the beasts of that wilderness were refreshed thereby also. Isa. xliii. 20. 'The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragon and the owl; because I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desart, to give drink to my people, my chosen.' The very worst of the sons of men, dragons and owls, fare the better for God's protecting providence towards his own." And all this was in such abundance, that it was as plentiful as a sea. 'He clave the rock in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great deep; he brought streams also out of the rocks, and caused waters to run down like rivers;' Psal. lxxviii. 15, 16. So also it is celebrated, Isa. xli. 18. xlviii. 21. Hos. xiii. 5. and in many other places. Great deliverances call for frequent remembrances.

Thus were rivers brought out of the rocks, and with or for these rivers God did cleave the earth, that is, either he provided channels for those streams to run in, that they might not be wasted on the surface of that sandy wilderness, but preserved for the use of his people; or else the streams were so great and strong, that they pierced the earth, and parted channels for themselves. Great rivers of water, brought out of flinty rocks, running into prepared channels, to refresh a sinful, thirsty people, in a barren wilderness, I think, is a remarkable mercy.

(2.) As it was eminent in itself, so likewise is it exalted in its typical concernment. Is there nothing but flints in this rock? nothing but water in these streams? nothing but the rod of Moses in the blows given to it? Did the people receive no other refreshment, but only in respect of their bodily thirst? Yes, saith the apostle, 'They drank of that spiritual rock which followed them, and that rock was Christ;' 1 Cor. x. 4. Was not this rock a sign of that rock of ages, on which the church is built? Matt. xvi. 18. Did not Moses' smiting hold out his being smitten with the rod of God? Isa. liii. 4, 5. Was not the pouring out of these plentiful streams as the pouring out of his precious blood, in a sea of mercy, abundantly sufficient to refresh the whole fainting church in the wilderness? Latet Christus in petra,' Here is Christ in this rock.' Had Rome had wisdom to build on this rock, though she had nothad an infallibility, as

▾ Vir bonus commune bonum. Gen. xxxi. 3.

she vainly now pretends, she might have had an infallibility (if I may so speak), yea, she had never quite failed. Give me leave to take a few observations from hence.

As,

[1] Sinners must be brought to great extremities, to make them desire the blood of Jesus. Weary and thirsty before rock-water come. Thirst is a continually galling pressure. When a soul gaspeth like a parched land, and is as far from self-refreshment, as a man from drawing waters out of a flint, then shall the side of Christ be opened to him. You that are full of your lusts, drunk with the world, here is not a drop for you. If you never come into the wilderness, you shall never have rock-water.

[2.] Mercy to a convinced sinner seems ofttimes as remote, as rivers from a rock of flint. The truth is, he never came near mercy, who thought not himself far from it. When the Israelites cried, We are ready to die for thirst, then stood they on the ground, where rivers were to run.

[3.] Thirsty souls shall want no water, though it be fetched for them out of a rock. Panters after the blood of Jesus shall assuredly have refreshment and pardon, through the most unconquerable difficulties. Though grace and mercy seem to be locked up from them, like water in a flint, whence fire is more natural than water; yet God will not strike the rock of his justice and their flinty hearts together, to make hell-fire sparkle about their ears; but with a rod of mercy on Christ, that abundance of water may be drawn out for their refreshment.

[4.] The most eminent temporal blessings, and suitable refreshment (water from a rock for them that are ready to perish), is but an obscure representation of that love of God, and refreshment of souls, which is in the blood of Jesus. Carnal things are exceeding short of spiritual, temporal things of eternal.

[5.] The blood of Christ is abundantly sufficient for his whole church to refresh themselves, streams, rivers, a whole

sea.

These, and the like observations, flowing from the typical relation of the blessing intimated, shall not farther be insisted on; one only I shall take from the historical truth.

XXI. Observation. God sometimes bringeth plentiful deliverances and mercies for his people from beyond the ken

of sense and reason, yea, from above the ordinary reach of much precious faith.

I mean not what it ought to reach, which is all the omnipotency of God; but what ordinarily it doth, as in this very business it was with Moses. I say, plentiful deliverances, mercies like the waters that gushed out in abundant streams, until the earth was cloven with rivers; that the people should not only have a taste and away, but drink abundantly, and leave for the beasts of the field. From beyond the ken of sense and reason, by events which a rationally wise man is no more able to look into, than an eye of flesh is able to see water in a flint; or a man probably suppose, that divers millions of creatures should be refreshed with waters out of a rock, where there was never any spring from the foundation of the world.

