John Owen · 18 of 157

Sermon II. Habukkuk iii. 1–9. · Part 5

Use 4. Be sedulously careful to prevent that which God hath mightily decried by our late mercies, — viz., mutual animosities, strife, contention, and violence against one another; I mean, of those that fear his name. God hath interposed in our quarrels from heaven The language of our late deliverance is, Be quiet, “lest a worse thing happen unto you.” Our poor brethren of Scotland would not see the hatefulness of their animosities towards their friends, until God suffered that very thing to be the means to deliver them up to the power of their enemies. The weapons they had formed were used against themselves. Let us learn betimes to agree about our pasture, lest the wolves of the wilderness devour us. Persecution and idolatry have ruined all the states of the Christian world.

2. Of the assertion we have spoken hitherto: come we now to the particular confirmation of it by instance. “Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers,” — cleave the earth, or make channels in the earth, for waters to flow in.

Another most eminent work of almighty power is here set forth, — eminent in itself, and eminent in its typical signification. And the same thing being twice done, hath a plural expression, — “rivers.”

(1.) Eminent of itself. The bringing of streams of waters from the rock, for the thirsty people in the wilderness, is that which is here celebrated. Now this the Lord did twice:— First, Exod. xvii. 6, when the people were in Rephidim, in the first year after their coming from Egypt, they fainted in their journeys for want of water, and (according to the wonted custom of that rebellious people) complained with murmuring. So they extorted all their mercies; and therefore they were attended with such sore judgments. Whilst the meat was in their mouths, the plague was on their bones. Mercies extorted by murmurings, unseasoned with loving-kindness, though they may be quails in the mouth, will be plagues in the belly. Let us take heed lest we repine the Almighty into a full harvest and lean soul, Ps. cvi. 15. Get and keep mercies in God’s way, or there is death in the pot.

Forty years after this, when the first whole evil generation was consumed, the children, who were risen up in their fathers’ stead, fall a murmuring for water in the wilderness of Zin, and, with a profligacy of rebellion, wish they had been consumed with others in the former plagues, Num. xx. 4. Here also the Lord gives them water, and that in abundance, verse 11. Now, of this observe, —

[1.] The places from whence this water marvellously issued. They were rocks that, in all probability, never had spring from the creation of the world. Farther, they are observed to be rocks of flint, Ps. cxiv. 8, “Which turned the rock into a standing water, the flint into a fountain of waters:” so Deut. viii. 15. A rock into a pool, and a flint into a stream, is much beyond Samson’s riddle of sweetness from the eater.

[2.] The abundance of waters that gushed out, — waters to satisfy that whole congregation, with all their cattle, consisting of some millions. Yea, and not only they, but all 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 waters in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, 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 rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths. He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers,” Ps. lxxviii. 15, 16. So also it is celebrated, Isa. xli. 18, xlviii. 21, Hos. xiii. 5, and in many other places. Great deliverances call f or 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 not had an infallibility as 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 wall 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. 1. 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, verse 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, verse 12, calling her mad who first affirmed it, verse 15, and being astonished when their eyes beheld it, verse 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 thrashing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thrash the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them,” etc. To make a worm a thrashing 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, verses 12, 13.

3. 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 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 out-works 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 that 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, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint,” Isa. xl. 28–31.

(2.) To convince the unbelieving world itself of his power, providence, and love to them that put their trust in him, that they may be found to cry, “Verily there is a reward for the righteous; verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth,” Ps. lviii. 11.

When the Egyptian magicians see real miracles, beyond all their juggling pretences, they cry out, “This is the finger of God,” Exod. viii. 19.

Profane Nebuchadnezzar, beholding the deliverance of those three worthies from the fiery furnace, owns them for the “servants of the most high God,” Dan. iii. 26. Daniel being preserved in the lions’ den, Darius acknowledgeth the power and kingdom of “the living God,” Dan. vi. 26.

Glorious appearances of God for his people, beyond the reach of reason, wrest from the world amazement or acknowledgment; and in both God is exalted. He will appear in such distresses, as that he win be seen of his very enemies. They shall not be able, with the Philistines, to question whether it be his hand or a chance happened to them, 1 Sam. vi. 9; but conclude, with the Egyptians, that fly they must, for God fights for his people, Exod. xiv. 25. If God should never give blessings but in such a way as reason might discover their dependence on secondary causes, men would not see his goings, nor acknowledge his operations. But when he mightily makes bare his arm, in events beyond their imaginations, they must vail before him.

Use 1. Consider whether the mercy celebrated this day ought not to be placed in this series of deliverances, brought from beyond the ken of sense and reason, from above the reach of much precious faith. For the latter, I leave it to your own experience; — to the former let me for the present desire your consideration of these five things.

(1.) By whom you were surprised and put under restraint. Now these were of two sorts: [1.] The heads and leaders; [2.] The tumultuous multitude.

