John Owen · 17 of 157

Sermon II. Habukkuk iii. 1–9. · Part 4

2. The sea:— that is, the Red sea, which, in like manner, was divided, Exod. xiv. 21; which the prophet also admires in the fore-cited psalm: “The sea saw it, and fled. What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest?” What strong, mighty impression of power was on thee, that the multitudes of thy waters should be parted, and thy channel discovered dry to the bottom?

3. “That thou didst ride upon thine horses, and thy chariots of salvation” This you have again, verse 15, “Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses.” These were those clouds and winds which the Lord sent before the Israelites, to the sea and Jordan, to drive them back. “He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind,” Ps. civ. 3. So Ps. xviii. 10, “He did fly upon the wings of the wind.” After the manner of men, God is represented as a mighty conqueror, riding before his armies and making way for them. The power and majesty of God was with and upon those clouds and winds which went before his people, to part those mighty waters, that they might pass dry; and therefore they are called his saving chariots, because by them his people were delivered. Or by horses and chariots here you may understand the angels, who are the host of God. Ps. lxviii. 17, “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels.” They have appeared as horses and chariots of fire, 2 Kings vi. 17. And their ministry, no doubt, the Lord used in these mighty works of drying rivers and dividing seas. Either way, the glorious power and majesty of God, in his delivering instruments, is set forth.

Thus the words severally; — now jointly.

This admiring interrogation includes a negation. “Was the Lord kindled against the rivers? was thy face against the rivers,” etc. Was it that the deep had offended the Most High, that, by thine angels, winds, and clouds, thou didst so disturb the floods in their ancient course, and madest naked their hidden channels, until the hoary deep cried out for fear, and lifted up his aged hands to the Almighty, as it were, for pity? verse 10. No, surely, no such thing. All those keep the order by thee unto them appointed; it was all for the salvation and deliverance of thy people. God was not angry with Jordan when he drove it back, nor with the sea when he divided it; but all was effected for Israel’s deliverance.

XVII. Observation. The very senseless creatures are, as it were, sensible of the wrath and power of the Almighty.

Effects of anger being in and upon the deep, “he utters his voice, and lifts up his hands on high,” verse 10. God often in the Scripture sets forth his power and majesty by the trembling of heaven and the shaking of the earth, the vanishing of mountains and the bowing of perpetual hills, the professed humble subjection of the most eminent parts of the creation. The sea shall fly, as afraid; the rocks, as weak, rend and crumble; the heavens be darkened; the mountains skip like rams, and the little hills like young sheep, Ps. cxiv. 4.

Τρέμει δ’ ὄρη, καὶ πελώριος Βυθὸς θαλάσσης, κᾠρέων ὕψος μέγα, Ὅταν ἐπεβλέψῃ γοργὸν ὄμμα δεσπότου.

“The earth shook, the heavens dropped at the presence of God,” Ps. lxiii. 8. The almighty Creator holds the whole frame of the building in his own hand, and makes what portion he pleaseth, and when he pleaseth, to tremble, consume, and vanish before him. Though many things are not capable of sense and reason, yet he will make them do such things as sense and reason should prompt the whole subjected creation unto, to teach that part their duty who were endued therewith. A servant is beat, to make a child learn his duty.

Use. See hence the stoutness of sinful hearts, — more stubborn than the mountains, more flinty than the rocks, more senseless than the great deep. Friend, art thou stronger than Horeb? yet that trembled at the presence of this mighty God, whom it never had provoked. Are thy lusts like the streams of Jordan? yet they ran back from his chariots of salvation. Are thy corruption? more firmly seated on thy soul than the mountains on their bases? yet they leaped like frighted sheep before that God against whom they had not sinned. And wilt thou, a small handful of sinful dust, that hast ten thousand times provoked the eyes of his glory, not tremble before him, coming on his horses and chariots of salvation, — his mighty works and powerful word? Shall a lion tremble, and thou not be afraid, who art ready to tremble with a thought of that poor creature? Shall the heavens bow, the deep beg for mercy, and thou be senseless? Shall all creatures quake for the sin of man, and sinful man be secure? Know you not that the time is coming wherein such men will desire the trembling rocks to be a covert to their more affrighted souls?

XVIII. Observation. No creatures, seas nor floods, greater or lesser waters, shall be able to obstruct or hinder God’s people’s deliverance, when he hath undertaken it.

