XXV. 1. The most valuable of all the promises was

the longest in fulfilling, viz. the promise of Christ, that was four thousand years.
6. The spiritual enemies, that flew thick and throng about them in the time of the darkness of the humbling circumstances, will be scattered at this lifting up in the promise. 1 Sam. ii. 1, 5. ^^ And Hannah prayed and said, My heart rejoi- ** ceth in the Lord, my mouth is enlarged over mine ** enemies. They that were full have hired out '' themsek-es for bread, and they that were hungry " ceased." Formidable was Pharoah's host be- hind the Israelites, while they had the Red S^a before them ; but, when they were through the sea, they saw the Egyptians dead on the shore, Exod. xiv. SO. Such a sight will they that humble them- selves under humbling circumstances get of their spiritual eijemies, whea the time comes for the lif- ting up»
HI. The due time of this lifting up. That is a very natural question of those in humbling circum- sunces, Watchmen^ What of the ni(fhtP And we /cannot answer it to the humbled soul, but in gene- ral, Isa. xxi. II, 12. So take these general obsc i ^ vatioiw on it»
The Crook hi the LoU 15 i
1. The lifting up the humbled will not be kng-- sovie considering the weight of the matter; that is to say, considering the worth and value of the lif- ting up of the humble ; when it comes it can by no means be reckoned long to the time of it- When vou sow your corn in the fields, though it does not ripen so soon as some garden-seeds, but you wait three months or so, yet do not think the harvest long a coming, considering the value of the crop. This view the apostle takes of the lifting up in humbling circumstances, 2 Cor. iv. IT. *' For " our ligTit affliction, which is but for a moment, " worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal *' weight of glory." So that a believer, looking on the promise with an eye of faith, and perceiving its accomplishment, and the worth of it when ac- complished, may wonder it is come in so short on- coming. I'herefore it is determined to be a time that comes soon, Luke xviii. 7. soon in respect of its weight and worth.
2. When the time comes, it and only it ^vill ap- pear the due iitne. To ever}' thing there is a sea- son, and a great part of wisdom lies in discerning it, and doing things in the season thereof. And we may be sure Infinite wisdom cannot miss the season by mistaking it, Deut. xxxii. 4, ' He is a
* rock, his work is perfect ; for all his ways are 'judgment,' But v;hatever God doth will abide the strictest CMamlnatlonin that, as all otlierpoints, Eccl. iii» 11-. * I know that whatsoever God doth, •■ it shall be for ever ; nothing can be put to it, nor
* any thing taken from it: And God doth it that ' rnen may fear before him.' It is true, many times cast up to us as the due time for lifting up, which yet really is not so, because there are some cir- cumstances hid to us, which renders that season
132 d /If Crc/i-c t/i l,'tf Lot'
unfit for the thing. — Hence, John vii. 6. ' My tlm '^ '* is not yet come, but your time is always ready.'' But when all the circumstances, always foreknown of God, shall come to be opened out, and laid t • gether before us, w» will then see the lifting up is come in the nick of time, most for the honour of God and our good, and that it would not havo done so well sooner.
3. When the time comes that is really the due time, the proper time for the lifting up a child of God from his humbling circumstances, it will not be put off' one moment longer, Heb. ii. 3. '* At ** the end it shall speak, it will surely come, *' it will not tarry." Though it tarry, it will not lin- ger nor put off to another time. O, what rest of heart would the firm faith of this afford us ! there is not a child of God but would, with the utmost carefulness, protest agninst the lifting up before the due time, as against an unripe fruit casten to him by an angry father, that would set his teeth on edge. Sith it is so then, could we firmly believe this point, that it would undoubtedly Lome in th : due time, without losing of a minute, it would ai- ford a sound rest. It must be so, because Gdd has said it ; were the case never so hopeless, were mountains of difficulties lying in the way of it, at the appointed time it will hloxvy (Heb.) Hab. ii. 3. A metaphor from the wind rising in a moment after a dead calm.
