Faith is more than naked, hungry and poor assent to the truth. There is in it a fiducial acquiescence and a leaning upon Jehovah, expressed by divers expressions full of marrow, as Psalm 22:8, He trusted; the Hebrews say, he rolled himself on Jehovah; which is when a wearied man sweating under a burden casts himself and his burden both upon a place or a bed of rest, [Hebrew] as that [in] Psalm 55:22, cast thy burden on Jehovah (and 1 Pet. 5:7). Roll all your care on him (Ps. 37)—the Chaldee Paraphrase says on the place for {he rolled himself on God}, I spake praises to God, which holds forth that faith is a work of the heart and affection, rather than of the mind. So Psalm 37:5, resign, and give over, or roll over thy ways to the Lord, as Jerome does well turn it, bibl. Complutense,1 flee into Jehovah. They prevented me in the day of my calamity, but Jehovah was my stay (Ps. 18:18); refering this to the Lord’s bearing up of David’s heart in his trouble (which in reason cannot be denied). [Hebrew] is (as Arias Montanus turns it)2 fulcrum; Junius,3 scipio, or baculus; the Seventy Interpreters, [Greek], the Lord was David’s stay and his staff. So is the word used [in] Isaiah 3:1. The Lord takes from Judah the stay and the staff, and it is not evil that Christ is the sinner’s stay, and the lamed man’s staff. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed (as a house held up by a prop) on thee (Isa. 26:3). He that fears the Lord is not afraid of ill tidings, because his heart is fixed (Ps. 112:8); [Hebrew] leaning on the Lord. And believing is not simply in the word, a giving credit to God. The residue of Israel shall lean upon the Lord, the holy one of Israel (as Isa. 10:20); and so is the word, They lean upon the Lord, saying, Is not the Lord amongst us (Micah 3:11)? And faith is termed [Greek], the substance of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). Some do not ill expound it to be the pillar and groundstone of the soul in expecting good from God, and so is it the buckler of faith (Eph. 6:16). And these two words say that faith is a most valiant soldier which yields not to that which comes against it, but that the believer, when he is killed and fallen, does still stand and live. Doeg is thus made a wicked man (Ps. 52:7), Lo this is the man that made not God his strength. Mahhuzzo, his fortitude, says Jerome.
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[ 1. The reference to Jerome is to the Latin Vulgate and the word volve (to roll): volve super Dominum viam tuam et confide in eo et ipse faciet. The bibl. Complutense refers to the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. Cf. {Biblia polyglotta}. In … Complutensi universitate: Sumptibus … Francisci Ximinez de Cisneros … industria … Arnaldi Guillemi de Brocario, 1522. See the text also in the Antwerp Polyglot.]
[ 2. Antwerp Polyglot Bible. Montano, Biblia Sacra Hebraice, Chaldaice… vol. 7 (Antuerpiae: Plantinus, 1572), Hebraicorvm Bibliorvm, Ezra–Canticles, p. 50.]
[ 3. Cf. Franciscus Junius, Immanuel Tremellius, and Théodore de Bèze. Testamenti Veteris Biblia Sacra … (Hanoviæ: typis Wechelianis, sumptibus Danielis ac Dauidis aubriorum, ac Clementis Schleichii, 1624).]
Samuel Rutherford, “A Sermon Preached to the Honorable House of Commons at Their Late Solemn Fast, Wednesday, January 31, 1643/444,” Sermons Preached before the English Houses of Parliament by the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly of Divines 1643–1645 (Naphtali Press, 2011; out of print), 416–417.