[1.] For the first, some of them being dead, and some under durance, I shall not say any thing. “Nullum cum victis certamen, et æthere cassis.” I leave the stream from the flint to your own thoughts.

[2.] For the multitude, — an enraged, headless, lawless, godless multitude, gathered out of inns, taverns, alehouses, stables, highways, and the like nurseries of piety and pity. Such as these having got their superiors under their power, governors under their disposal, their restrainers under their restraint, their oppressors, as they thought, under their fury, — what was it that kept in their fury and their revenge, which upon the like occasions and advantages hath almost always been executed? Search your stories, — you will not find many that speak of such a deliverance. For a few governors prevailed on unto durance, by a godless rout, in an insurrection, and yet come off in peace and safety, is surely a work of more than ordinary providence.

(2.) Consider the season of your surprisal; — when all the kingdom was in an uproar, and the arm of flesh almost quite withered as to supply, — the north invaded, the south full of insurrections, Wales unsubdued, the great city at least suffering men to lift up their hands against us; so that, to the eye of reason, the issue of the whole was, if not lost, yet exceedingly hazardous, and so your captivity endless. Had they gone on, as was probable they would, whether you had this day been brought out to execution, or thrust into a dungeon, or carried up and down as a pageant, I know not; but much better condition, I am sure, rationally you could not expect.

(3.) The end of your surprisal. Amongst others, this was apparently one, to be a reserve for their safety who went on in all ways of ruin. You were kept to preserve them in those ways wherein they perished. Whether could reason reach this or no, that you being in their power, kept on purpose for their rescue if brought to any great strait, with the price of your heads to redeem their own, — that they should be brought to greater distress than ever any before in this kingdom, and you be delivered, without the least help to them in their need? It was beyond your friends’ reason, who could not hope it; — it was beyond our enemies’ reason, who never feared it: if you believed it, you have the comfort of it.

(4.) The refusal of granting an exchange for such persons as they accounted more considerable than yourselves, and whose enlargement might have advantaged the cause they professed to maintain exceedingly more than your restraint, — what doth it but proclaim your intended ruin?

This was the way of deliverance which for a long season reason chiefly rested on, the main pillar of all its building; — which, when it was cut in two, what could be seen in it but desolation.

(5.) The straits you were at length reduced to, between your enemies’ swords and your friends’ bullets, which, intended for your deliverance, without the safeguard of Providence might have been your ruin, piercing more than once the house wherein you were. Surely it was, then, an eminent work of faith, to “stand still, and see the salvation of God.”

The many passages of Providence, evidently working for your preservation, which I have received from some of yourselves, I willingly pass over. What I have already said is sufficient to declare that to reason’s eye you were as dead bones upon the earth. For our parts, who were endangered spectators at the best, we were but in the prophet’s frame; and to any question about your enlargement, could answer only, The Lord alone knows. And now, behold, the Lord hath chosen you out to be examples of his loving-kindness, in fetching mercy for you from beyond the ken of reason; yea, from above the reach of much precious faith. He hath brought water for you out of the flint. Reckon your deliverance under this head of operations, and I hope you will not be unthankful.

Use 2. You that have received so great mercy, we that have seen it, and all who have heard the doctrine confirmed, let us learn to live by faith Live above all things that are seen; subject them to the cross of Christ. Measure your condition by your interest in God’s all-sufficiency. Do not in distress calculate what such and such things can effect; but what God hath promised. Reckon upon that, for it shall come to pass. If you could get but this one thing by all your sufferings and dangers, to trust the Lord to the utmost extent of his promises, it would prove a blessed captivity. All carnal fears would then be conquered, all sinful compliances with wicked men removed, etc.

Use 3. Be exhorted to great thankfulness, you that have been made partakers of great deliverances. In great distresses very nature prompts the sons of men to great promises. You have heard the ridiculous story of him who in a storm at sea promised to dedicate a wax candle to the blessed Virgin as big as the mast of his ship, which he was resolved when he came on shore to pay with one of twelve in the pound! Let not the moral of that fable be found in any of you. Come not short of any of your engagements. No greater discovery of a hypocritical frame, than to flatter the Lord in trouble, and to decline upon deliverance, in cold blood. The Lord of heaven give you strength to make good all your resolutions:— as private persons, in all godliness and honesty, following hard after God in every known way of his; — as magistrates, in justice, equity, and faithful serving the kingdom of Christ. Especially, let them never beg in vain for help at your hands, who did not beg help in vain for you at the hands of God.

Use 4. Consider, if there be so much sweetness in a temporal deliverance, oh! what excellency is there in that eternal redemption which we have in the blood of Jesus! If we rejoice for being delivered from them who could have killed the body, what unspeakable rejoicing is there in that mercy whereby we are freed from the wrath to come! Let this possess your thoughts, let this fill your souls, — let this be your haven from all former storms. And here strike I sail, in this to abide with you and all the saints of God forever.