4. The humbling circurustanc js are ordinarily carried to the utmost point of /io/»tf/fs*wrw before the lifting up. The knife was at Isaac's throat be! ore the voice was heard. 2 Cor. i. 8, 9. " For ** we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of
'" our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we ** were pressed out of measure, above strength, \\\
The Crook in the Lot. 1 53
•' so much that we despaired even of life ; but we *•' had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we " should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who *"* raiseth the dead." Things soon seem to us ar- rived at that point ; such is the hastiness of our spirits. But things may have far to go down after we think they are at the foot of the hill. And we are almost as little competent judges of the point of hopelessness, as of the due time of lifting up. But^ readily God carries his people's humbling circumstances downward, still dovmward, till they come to that point. Two reasons are to be no- ticed.
(1.) One from the explanatory cause of it. Herein God is holding the same course which he held in the case of the man Christ, the beloved pattern copied after in all the dispensations of Pro- vidence towards the church, and eveiy particular believer, Rom. viii. 29. He was all along a man of sorrows'; as his time went on, the waters swel- led more, till he was brought to the dust of death ; then he v/as buried, and the grave-stone sealed, which done, the world thought they were freely quit of him, and he would trouble them no more. But they quite mistook it ; then, and not till then, was the due time for lifting him up. And the liftings up that his people get most reiTiarkably, are only little pieces fashioned after this grand pat- tern.
(2.) Another from xhtfnal cause, the end and design Providence aims at in it, and that is to car- ry the believer cleanly off his own, and all created bottoms, to bottom his trust and hope in the Lord alone, 2 Cor. i. 9. " That we should not trust in *' ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead." The life of a Christian here is designed to be a life
154 The Crook in the Lot.
of faith ; and though faitii may act more easily tJiat it has some help from sense, yet it certainly acts most nobly, when it acts over the belly of acnsc. Then it is pure faith, when it stands only on its own native legs, the power and word of God, Rom. iv. 19, 20. *' And being not weak in " faith, he considered not his own body now dead, " neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He " staggered not at the promise of God through un- *^ unbelief; but wa^. strong in the faith, giving *^ glory to God." And thus it must do, when mat- ters are brought to the utmost point of hopeless- ness.
5. Due preparation of the heart, for the lifting up out of the humbling circumstances, goes l^fore the due time of that lifting up, according to the promise. It is not so in ever\^ lifting up ; the lift- ing up of the common providences are not so cri- tically managed ; men will have them, will want them no longer, and God flings them to him in an- ger, ere they are prepared for them, Hos. xiii. 1 1. ^' I gave thee a king in mine anger." They can by no means abide the trial, and God takes them off as reprobate silver that is not able to abide" it, Jer. vi. 29, 30.
This due preparation consists in a due humilia- tion. Psalm X. 17. And it often takes much work to bring about this, which is another point that we are very incompetent judges of. We would have thought Job was brought vcr}' low in his spirit, by the providence of God bruising him on the one hand, and his friends on the other, for a longtime : Yet, after all he had endured both ways, God saw it necessary to speak to him himself, for his humi- liation, chap, xxxviii. 1. By that speech of God himself he was brought to his krtees, chap.
The Crook in the Lot* t53
yA. 4, 5. And we would have thought he was then sufficiently humbled, and perhaps he himself thought so too. But God saw a farther degree of humiliation necessary, and therefore just begins a- new to speak for his humiliation, which at length laid him in the dust, chap. xlii. 5, 6. And when he was thus prepared for lifting up, he got it.
There are six things I conceive, belong to this humiliation, preparatory to lifting up.