Is the sea against them? it shall be parted. Is Jordan in the way? it shall be driven back. Both sea and Jordan shall tremble before him. Euphrates shall be dried up, to give the kings of the east a passage, Rev. xvi. 12. Waters in the Scriptures are sometimes afflictions, sometimes people and nations. Be they seas (kings and princes), or be they rivers (inferior persons), they shall not be able to oppose. God has decked his house, and made it glorious with the spoils of all opposers. There you have the spoils of Pharaoh, gathered up on the shore of the Red sea, and dedicated in the house of God, Exod. xv. 1. There you have all the armour of Sennacherib’s mighty host, with the rest of their spoils, hung up to show, 2 Chron. xxxii. 21. There you have the glory, and throne, and dominion of Nebuchadnezzar, himself being turned into a beast, Dan. iv. 33. There you shall have the carcasses of Gog and Magog, with all their mighty hosts, for coming to encamp against the city of God, Ezek. xxxix. 1. There you have the imperial robes of Diocletian and his companion, abdicating them — selves from the empire for very madness that they could not prevail against the church. Kings of armies shall fly apace; and she that tarries at home shall divide the spoil, Ps. lxviii. 12. All opposers, though nations and kingdoms, shall perish and be utterly destroyed, Isa. lx. 12, Rev. xix. 18.

God will not exalt any creature unto a pitch of opposition to himself, or to stand in the way of his workings. The very end of all things, in their several stations, is to be serviceable to his purposes towards his own. Obedience in senseless creatures is natural, even against the course of nature, in the season of deliverance. “Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon,” Josh. x. 12. “Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain,” Zech. iv. 7. The most mountainous opposers shall be levelled, when the Spirit of God sets in for that purpose. There is a strength in every promise and engagement of God unto his people, that is able to carry the whole frame of heaven and earth before it. If they can believe, all things are possible to them that believe. When the decree is to bring forth the fruit of the promise, it will overturn empires, destroy nations, divide seas, ruin armies, open prisons, break chains and fetters, and bear down all before it; as the wind shut up in the earth will shake the pillars, as it were, of its mighty body, but it will find or make a passage. The least promise of deliverance, if the season thereof be come, though it were shut up under strong and mighty powers, crafty counsels, dungeons, and prisons, like the doors and lasting bars of the earth, the truth and power of God shall make them all to tremble, and give birth to his people’s deliverance.

Use 1. Have we seen nothing of this in our days? — no seas divided? no Jordans driven back? no mountains levelled? no hills made to tremble? Whence, then, was the late confusion of armies? casting down of mighty ones? reviving of dead bones? opening of prison doors? bringing out the captives appointed to be slain? Is it not from hence, that nothing can stand against the breaking out of a promise in its appointed season? “Was the Lord displeased with the rivers?” was his anger against the walls and houses, “that he rode upon his horses, and chariots of salvation?”

Use 2. Let faith be strengthened in an evil time. Poor distressed soul, all the difficulty of thy deliverance lies in thine own bosom! If the streams of thy unbelief within be not stronger than all seas of opposition without, all will be easy. O learn to stand still with quietness, between a host of Egyptians and a raging sea, to see the salvation of God! Be quiet in prison, between your friends’ bullets and your enemies’ swords; God can, God will, make a way. If it were not more hard with us to believe wonders than it is to the promise to effect wonders for us, they would be no wonders, so daily, so continually, would they be wrought.

XIX. Observation. God can make use of any of his creatures to be chariots of salvation.

This is the other side of that doctrine which we gathered from verse 5, “Winds and clouds shall obey him.” Ravens shall feed Elijah, that will not feed their own young. The sea shall open for Israel, and return upon the Egyptians. And this both in an ordinary way, as Hos. ii. 21, 22; and in an extraordinary way, as before. So many creatures as God hath made, so many instruments of good hath he for his people. This is farther confirmed, verse 9.

Verse 9. “Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.”

“With nakedness thy bow was made naked.” The rest is elliptical, and well supplied in the translation.

The verse hath two parts.

1. A general proposition: “Thy bow was made naked,” etc.

2. A particular confirmation of that proposition by instance: “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.”

1. The proposition holds out two things.

(1.) What God did: “He made his bow quite naked.”

(2.) The rule he proceeded by herein: “According to the oaths of the tribes, even his word.”

The assertion of this verse is not of some particular act or work, as the former, but a general head or fountain of those particular works which are enumerated in the following verses.

