454 Chap. i s. din Expofitionupon the Rookof loa. Verf. u, works are fo) may juftifie themfeives that their works are good. 'Tis not pride, but duty ( when weare called to it) to fay we are what we are, and to maintain that our waies are right,when they are right. God takes it well at our hands if we fpeak the moil ( with truth) of our felves, when others fpeak lefs then truth, or that which is not true, of us. Self-commendation is al- waies not only uncomely, but finful ; except it come under the notion of felt-vindication, or of fuch a felt- juiUification as this point leads unto. Thus we may maintain our waies before men : yea, thus ( while we put our mouths in the duft, and aredeeply humbled before God for the imperfections of our waies) we may maintain the uprightnefs of our waies before God, and be affared thathe alfowill be our falvation, Further, Take thewords in their own compafs, and we may Obferve, Fitf}, God is thefalvation of hispeople, Howoften do the Saints breathe out this faith,He is ourfalva- tionl. upon this faith they live, and in this faith they die, That God is theirfalvation. Secondly, Obferve, A thought that God is falvatien to us, is confolation enough to us. Thoughheflayme,yet will I trufi in him;bealfo fhallbe myfalva- tion. When Jacob layupon his death- bed,panting and gafping for fife,OGod (faith he) Ihave waitedfor thyfalvation. He could not goon bletíing his Eons, but he mutt make a parenthefs, to take a view or get a tafteof this falvation. To refleft upon our intereft in the falvation of God is light to us in darknefs, and life to us in the approaches of death. To be faved by any hand'carries comfort in it, much more to be faved by the handof God but the comfort of the Saints is yet higher ; God is their falvation, We are happy enough that GodEaves us, but we have a further happinefs, in that God is our falvation : IfGod be ourfalvation, we arenot only asfate, but ( according to our meafure and recepti- bility) as happy as God himfelfis, Thirdly, job fpeaks emphatically, He alfo; he cries up the Name of God. . And in this open affirmation that God is his falvation, there is a fecret negationor a denial implied that fal- vat;on is in any elfe: As if he had laid, he, andheonly; he, and none but he. The
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