1. A deep sense of 5?/z/}///7r55 and imuL^ortlimess of being lifted up at all, Job xl. 4. '^ Behold I am 'S'ile, what shall I answer thee ? I will lay mine *Miand upon my mouth." People may be long in humbling circumstances, ere they be brought triis length ; even good men are much prejudiced iii in their own favours, and may so far forget them- selves as to think God deals his favours unequally, and is mighty severe on them more than others. Elihu marked this wrong in Job, under his hum- bling circumstances. Job xxxiii. 10 — 12. And I believe it will be found, there is readily a greater keenness to vindicate our honour from the imputa- tion the humbling circumstances s£em to lay upon it, than to vindicate the honour of God in the jus- tice and equity of the dis;iiensation. The blindness of an ill natured world, still ready to suspect the worst causes tor humbling circumstances, as if the greatest sufferers v.ere surely the greatest sinners-v Luke xiii. 4. gives a handle for this bias of the cor- rupt nature.— Bat God is a jealous God, and when iie appears sufficiently to humble, he ^vill cause the matter of our honour to give way, like a sandy brae under our feet, while we shall be obliged to clever C^rip hastily J to the vindication of his.
2. A rcsignat'rjn to the divine pleasure as to the tiovj of lifting up. God gives the promise, leaving
150 i'he Crook in tiie Lai,
the time blank as to us. Our time Is aiways .c... , and we rashly fill it up at our own hand. God does not keep our time, because it is not the due time. Hence we are ready to think his word fails, where- as it is bat our harsh conclusion from it that fails, Psal. cxvi. 11. "I said in my haste, All men aie ** liars." Several of the saints have gotten on the finger ends by this means, and thereby leai'ned to let alone filling up that blank. Th^ first promise was thus used by believing Eve, Gen. iv. 1. Ano- ther promise was so by believing Abraham, after about ten vears on-waiting, Gea :;vi. another by David , forfeited, Psal. cxvi. 11.
If this be the case of any child of God, let them not be discouraged upon it thinking they were over- rash in applying the promise to themselves '» they were only so in applying the time to the pro- mise j a snapper that saints in all ages have made, -v;hich they repented, and saw the folly of, and let alone that point for the time to come ; and then the promise was fulfilled in its own due time. Let them in such circumstances go and do lil:ev,-i tlic time entirely to tlic Lord.
3. An entire resignation as to th- u . ^, aul m(t)i-
72cr of bringing it about- We are ready to do, as
to the wny of accomplishing ihe promise, just as
with the time of it, to set a ^^articuiar way for the
Lord's working of it j and if. that be not kept, the
proud hw-art, is stumbled, 2 Kings v. 11. ** But
•^ Na.nman was worth, and he went away^and said,
"Behold, I thought he will surely come out to me,
" and i>t 'xnd and call on the name of the Lord his
•* God, and strike his hand over the place." But
the Lord ^^•ill have his people broke off from that
to:», that they shall prescribe no way to him, but
ieavc that to him v^atirelr^ us in that same case, verse
14.'^"He Wf^nt dor/aaml Ciipptcl himselt
The Crook in the Lot, I5f
" times in Jordan, according to the saying of the ** man of God — and he was clean,'' The compass of our knowledge of ways and means is very nar- row, as if one is blockt up, oft-times we cannot see another: but our God knows many ways of relief, where we know but one, or none at all; aud it is^ very usuid for the Lord to bring the lifting up of his people in a way they had no view to, after repeated disappointments from those births whence they had great expectation.
4. Resignation as to the degree of the lifting up, yea, and as to the very being of it in time. Th{: Lord will have his people weaned so, that howe- ver hasty they have sometimes been, that they be- hoved tp be so soon lifted up, and could no longer bear, they shall be brought at h.ngth to set no time at all, but submit to go to the grave under their weight, if it seem good in the Lord's eyes ; and in that case they will be brought to be content with izxy measure of it in time, without prescribing how aiuch. 2 Sam. xv. 23, 26. " If I shall find favour '^ in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me again — " Sut if he thus say, I have no delight in thtc ; " behold, here am I, let him do to mc as seemeth '•' good unto him."
