No. 35. 
 CHRIST 
 A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 
 
 BY REV. EDWARD D. GRIFFIN, D. D. 
 
 In the person of our Redeemer, who is very man as 
 well as God, is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, that "a 
 man shall he as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert 
 from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the 
 shadow of a great rock in a weary /w/irf." Isa. xxxii, 2. 
 
 In a serene day, when no wind is up, when no rain is 
 falling, a man may see by the wayside a shelving rock 
 and may pass by it without emotion. Not so the weary 
 traveller who is fleeing before the rising storm or the 
 beating tempest. 
 
 In a season of rain, or in a land of waters, one may 
 pass by a river with little interest. Not so a traveller 
 in the Arabian deserts, surrounded with burning sands, 
 fainting with heat, and parched with thirst. The sight 
 of a stream of water, and especially of "rivers of wa- 
 ter," in such a place, would transport him. 
 
 In a country covered with wood or pinched with cold, 
 a huge rock might offer its shade unwelcome; but amidst 
 the parched wastes of Arabia, where the weary traveller, 
 exposed all day to the intense heat of a vertical sun, sees 
 not a tree nor a shrub, but only one boundless waste of 
 burning sand — there a cool retreat beneath the shade of 
 an over-hanging cliff" — there "the shadow of a great rock 
 in a weary land," would be most welcome. 
 
 These observations suggest a principal reason why 
 the Saviour of the world, whose very name ought to be 
 music to every human ear, is treated with such cruel 
 indifference by the greater part of mankind. It is be- 
 cause they do not feel their guilt, and misery, and need 
 of # Saviour. They are blind to the infinite majesty, 
 and 'Iroliaess, and loveliness of God, and to the immense 
 obligations by % which they are bound to him; and there- 
 fo^lvtl^e'y'do i>ot see the infinite guilt of rebelling against 
 • a].f ^if/c x 6minands, alhhis mercies, all his glories and 
 
2 CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 
 
 interests; and therefore they are not pressed down under 
 a sense of their awful condemnation and ruin. Hell is 
 not laid open before them as their proper punishment. 
 They do not stand amazed at the patience which has 
 kept them out of it so long. They do not see them- 
 selves to be utterly ruined, and utterly helpless and 
 hopeless without a Saviour. And therefore his. precious 
 gospel, which ought to fill the world with wonder and 
 delight, with gratitude and praise, is cast aside as an idle 
 tale, and the name of Jesus is treated with the most 
 dreadful indifference. 
 
 But let a man be thoroughly convicted of sin; let him 
 see himself covered with pollution from the head to the 
 foot; let him stand in sight of the eternal judgment, und 
 apprehend that divine justice has no choice but to crush 
 him into everlasting torment; let him see himself just 
 about to receive the descending wrath of God with the 
 weight of a thousand worlds; and in that awful moment 
 let him obtain a glimpse of Jesus, who came to "save 
 his people from their sins;" let him lift his trembling 
 eye to a God reconciled in Christ and smiling upon him: 
 I ask that man, "What" now "think you of Christ?" 
 "0,".says he — but language fails. , A sacred reverence 
 settles upon his countenance; his uplifted eye speakr, 
 unutterable things. I see it glisten, I see it weep. "O," 
 says he. His hands are clenched and forcibly raised to 
 his breast. The opening of the last judgment could not 
 add solemnity to a single feature. " O, the height and 
 the depth, the length and the breadth of the love of 
 Christ! Where has this glorious mystery lain hid, that 
 I have never seen it before ?'■ To such an eye, how 
 precious does the Saviour appear as the great medium 
 through which the love of God has come down to men — 
 as the W 7 ord by which all the wonders of the eternal 
 Mind are expressed— as the great Prophet who has 
 brought down all the instructions that have blessed the 
 world from the days of Eden — as the Priest ivhose atone- 
 ment and intercession have astonished heaven and earth 
 — as the King who has governed the world from the 
 beginning, and has always protected and provided for 
 his people, and has all their interests in his hands, and 
 all the treasures of the universe to impart. 
 
