Ans. In some cases our duty is submission to his will, and the particular mercy neither positively to be expected not yet distrusted. Thus did David behave himself when he fled from Jerusalem upon Absalom’s rebellion; ‘Let him do what seemeth him good.’
But there are other cases wherein it is our duty to fix our trust upon the particular mercy or help. I shall name four; and possibly a great many more may be added. As,
[1.] First, When mercies are expressly and particularly promised: as when the kingdom was promised to David; when a son was promised to Abraham. Whatever had been the improbabilities of their obtaining the thing promised, it was their duty positively to believe. This is indeed not a general case.
[2.] Secondly, When God leads us into straits by engaging us in his service: as when Israel followed the Lord into the wilderness, in order to an enjoyment of a further mercy, which was the possession of the land of Canaan. When they had no water to drink, nor food to eat, and saw no natural possibility of supply in that wilderness, they ought positively to have expected supplies from God in an extraordinary way; and it is reckoned up against them as their sin that they did not believe. This was the very case of Christ under this temptation; the Spirit led him into the wilderness upon the prosecution of a further design. When there was no bread there to satisfy his hunger, he refuseth to work a miracle for his supply, but leans upon an extraordinary providence.
[3.] Thirdly, When the things we want are common universal blessings, and such as we cannot subsist without. If we have nothing to eat, and nothing to put on, yet seeing the body cannot live without both, we must positively expect such supplies from providence, though we see not the way whence they should arise to us. This kind of distrust, which reflects upon the general necessary providence of God, by which he is engaged to preserve his creatures in their stations, ‘to clothe the grass of the field, to feed the birds of the air,’ &c., Christ doth severely challenge, ‘Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?’ Mat. vi. 30. He hath little or no faith, and in that regard a very prodigy of distrust, that will not believe for necessaries. Hence, Hab. iii. 17, the prophet resolves upon a rejoicing confidence in God, when neither tree, nor field, nor flock would yield any hope in an ordinary way.
[4.] Fourthly, When God is eminently engaged for our help, and his honour lies at stake in that very matter; so that whether God will help or no, or whether he is able, is become the controversy, upon which religion in its truth or the honour of God is to be tried; then are we engaged to a certain belief of help. The three children upon this ground did not only assert that ‘God was able to deliver them,’ or that their death and martyrdom they could bear, which is all that most martyrs are able to arise up to, but they asserted positively that ‘God would deliver them,’ and that the fire should not burn them. They saw evidently that the contest, whether the Lord was God, was managed at so high a rate, that God was more concerned to vindicate his honour by their preservation, than to vindicate their grace and patience by their constancy and suffering, [Dan. iii.] Another instance we have in Mat. viii. 26, where Christ rebukes his disciples for unbelief, in their fears of shipwreck in a great storm—not that every seaman ordinarily lies under that charge, that gives himself up to the apprehensions of danger—the ground of which charge was this, that Christ was with them, and consequently it had unavoidably contradicted his design, and reflected upon his honour, if he had suffered his disciples at that time to be drowned. Their not minding how far Christ was engaged with them, and not supporting themselves against their fears by that consideration, made Christ tax them for their little faith.
CHAPTER XII.
Of Satan’s proceeding to infer distrust of sonship from distrust of providences.—Instances of the probability of such a design.—The reasons of this undertaking.—Of Satan’s endeavour to weaken the assurance and hopes of God’s children.—His general method to that purpose.
Lastly, we are to consider the suitableness of the means to the end. He had, as we have seen, fitly proportioned the subordinate means to the chief and principal. The failure of ordinary means of help was shrewdly proper to infer a distrust of providence. Now let it be noted how fitly he improves this distrust of providence to bring about the end he aimed at, which was a distrust of his filial interest in God, as if he should have thus reasoned: ‘He that in straits is forsaken, as to all the usual supplies that may be expected in an ordinary way, hath no reason to rely on providence; and he that hath no reason to rely on providence for the body, hath less cause to expect spiritual blessings and favours for the soul.’ Hence note,