(1.) A bow is a weapon of war, an instrument of death; and being ascribed to God, after the manner of men, holds out his strength, power, might, and efficacy, to do whatever he pleaseth. And this is said to be quite naked. When a man goes about to use his bow, he pulls it out of his quiver, and so makes it naked. The exercising of God’s power is the making naked of his bow. This he did in all those wonders wherein he stretched out his hand, in bringing his people into the promised land, here pointed at. And it is said that with nakedness it was made naked, because of those very high dispensations and manifestations of his almighty power. This is the making naked of his bow.

(2.) For the rule of this, it is “the oaths of the tribes;” or as afterward, “his word,” — the oaths of the tribes, that is, the oaths made to them, — the word he stood engaged to them in. The promise God made by oath unto Abraham, that he would give him the land of Canaan for an inheritance, even to him and his posterity, Gen. xiii. 14–17, is here intimated. This promise was often renewed to him and the following patriarchs. Hence it is called oaths, though but the same promise often renewed: and it had the nature of an oath, because it was made a covenant. Now, it was all for the benefit of the several tribes, in respect of actual possession, and was lastly renewed to them, Exod. iii. 17; hence called “the oaths of the tribes,” not which they sware to the Lord, but that which the Lord sware to them. So afterward it is called his word, — “Thy word.” This, then, is the purport of this general proposition, “O Lord, according as thou promisedst, and engagedst thyself by covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their posterity, that thou wouldst give them the land of Canaan to be theirs for an inheritance; so by the dispensation of thy mighty power thou hast fully accomplished it.” And this he layeth down for the supportment of faith in a time of trouble.

The words would afford many observations; I shall insist only on one.

XX. Observation. The Lord will certainly make good all his promises and engagements to his people, though it cost him the making of his bow quite naked, — the manifestation of his power in the utmost dispensations thereof.

God’s workings are squared to his engagements. This is still the close of all gracious issues of providence, — God hath done all according “as he promised,” Josh. xxii. 4; 2 Sam. vii. 21. He brought out his people of old with a mighty hand, with temptations, signs, and wonders, and a stretched-out arm; and all because he would keep the oath which he had sworn, and the engagement which he had made to their fathers, Deut. vii. 8. What obstacles soever may lie in the way, he hath done it, he will do it. Take one instance; particular places are too many to be insisted on. It was the purpose of his heart to bring his elect home to himself, from their forlorn condition. This he engageth himself to do, Gen. iii. 15, — assuring Adam of a recovery from the misery he was involved in by Satan’s prevalency. This, surely, is no easy work. If the Lord will have it done, he must lay out all his attributes in the demonstration of them to the uttermost. His wisdom and power must bow their shoulders, as it were, in Christ unto it. He was “the power of God, and the wisdom of God;” his engaged love must be carried along through so many secret, mysterious marvels, as the angels themselves “desire to look into,” and shall for ever adore. Though the effecting of it required that which man could not do, and God could not suffer; yet his wisdom will find out a way, that he shall both do it and suffer it who is both God and man. To make good his engagement to his elect, he spared not his only Son: and in him were hid, and by him laid out, “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Now, this is a precedent of God’s proceeding in all other engagements whatsoever. Whatever it cost him, he will spare nothing to make them good to the uttermost. He is our rock, and his work is perfect. A good man, if he want not power, will go through with his serious promises, though he be engaged to his own hurt, Ps. xv. 4. The power of the mighty God is serviceable to his will to the uttermost. He cannot will what he cannot do: his will and power are essentially the same. And his power shall not be wanting to execute what his goodness hath moved him to engage unto for his own glory. The reasons of this are, —

1. Deut. xxxii. 4, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect; all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity.” Here are many attributes of God to make good this one thing, that his work is perfect, — this αὐτάρκεια, self-sufficiency, perfection, righteousness. I will pitch on one, — he is a God of truth. So he is again called, Ps. xxxi. 5, and in other places. The truth of God in his promises and engagements requires an accomplishment of them, whatever it cost, what power soever is required thereunto. This the saints make their bottom to seek it: “Where are thy loving-kindnesses, which thou swarest in thy truth,” Ps. lxxxix. 49. It is impossible but that should come to pass which thou hast sworn in thy truth. No stronger plea than “Remember the word wherein thou hast caused thy servants to put their trust.” Jacob says, he is less than all the mercy and all the truth of God, Gen. xxxii. 10. He sees God’s truth in all his mercy, by causing all things to come to pass which he hath promised him. It is true, some particular promises have their conditions, whose truth consists not in the relation between the word and the thing, unless the condition intercede. But the great condition under the gospel being only the good of them to whom any engagement is made, we may positively lay down, that God’s truth requires the accomplishment of every engagement for his people’s good, Rom. viii. 28. It is neither mountain nor hill, king, kingdom, nor nation, hell nor mortality, nor all combined, that can stand in the way to hinder it, Matt. xvi. 18.

