intended to teach us, that the Lord cannot give or communicate to man, the good of His love, until He be suffered to arise in man; in other words, until man exalt Him and His love in his will and affections, as the supreme good. The forbidding reply also is singular, which the friend from within makes to the application from without, and which is thus expressed, And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me mot, the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give thee. These words are spoken according to the appearance, as it is presented to the natural man, in his first addresses to his Heavenly Father; for the appearance in such case is, that his importunity is troublesome, that the door of communication is shut, and can never be opened; that divine things are so immersed and confounded in natural things, as to be inseparable, and thus, that there can be no elevation of the former things out of the latter, consequently, no communication between them. The true penitent, however, is not to be repelled by these discouraging appearances, and accordingly, through the strength of that penitent desire, which the Father of Mercies inspires, he persists in his application, and at length obtains, (as the parable expresseth it,) as many as he needeth; in other words, a full communication and conjunction with the Lord, in the goods of His love and truth and operation. Such is the weighty instruction contained in this divine parable.
123. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind. (Psalm xviii. 42.) These words, it is manifest, have relation to evil, or to evil spirits, which the Lord combated and subdued. To beat them small
