SERMONS. 409 



here in a three-fold expression ; a refuge, a sha- 

 dow, and the shadow of wings. 



1. And what is a refuge, (which is the first,) 

 but a place of security, either in regard of its se- 

 crecy to hide us, or its strength to defend us, to 

 which we fly when calamity threatens us? And 

 such is God to his people ; a city of refuge, an 

 inviolable sanctuary ; an altar of mercy, to which 

 we may fly and be safe, and from the horns 

 whereof no bold calamity shall dare to pluck us, 

 without his special commission. Or, in another 

 reference, a place of refuge is a covert from storm 

 and rain. Is. IV. 6. and, as it follows there in the 

 same verse, 



2. A tabernacle for a shadow, too, in the day- 

 time from the heat, which is the second expres- 

 sion. The emphasis whereof is far better under- 

 stood in those intemperate climates, where the 

 sunbeams are scorching, and the heats insufler- 

 able. Nothing there more desirable than a shady 

 grove, or a deep grot the sun never looks into, or 

 the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 

 Which protections, because the pilgrim Israelites 

 wanted in the wilderness, God supplied it to 

 them, by spreading a cloud over them for a cover- 

 ing in the day-time, (as the Psalmist* speaks,) and 

 God was in that cloud ; so that for forty years 

 together they marched and encamped under his 

 shady wings, I had almost said, without a meta- 



^ Psm. cv. 39. 