2. His people stand in need of all that God hath engaged himself to them for. God’s promises are the just measure of his people’s wants. Whatever he hath promised, that his people do absolutely want; and whatsoever they want, that he hath promised:— our wants and his promises are every way commensurate. If thou knowest not what thou standest in need of, search the promises and see: whatever God hath said he will do for thee, that thou hast absolute need should be done. Or if thou art not so well acquainted with the promises, search thine own wants: what thou standest absolutely in need of for thy good, that assuredly God hath promised. If, then, this be the case of engagements, they shall all be made good. Think you, will God let his people want that which they have absolute necessity of? By absolute necessity I mean such as is indispensable, as to their present estate and occasions. That may be of necessity in one generation which is not in another, according to the several employments we are called to. Does God call forth his saints “to execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; to execute upon them the judgment written,” as Ps. cxlix. 7–9? — doth he bring them forth to burn the whore, to fight with the beast, and overcome him and his followers? — it is of indispensable necessity that he give them glorious assistance in their undertakings. They shall be assisted, protected, carried on, though it cost him the making of his bow quite naked. According to the several conditions he calls them to, the several issues of providence which he will have them serve in, so want they his appearance in them, with them, for them; and it shall be present. Let them be assured they are in his way, and then, though some prove false and treacherous, some base and cowardly, — though many combine and associate themselves against them in many places, in all places, — though whole kingdoms and mighty armies appear for their ruin, — be they reviled and clamoured by all round about them, — all is one; help they need, and help they shall have, or God will make his bow quite naked.

Use. 1. This day is this doctrine fulfilled before us. God’s bow is made quite naked, according to his word. We are less than all the truth he hath showed unto us. Though great working and mighty power hath been required, such as he hath not shown in our days, nor in the days of our fathers; yet the Lord hath not stood at it, for his word’s sake, wherein he hath made us to put our trust. I speak of the general mercies we have received. The surrender of Colchester, the particular celebrated this day, though marching in the rear for time, is for the weight in the van, — a mercy of the first magnitude. Essex hath seen more power in a three months’ recovery than in the protection of six years. That the mouths of men are stopped, and their faces filled with shame, who made it their trade to revile and threaten the saints of God; — that the adverse strength, which hath lain hid these seven years, should be drawn forth, united, and broken to pieces; — that the people of God, divided, and naturally exasperated through their abuse of peace, should, by the sword of a common enemy and the help of a common friend, have their wrath abated, their counsels united, and their persons set in a hopeful way of closing or forbearance; — that God by their own counsels should shut up men, collected from sundry parts to ruin others, in a city with gates and walls, for their own ruin; — that they should deny peace tendered upon such conditions, because of the exigencies of the time, as might have left them power as well as will for a farther mischief; — that such salvation should go forth in other parts as that the proceedings here should not be interrupted; — that the bitter service which men here underwent should ever and anon be sweetened with refreshing tidings from other places, to keep up their spirits in wet, watching, cold, and loss of blood:— all these, I say, and sundry other such-like things as these, are “the Lord’s doing, and marvellous in our eyes.”

Especially let us remember how in three things the Lord made his bow quite naked in his late deliverance.

(1.) In leavening the counsels of the enemy with their own folly.

(2.) In ordering all events to his own praise.

(3.) By controlling with his mighty power the issue of all undertakings.

(1.) In leavening their counsels with their own folly. God’s power and the efficacy of his providence is not more clearly manifested in any thing than in his effectual working in the debates, advices, consultations, and reasonings of his enemies, compassing his ends by their inventions. When God is in none of the thoughts of men by his fear, he is in them all by his providence. The sun is operative with his heat where he reacheth not with his light, and hath an influence on precious minerals in the depths and dark bottoms of rocks and mountains. The all-piercing providence of God dives into the deep counsels of the hearts of the sons of men, and brings out precious gold from thence, where the gracious light of his countenance shines not at all. Men freely advise, debate, use and improve their own reasons, wisdom, interests, not once casting an eye to the Almighty; and yet all this while do his work more than their own. All the counselings, plottings of Joseph’s brethren, — all the transactions of the Jews, Herod, and Pilate, about the death of Christ, with other the like instances, abundantly prove it. Take a few instances wherein God “made his bow quite naked” in the counsels of his and our enemies.