 To one who is indifferent to the blessedness of com- 
 
CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 3 
 
 munion with God and of conformity to him, there appears 
 no form or comeliness in Christ why he should desire 
 him. But to one who feels an insatiable eagerness to 
 rise from this dark world to a knowledge of all the grand 
 and interesting things which are taking place in the 
 kingdom of God — who longs to be united to all holy 
 beings, and to share in their immortal friendship and 
 ^blessedness and honors — who has no desires so great as 
 to be good and conformed to the God he loves; to such 
 a one Jesus must appear exceedingly precious as the 
 one appointed to open the universe to view, to pour all 
 its light upon the eye, and to exalt the soul to all its 
 purity, to all its dignity, to all its happiness. 
 
 To an anxious and afflicted soul, the Saviour appears 
 peculiarly interesting in the light in which he is exhib- 
 ited by the prophet. In the charming simplicity of 
 Eastern figure, he is presented u as a hiding-place from 
 the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of wafer 
 in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
 land." Here are three separate figures, very striking to 
 an Eastern ear, which admit of distinct illustrations. 
 
 "A hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the 
 tempest." This is but one figure; for the latter clause, 
 as is common in Eastern poetry, is only the echo of the 
 former, presenting a hiding-place and covert from the 
 windy storm and tempest. 
 
 Jesus is found to be the best hiding-place and covert 
 from the winds and tempests of affliction. A poor, dis- 
 consolate soul, after it has been chased through the world 
 by the frowns of pursuing fortune — after it has been 
 hunted from place to place, and not suffered to rest in 
 any corner of creation — will find in Christ that protec- 
 tion and repose which all other places denied it. The 
 weather-beaten wretch, after bearing the storms of this 
 inclement world through the long night of affliction, 
 may find in him a shelter under which he may hear the 
 tempest howl without and feel it not. 
 
 Jesus is the best hiding-place and covert from the tem- 
 pest of an agitated conscience. When the lightning of 
 conviction flashes upon the soul, and guilt with its 
 thundering voice spreads its dark folds over the mind, 
 nowhere but in Jesus can be found a covert from the 
 bursting storm. To what other refuge can a sinner fly 
 
4 CHRIST A COVERT FROM THK TEMPEST. 
 
 when the horrid nature of his rebellion is laid open be- 
 fore him? At what time his ingratitude to the God that 
 made, redeemed, and preserves him appears; at what 
 time he is terrified and confounded by the frequent repe- 
 tition of his sins and the obstinacy of his corruptions; 
 at what time guilt superadded to guilt, rolls its dark 
 wreaths over the soul, like clouds that * return after the 
 rain," nowhere but in Jesus can he find a refuge from 
 the gathering tempest. The blood of Christ, sprinkling 
 his conscience from dead works, has a wonderful power 
 to relieve from the pangs of conscious guilt. It is the 
 most sovereign balm to a wounded spirit. "Give me 
 Jesus or I die," cries the agonized soul. ''None but 
 Christ, none but Christ. Take away that cloud that I 
 may see him, and I shall live." What other refuge can 
 a soul find that is racked with guilt? Let him go to his 
 wealth, his honors, his pleasures; they are all unsavory 
 ashes in the mouth of a man dying with hunger. Let 
 him go to philosophy; it is a stranger to his case, and 
 knows nothing either of his griefs or his wants. Let 
 him go to speculative divinity; it is no physician, but 
 only a corpse laid by the side of a dying man. Let him 
 go to the courts of the Lord — let him go to his Bible, to 
 his knees, and all without Christ are nothing. Let him 
 go to God, and God out of Christ " is a consuming fire." 
 But let him only come in sight of Jesus, and get near 
 enough to "touch" if it be but "the hem of his gar- 
 ment," and all his pains are instantly relieved — the fire 
 in his conscience is quenched, and he is as much at ease 
 as though lie never felt a pain. 
 