5. The continuing of praiiing and xvait'ing on the Lord in the case, Eph. vi. 18. " Praying al- *' ways with all prayer and supplication in the 3pi« *' rit, and watching thereunto v;ith all persever- ' of spirit, that makes people give over praying and waiting, because their humbling circumstances arc lengthened out time after time, 2 Kings vi. 33. But due humility, going before the Inting up, brings men into that temper, to prav, wait, and
1 5S The Crook in the Lot.
hang on resolutely, setting no time for the giving it over, till the lifting up come, "whether in time or
6. Mourning under ynisifianageynrnts in the trial, Job xlii. 3. *^ Therefore htive I uttered that I un- '' dcrstood not, things too wonderful for me, which '^ 1 knew not." The proud heart dwells and ex- tiates on the man's sufferings in the trial, and i5ts out all the folds of the trial on that side, and : - ws them again and again. But when the Spi- rit of God comes duly to humble, in order to lift- ing up, he will cause the man to pass, in a sort, the suffering liide of the trial, and turn his eyes on his own conduct in it, ransack it, judge himself im- partially, and condemn himself; so that his mouth will be stopt. This is that humility that goeth before the lifting up in time, in the way of the omise.^
ir. AVe proceed to consider the lifting up as I'jQgVxt about at the cndofthne^ in the other world And,
\sl^ A word as to the nature of this lilLiiij^ u^>. Concerning it \\x sliall say these five things : 1. There is a ccrtaintij of thi^lifting up, in all I :c-3 of the humbled under humbling circumstan- ^. — Tho' one cannot, in every case, make them ire of a liliing up in time, yet they may be assu- red, be tlie case what it will, they vv'ill, without all pcMidventure, get a lifting up on the other side, 2 Cor. V. 1. *^ For we know, that if our earthly '• house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have ' ' a building of God, an house not made with hands, '• eternal in the heavens." Though God's humble i hildren may both breakfast and dine on bread ol Iveraity, and water of afllicuon, they v/ill be sure
The Crook in the Lot. 159
to sup s^veetly and plentifully. And the believing; expectation of the latter might serve to qualify the former, and make easy under it.
2. It will be a />^r/^c? lifting up, Heb. xii. 23. They will be perfectly delivered out of their particu- lar trials and special furnace, be what it will, that made them many a weary day. Lazanis was :hen delivered from his poverty and Sores and lying at the rich man's gate, Luke xvi. 22. and iully deliv- ered. Yea will get a lifting up from all their hum- bling circumstances together. All the irr.perfec- tions will then be at an end, inferiority ia relations, contradictions, afflictions, uncertainty', and sin. If it was long a coming, there will be a blessed mo- ment v/hen they shall get all together,
3. They will not only be raised out of their low condition, but they will be set up 07i hig-h^ as Jo- seph: not only brought out of prison, but made ruler over the land of Egypt. And they will be lifted up,
(1.) Into a Yii^ place^ Luke xvi. 22. " The bcg- " gar died, and was carried by the angels into Abra- " ham's bosom." Now they are at best in a low place, but upon this earth; there they will be seated in the highest heavens, Phil. i. 23. with Eph. iv. 10. Often in their humbling circumstances, thev ai^e obliged now to embrace dunghills j then they will be set with Christ on his throne, Rev. iii. 21. *' To '* him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me *' on my throne." Though their belly now cleayes to the earth, and men say, Bow down, that we may pass over you, they will then be settled in the heavenly mansions, above the sun, moon and stars. (2. J Into a high state and condition^ a state of perfection. Out of all their troubles and uneasi- nesses, they will be set into a state of rest; from
their mean and inglorious condition, they will be advanced into a state of gloiy ; their weighted and sorrowful life will be succeeded with a fulness of joy ; and, for their humbling circumstances, thc\ will be clothed with eternal glor\^ and honour.