Now concerning this observe,

1. That God hath done it.

2. That he hath promised he will yet do it.

3. Why he will so do?

1. He hath done it. I might here tire you with precedents. I could lead you from that mother deliverance, the womb of all others, the redemption that is in the blood of Jesus, down through many dispensations of old, and of late, holding out this proposition to the full. One shall suffice me, and if some of you cannot help yourselves with another, you are very senseless.

Look upon Peter's deliverance, Acts xii. The night before he was to be slain, he was kept safe in a prison, a prison he had neither will nor power to break. He was bound with two chains, beyond his skill to unloose, or force asunder. Kept he was by sixteen soldiers, doubtless men of blood and vigilancy, having this to keep them waking, that if Peter escaped with his head, they were to lose theirs. Now that his deliverance was above sense and reason, himself intimates, ver. 11. He hath delivered me from the expectation of the Jews.' The wise, subtle Jews concluded the matter so secure, that without any doubts or fears they were in expectation of his execution the next day. That it was also beyond the ready reach of much precious faith, you have an example in those believers, who were gathered together in the house of Mary, ver. 12. calling her mad, who

first affirmed it, ver. 15. and being astonished when their eyes beheld it, ver. 16. the whole seeming so impossible to carnal Herod, after its accomplishment, that he slays the keepers as false in their hellish trust; a just recompense for trusty villains.

The time would fail me to speak of Isaac," and Joseph, Gideon, Noah, Daniel, and Job, all precedents worthy your consideration. View them at your leisure, and you will have leisure, if you intend to live by faith.

2. He hath said it. It is a truth abounding in promises and performances. I shall hold out one or two; it will be worth your while to search for others yourselves. He that digs for a mine, finds many a piece of gold by the way.

Isa. xli. 14-16. Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye few men of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them,' &c. To make a worm a threshing instrument with teeth, to cause that instrument to beat mountains and hills into chaff, that chaff to be blown away with the wind, that that worm may rejoice in God; to advance a small handful of despised ones to the ruin of mountainous empires and kingdoms, until they be broken and scattered to nothing, is a mercy that comes from beyond the ken of an ordinary eye. Ezek. xxxvii. 3. the prophet professeth that the deliverance promised was beyond his apprehension. Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest.' The Lord intimates in the following verses, that he will provide a means for his church's recovery, when it seemeth as remote therefrom, as dry bones scattered upon the face of the earth are from a mighty living army. This he calls opening their graves, ver. 12, 13. The reasons of this are,

1. Because he would have his people wholly wrapt up in his all-sufficiency, not to straiten themselves with what their faith can ken in a promise, much less to what their reason can perceive in appearance. In the application of promises to particular trials and extremities faith oftentimes is exceedingly disturbed, either in respect of persons, or things, or seasons; but when it will wholly swallow up

"Gen. xxii. 14. xxxix. &c.

itself in all-sufficiency, the fountain of all promises, there is no place for fear or disputing. Have your souls in spiritual trials never been driven from all your outworks unto this main fort? Hath not all hold of promises in time of trial given place to temptations, until you have fallen down in all-sufficiency, and there found peace? God accounts a flight to the strong tower of his name to be the most excellent valour; this is faith's first, proper, and most immediate object; to particular promises it is drawn out, on particular occasions; here is, or should be, its constant abode; Gen. xvii. 1. And indeed the soul will never be prepared to all the will of God, until its whole complacency be taken up in this sufficiency of the Almighty. Here God delights to have the soul give up itself to a contented losing of all its reasonings, even in the infinite unsearchableness of his goodness and power. Therefore will he sometimes send forth such streams of blessings, as can flow from no other fountain, that his may know where to lie down in peace. Here he would have us secure our shallow bottoms in this quiet sea, this infinite ocean, whither neither wind nor storm do once approach. Those blustering temptations which rage at the shore, when we were half at land and half at sea, half upon the bottom of our own reason, and half upon the ocean of providence, reach not at all unto this deep. Oh, if we could in all trials lay ourselves down in these arms of the Almighty, his all-sufficiency in power and goodness! Oh, how much of the haven should we have in our voyage, how much of home in our pilgrimage, how much of heaven in this wretched earth! Friends, throw away your staves, break the arm of flesh, lie down here quietly in every dispensation, and you shall see the salvation of God. I could lose myself in setting out of this, wherein I could desire you would lose yourselves in every time of trouble. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint, and to them who have no might, he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run