In general, they consult to take arms, wherein God had fully appeared against them, — when, in all probability, their work would have been done without them. Had they not fought, by this time they had been conquerors. One half-year’s peace more, — which we desired on any terms, and they would on no terms bear, — in all likelihood had set them where they would be. Their work went on, as if they had hired the kingdom to serve them in catching weather. What with some men’s folly, others’ treachery, all our division, — had not their own counsels set them on fighting, — I think we should suddenly base chosen them and theirs to be umpires of our quarrels. God saw when it was time to deal with them. In their undertaking in our own county, I could give sundry instances how God mixed a perverse spirit of folly and error in all their counsels. A part of the magistracy of the county is seized on. Therein their intention towards the residue is clearly discovered; yet not any attempt made to secure them, — which they might easily have accomplished, — although they could not but suppose that there were some gentlemen of public and active spirits left that would be industrious in opposition unto them. Was not the Lord in their counsels also, when they suffered a small, inconsiderable party, in a little village within a few miles of them, to grow into such a body as at length they durst not attempt, when they might have broken their whole endeavour with half a hundred of men? Doubtless, of innumerable such things as these we may say, with the prophet, “The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced” the people, “even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof. The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof; and they have caused” the people “to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit,” Isa. xix. 13, 14. Doubtless the wrath of man shall praise the Lord, and the remainder of it will he restrain.

(2.) In ordering all events to his own praise. The timing of the enemies’ eruptions in several places is that which fills all hearts with wonder, and all mouths with discourse, in these days. From the first to the last they had their season. Had they come together, to the eyes of flesh the whole nation had been swallowed up in that deluge. In particular, let Essex take notice of the goodness of God. The high thoughts and threats of men, which made us for divers weeks fear a massacre, were not suffered to break out into open hostility until the very next day after their strength was broken, in the neighbour county of Kent; — as if the Lord should have said, “I have had you in a chain all this while: though you have showed your teeth, you have not devoured; now go out of my chain, — I have a net ready for you.” For the armies coming to our assistance, I cannot see how we needed them many days sooner, or could have wanted them one day longer. Farther, these home-bred eruptions were timely seasoned, to rouse the discontented soldiery and divided nation to be ready to resist the Scottish invasion; — God also being magnified in this, that in this sweet disposal of events unto his glory, the counsels of many of those in whom we thought we might confide ran totally cross to the appearance of God in his providence. What shall we say to these things? If the Lord be for us, who shall be against us? All these things came forth from the Lord of hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in operation, Isa. xxviii. 29. Whoso is wise will ponder them, and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.

(3.) In controlling mighty actions, — I mean, giving success to his people in all their undertakings. The commander-in-chief of all the forces in this kingdom, since his sitting down before Colchester, was proffered a pass to go beyond the seas for his security. Whence is it that he hath now the necks of his enemies, and hath given any of them their lives at their entreaty? Greater armies than this have been buried under lesser walls. Did not the number of the besieged at first exceed the number of the besiegers? were not their advantages great? their skill in war, amongst men of their own persuasion, famous and renowned? so that the sitting down before it was judged an action meet only for them who could believe they should see the bow of God made quite naked. It had been possible, doubtless, to reason’s eye, that many of those fictions wherewith a faction in the great city fed themselves, — of the many routings, slaughters, and destructions of the army, — might have been true. Some of them, I say; for some were as childish as hellish. In brief, they associated themselves, and were broken in pieces; — high walls, towering imaginations, lofty threats, — all brought down. “So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might;” and let the land have rest for many years, Judges v. 31.

Use 2. This will discover unto us the bottom and rise of all God’s appearances for his people, — even the engaging of his own free grace. He doth not “make his bow quite naked,” according to their deservings, but his own word; not because they of themselves are better than others, but because he loves them more than others. Were God’s assistances suited to our walkings, they would be very uneven; but his good-will is constant; so are our deliverances.

Use 3. Be exhorted to thankfulness; not verbal, but real; not the exultation of carnal affections, but the savoury obedience of a sound mind. There are many ingredients in thanksgiving; — suitable and seasonable obedience to answer the will of God in his mercies is doubtless the crown of all. Look, then, under the enjoyment of blessings in general, to close walking with God in the duties of the covenant, — and in particular, to the especial work of this your generation, — and you are in the way to be thankful.