 Jesus is also the best covert from the tempest of fear 
 when it agitates the soul. There is a material difference 
 between conscious guilt and the apprehension of punish- 
 ment, although, like light and heat, ihey generally go 
 together. I see a sinner convulsed with the fear of a 
 judgment to come. With an eye wildly rolling and 
 marked with horror, I hear him cry, " Who can dwell 
 with devouring fire ? who can inhabit everlasting burn- 
 ings?" His anxious eye looks above and beneath, and 
 searches creation through, but not a ray of hope can it 
 find — nothing but clouds, and darkness, and tempests. 
 At length it falls on Jesus. Instantly the heavens are 
 
 / 
 
CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 9 
 
 calm ; the sound of the distant storm dies upon his 
 soothed ear, and every care is still. 
 
 Jesus is the only hiding-place from the tempest of 
 divine wrath. A rock of adamant, he stood and suffered, 
 this storm to spend its force on him; while his people, 
 enclosed " in him," lay hid from the beating tempest. 
 The storm is past, and now their faith looks abroad and 
 sees an unclouded sky, and all nature smiling in fresher 
 beauties than though no storm had been. 
 
 To finish the illustration of this figure, Jesus is the 
 only hiding-place from the storms and tempests which 
 for ever beat upon the regions of the damned. Not to them 
 is he a covert. They rejected the canopy of his grace 
 when he would willingly have spread it over them; and 
 now he is nothing to them. But to his own dear people, 
 lie will be a covert from the eternal storm 
 
 He shall be "as rivers of water in a dry place." The 
 most obvious idea on the face of this figure is, that Jesus 
 conveys satisfaction and refreshment to those who can 
 find them nowhere else. There is a thirst for happiness 
 in the soul of man, but there is a drought in all things 
 but in God ; and for human souls, a drought tn all things 
 but in the God that shines " in the* face of Jesus Christ." 
 Such is the constitution of things, that no man can find 
 satisfaction but in the Christ of God. Nor will any 
 ever find it there but those who despair of finding it 
 anywhere else. But "when the poor and needy seek 
 water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for 
 thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel 
 will not forsake them : I will open rivers in high places, 
 and fountains in the midst of the valleys; 1 will make 
 the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs 
 of water." 
 
 When one has ranged creation through in search of 
 happiness — has sought it in the field and in the city, in 
 the haunts of business and in the circles of pleasure, 
 and has met with nothing but disappointment and re- 
 buffs; when he has wandered restless from scene to 
 scene, from employment to employment, perhaps from 
 country to country ; when, a pilgrim in the deserts of 
 life, he finds himself "in a dry and thirsty land where 
 no water is," and faints to think that happiness is no- 
 
b CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 
 
 where to be found; then the gospel meets him and thus 
 accosts him : Wherefore seekest thou "the living among 
 the dead?" It is not here. Return from thine idle 
 pursuit. There is but one point whence refreshment 
 can come. Lift thine eyes to the Saviour of sinners 
 He lifts his eyes ; he lifts his heart ; and finds " waters" 
 breaking out "in the wilderness — and streams in the 
 desert." Ah, says he, this is where I should have come 
 before. It would have saved me many sore disappoint- 
 ments and many years of anguish. 
 
 When one is piucked and crushed by the hand of 
 adversity — has found nothing but grief and perplexity 
 in his connection with the world — carries the aching 
 wounds where friends that have been torn away once 
 grew to his heart — mourns alone without father or 
 mother, without brother or sister, without wife or child 
 — unpitied by the crowd of strangers that gaze upon 
 him and pass him by — while his tattered grarments 
 remind him of better days; I hasten to the turf where 
 he sits weeping, and gently, lest I should alarm the ear 
 of grief, say to him, "Hath no man pitied thee?" 
 "Ah," says he, " I am 'in a dry and thirsty land where 
 no water is;' no satisfaction or refreshment for a wretch 
 crushed beneath misfoftune." "From my soul I pity you, 
 but do not despair. Let me lead you to the mourner's 
 Friend." I bring him to Jesus: and when I see the 
 |?alm applied to his wounds, and the countenance of the 
 sufferer beginning to brighten, I take my leave, and 
 return to my house with delicious sensations that an 
 infidel never knew. 
 
