It now remains to show
somewhat more fully what the purport and aim of these promises are--not
to specify them all in detail, but to show the principal things which
God wishes us to hope from Him, to console us in our afflictions. Now
these things, taken summarily, are three. The first is, that inasmuch as
our life and death are in His hand, He will preserve us by His might
that not a hair will be plucked out of our heads without His leave.
Believers, therefore, ought to feel assured into whatever hands they may
fall, that God is not divested of the guardianship which He exercises
over their persons. Were such a persuasion well imprinted on our hearts,
we should be delivered from the greater part of the doubts and
perplexities which torment us and obstruct us in our duty.
We see tyrants let loose: thereupon it seems to us that God no longer
possesses any means of saving us, and we are tempted to provide for our
own affairs as if nothing more were to be expected from Him. On the
contrary, His providence, as He unfolds it, ought to be regarded by us
as an impregnable fortress. Let us labor, then, to learn the full import
of the expression, that our bodies are in the hands of Him who created
them.
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