Difcourfe VI.

GOD'S PROMISE TO BEAR AND CARRY HIS AGED SERVANTS, CONSIDERED.

ISAIAH XLVI. 4.

And even tos to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry and will deliver you.

T is an important obfervation, that many promises of the Old Teftament, which difplay the mercy of God to the Jewish nation, are cited. in the New Teftament as belonging to true christians, and applicable to them, whether they had been Jews or Gentiles: becaufe the Jews were a figure of the true church of God; and the fpiritual meaning of thofe promises is defigned to be applied to all who are the Ifrael of God, that is, truly pious perfons."* . For

* Watts.

For the fame reafon we are justified in applying other promifes for the confort of true chriftians, when their ftate and circumstances are fuch as to ftand in need of the promised bleffings, and to render fuch promifes pertinent to their cafe. And, indeed, without fuch a liberty of explaining and applying the promises of the Old Teftament to our own fouls, as the apostles have taught us, for our private and fpiritual advantage, a good part of the writings of the prophets, even fome of thofe which refer to the days of the Meffiah, will be inpoverished, and drained of many of their richeft bleffings. Whereas, there is a large and heavenly treasure of grace and bleffing contained in thofe exeeding great and precious promifes, and transferred to the Gentile church under the New Teftament. From thefe, true chriftians in all fucceeding ages, as well as in the apoftolic times, have found support and relief under their temptations and forrows. Upon thefe principles I dare apply the gracious promife in the text to aged faints, and would endeavour at this time to be a helper of their holiness and their joy.

The

The defign of this chapter is, to caution. the Ifraelites against the idolatry of the Babylonians, and to prevent their fears of any mifchief which idol-gods could do. In order to this, the Prophet defcribes the defolation that Cyrus fhould bring upon Babylon, and foretels that he should carry captive their gods, who would be infufficient to help either their worshippers or themselves. And then God calls upon his people, in the text and following verse, to confider whether He was fuch a God as -these. He reminds them of what he had already done for them in the formation of. their ftate, and their fupport hitherto; that he had fhown all the care and tendernefs of a parent to them; and would continue his favour even to the decline of their state, when, as the prophet Hofea expreffeth it, "gray hairs were here and there upon them," that is, the evident fymptoms of decay and diffolution. It appears no way improbable, that the words may have a further reference to, and be particularly defigned to comfort, God's aged fervants who fhould live till near, or quite to, the end of the captivity; as we find by the

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book of Ezra feveral did, whose eyes faw the ruin of the first, and the dedication of the fecond, temple. To comfort and animate their hearts, who expected to die in a ftrange land, and were greatly distressed at the remembrance of Zion, God encourages them ftill to hope in him, with an affurance, that he would be their refuge and ftrength in Babylon, as well as Judea : "And even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar-hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry and will deliver you."I fhall endeavour to illuftrate,

I. God's promife to his aged faints in

the text.

II. The reafons here fuggefted why they fhould confide in it-and then shall add few reflections upon the whole.-I am,

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I. To open and illuftrate God's promife to his aged faints in the text,

And here you will obferve, that God's regard to them, and concern for them, is expreffed in a variety of phrases, that they. might have strong confolation. I will carry, bear, and deliver. It may not be

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easy to show the precife, diftinct meaning of each of these words. They intimate in general, that God will afford them fuch affiftances as their circumftances require; more particularly, that he will fupport them under all their burdens and difficulties, comfort them under all their forrows and infirmities, and finally deliver them from all their fears and tribulations. And if these thoughts, and the illuftrations of them, fhould not be entirely diftinct, perhaps they may not be lefs edifying to thofe for whose use they are principally intended.

1. God promiseth to fupport them under their burdens, and carry them through their difficulties.

I will carry you. The word fignifies, to fuftain any preffure, or bear any burden. It intimates God's readiness to help them,. when they feem likely to be overborne and preffed down. And how many are the burdens of old age from without !-from the world, which still hangs too much about them! Sometimes they are too fond of it, which is their fault. Sometimes their circumftances are fuch that they cannot get rid of its cares and hurries, which is