4. It will be 2ijinal lifting up, after which there will be no more casting down for ever, Rev vii. 16. When v/e get a lifting up in time, we are apt to imagine fondly we are at the end of our trials j but we soon find we are too hasty in our conclu- sions, and the cloud returns, Psal. xxx. 6, 7. "In ''Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled." But then indeed the trial is quite over, the fight is at an end, and then is the time of the retribution and triumph.
5. There will not be the least remaining uncasU ^less from the humbling circumstances, but, on the contrar)', they will have a glorious and desireable effect. I make no question but the saints vfill have the remembrance of their humbling circumstances they were under here below. Did the rich man in hell remember his having five brethren on earth, how sumptuously he fared, how Lazarus sat at his gate ; and can we doubt but the saints will remem- ber perfectly their heavy trials ? rhen they will remember them as waters that fail ; as the man recovered to health, remembers his tos» sings on the sick-bed; and that is the way of re- membering that sweetens the present state of health beyond what otherwise it would be. Certainly the shore of the Red Sea was the place, that of all the places, was the fittest to help the Israelites to sing m the highest key, Rev. xv. 3. And the humbling circumstances of saints on the earth will be of the
ame use to them in heaven.
The Crook tn the l.oi, ic^i
Udhj^ A word to the due time of this lifting up. — There is a particular definite time for it in everv- saint's case, which is the due time, but it is hid from us. We can only say in general,
1. Then is the due time for it, when our xuork we have to do in this world is over. God has appoin- ted ever)' one their task, fight, trial, and work" ; and, till that is done, we are in a sort immortal, John ix. 4. and xi. 9. That work is,
(l.) Da'ing work ; work set to us, hy the great !Mastej% to be done for the honour of God and the good of our fellow-creatures, Eccl. ix. IC We must be content to be doing on, even in our hum- bling circumstances, till that be done out. It is not the due time for that lifting up, till v/e are at the end of that work, and so have served our ge- neration. •
(2.) Suffering work. Tliere is a certain portion of suffering that is allotted for the mystical body ; and the head has divided to the sevei-al mitnbers their proportions thereof; and it i^not the due time for that lifting up, till we hare exhausted tlie share thereof ^Hotted to us. Paul looked pn his life as a going on in that, CoL i. 24.
2. When that lifting up comes, we will see it is come exactly in the due time ; thr.t it was well it was neither sooner nor later; for though heaven is always better than earth, and that it would be bet- ter for us, absolutely speaking, to he in heaven than on earth ; yet certainly there is a time v,^herein it is better for the honour of God, and his service, that we be on the earth than in heaven, Phil. i. 34. " Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more need- " ful for you." And it will be no grief of heart to them when there, that they were so long in their humbling circumstances, and Were not brought sooner.
O 2
162 The Crook in the Lc(.
Use 1. Let not then the humble cast away th.ii coJi/idencey whatever their humbling circumstanct be ; let them assure themselves there will come a lifting up to them at length ; if not here, yet to be sure hereafter. Let them keep this in their view, and comfort themselves with it, for God has said it, Psalm ix. 18. " The needy shall not alway be " forgotten." If the night were never so long, th(- moniing will eome at length.
2. Let patience have her perfect work. The hus* bandman waits for the return of his seed, the sea- merchant for the return of his ships, the store-mas- ter for what he calls year-time, when he draws in the produce of his flocks. All these have long pa- tience and why should not the Christian too have patience, and patiently wait for the time appointed for his lifting up ?
Ye have heard much of the Crook in the Lot; the excellency of humbleness of spirit in |a low- lot, beyond nride of spirit, though joined with a high one : — -Ve have been called to humble your- selves in your humbling circumstances, and assu- red in that case of a lifting up. To conclude : We may assure ourselves, God xvill at length break in pieces the proud ^ be theij never so high; and he will triumphantly lift up the hunwle^ be they ever so low*
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