature giveth no help. When things dear to us in the flesh and in the Lord, are made the matter of the temptation, and set an edge upon it, &c. Sins that disturb the order of the present world, are not so rife with the saints as sins that concern our commerce with God.

2ndly, Because temptations raise strange clouds and mists in the soul, that, though they grant principles, yet they cannot reconcile providences with them. As, "Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee" (Jer. xii. 1). It is not to be questioned, much less doubted of, that God is upright and just in his dealings; yet what mean those passages of his providence? their thoughts are fearfully imbrangled, the minds of the godly are molested: "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?" So, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity; wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?" (Hab. i. 13.) God is pure and holy, they know; yet how can he bear with the enemy, in their treachery and violence against the church! So brutified are they, that they know not how to reconcile his dispensations with his nature and attributes; though they have faith enough to justify God, yet atheism enough to question his providence. When the heart is over-charged with fears: "Truly God is good to Israel, &c. My feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped" (Psalm lxxiii. 12). They hold fast the conclusion, "God is good to Israel," yet cannot maintain it against all objections.

3rdly, Carnal affections are hasty and impetuous; and, if God give not a present satisfaction, they question all his love and care of them: "I said in my haste, I am cut off" (Psalm xxxi. 22); "Zion saith, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me" (Isa. xlix. 14); "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight" (John ii. 4). So that, did not God confute his unbelief by some sudden experience, as in the first instance; or the word contain a suitable supply, as in the second; or the principle of grace in some measure withstand, "But I will look towards thy holy temple," the soul would be swallowed up in the whirlpool of despair. Thus hasty and precipitant are we; while we hearken to the voice of the flesh, we are apt to count all our troubles God's total desertion of us. Such a hasty principle have we within us, that will hurry us to desperate conclusions, as if it were in vain to wait upon God any longer.

4thly, Mutability in man. What a flush of faith and zeal have we at first, as stuffs have a great gloss at first wearing! We lose, as our first love, so our first faith: "Ye did run well; who did hinder you?" (Gal. v. 7.) There is a great forwardness at first, which abateth afterwards; and men grow remiss, "faint in your minds" (Heb. xii. 3), from one degree to another.

Thirdly, That this failing is but an infirmity of the saints; though their hope be weak and ready to faint, it is not quite dead.

1st, It is an infirmity of the better sort, not like the atheism and malignity of the wicked. Some diseases show a good constitution, and seize on none but such. This distemper is not incident to carnal men: “Mine eyes fail with looking upward" (Isa. xxxviii. 14). It argueth a vehemency in our hope they that do not mind things, are never troubled with such a spiritual disease; for this failing cannot be, but where there is vehemency of desire and expectation. Those that desire little of the salvation of God's people, feel none of this.

2ndly, There is a difference between them and others. Though they have their weaknesses, yet their faith doth not quite expire, there is a twig of righteousness still to trust to: they are weary of watching; but they do not give over waiting; and say as he 2 Kings vi. 33, "What should I wait for the Lord any longer?" Fainting is one thing, and quite dead is another: they strive against the temptation: though no end of their difficulties appeareth, they attend still, keep looking, though the vigour of the eye be abated by long exercise. There is life in the saints, though not that liveliness they could wish; for they do not fall, and rise no more, and are quite thrown down with every blast of a temptation.

3rdly, They confess their weakness to God, as David doth here, acquainteth God with it; and so shame themselves out of the temptation, and beg new strength. It is an excellent way of curing such distempers, to lay them forth before God in prayer; for he helpeth the weak in their conflicts. When we debate dark cases with our own hearts, we entangle ourselves the more.

USE.-1. It reproveth our tenderness, when we cannot bear a little while : "What! could ye not watch with me one hour?" (Matt. xxvi. 40.) David kept waiting till his eyes failed. Some, their whole voyage in storms; Christ indents with us to take up our cross daily (Luke ix. 23); who are all their lifetime kept under this discipline; and can we bear no check from Providence? We would have done in an hour or in a year, can bear nothing when God calleth us to bear much and long; cannot endure to abate a little of our wonted contentment, when God will strip us

of all.

2. Let us provide for long sufferings. All colours will not hold as long as the cloth lasts. We need a great deal of grace, because we know not how long our great troubles may last. Sometimes sufferings are like to be long. First, when the cross maketh little improvement, carrieth little conviction with it. While the stubbornness of the child continueth, the blows are continued. God will withdraw, "till they acknowledge their offence" (Hos. v. 15). When we eye instruments, and pour our rage upon them; or instruments are minded, and we hope to be delivered some other way, when we repent not. Secondly, when provocations are long: "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance; and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance (Deut. xxviii. 58, 59).

END OF VOL. II.