 Here is another pressed under a sense of heavy guilt. 
 Fie also is in a laud where no water is. He has sought 
 on all sides for relief, but sought in vain. His thirst is 
 for reconciliation with God. In quest of this he has ap- 
 plied to external reformation, to outward duties, to the 
 means of grace. Fie has sought the counsel of ministers 
 and Christians, and has tried to repose on the good 
 opinions of others. Fie has made the desperate attempt 
 to rest on universalism, and even on infidelity; but all 
 to no purpose. The fever of his mind remains. His 
 thirst for pardon- and peace is unabated; but nowhere 
 can he find anything to allay it, till at last he approaches 
 
CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 7 
 
 the gospel. He hears it say, "If any man thirst, let 
 him come unto me and drink." His attention is strongly 
 arrested. He examines the passage. It is the voice of 
 the Saviour himself. Fie ultimately seizes the invitation 
 and goes to him, and his astonished soul finds this way 
 of salvation exactly suited to his* wants. He finds within 
 "him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." 
 
 The last figure employed by the prophet, though ap- 
 propriate and striking, conveys no meaning materially 
 different from the other two. The idea is that of rest in 
 a cool and refreshing place. "As the shadow of a great 
 rock in a weary land." The figure represents a travel- 
 ler in one of the Eastern deserts, burnt with intense 
 heat, worn out with toil, fainting /or water, for shade. 
 His resolution and strength fail. He abandons the 
 hope of ever reaching the end of the desert; when all 
 at once he discovers before him a high impending rock, 
 under the cavity of whose side he finds a refreshing 
 shelter from the scorching sun and burning ?and. Such ' 
 a retreat does our dear Redeemer afford to those who 
 are fainting under the labors and discouragements of 
 this wearisome life. This vale of tears may well be 
 called a weary land. There are many in it who are 
 ready to faint under the load of affliction, and can say 
 witli Job, "My soul is weary of my life." Many are 
 weary of sin — wearied out with a long course of painful 
 struggles with the world, the flesh, and the devil — are 
 often discouraged witli the greatness of the contest, and 
 sink under the apprehension that they shall never get 
 through with safety. These evils press them so hard 
 that they often sigh for the grave where the weary are 
 at rest. But a nearer and more delightful retreat is to 
 be found in him who says, " The Lord'hath given me the 
 tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a 
 word in season to him that is weary." "I have satiated 
 the weary soul, and 1 have replenished every sorrowful 
 sou!." When his Church wandered, forty years in the 
 Arabian wilderness, among burning sands, without a 
 shelter or a shade, he covered them by day with a pillar 
 kr cloud. What this was intended to signify, appears 
 'om the application made of it by the prophet: "The 
 
8 CHRIST A COVERT FROM THE TEMPEST. 
 
 Lord shall create upon every dwelling-place of Mount 
 Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by 
 day, and the shining of a flaming fire by nighr \ for 
 upon all the glory shall be a defence. And there shall 
 be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the, 
 heat, and for a place of* refuge, and for a covert from 
 storm and from rain." 
 
 At what time a poor, fainting soul, weary of affliction, 
 weary of sin, weary of temptation, casts itself under the 
 shadow of this rock, he feels a sensation of relief which 
 nothing else can bring, and which none can fully de- 
 scribe. 
 
 My brethren, what everlasting thanks do we owe to 
 God for providing such a refuge from the beating tem- 
 pest — such rivers of refreshment in a dry and thirsty 
 land. What could the weather-beaten pilgrim, what 
 could the faint and weary traveller do without them in 
 such a world as this? How greatly does this view tend 
 to endear the Saviour to us. What new motives rush 
 'upon the mind to abide in him, that we may every hour 
 enjoy a " hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from 
 the tempest" — that we may constantly lie at the foun- 
 tain of living waters, and feel the permanent shadow of 
 a great rock in a weary land. Why do the people of 
 God find so little relief from the distresses of life and 
 the troubles of conscience, but because they abide no 
 more in their everlasting refuge? 
 
 How surprising it is, that in a world where a covert 
 from the tempest is so much needed, it is so much neg- 
 lected, and that even by those. who have often found it 
 a shelter when every other refuge failed. Would it not 
 be strange to see a person ready to die with heat and 
 thirst by the very side of a cooling fountain, and by the 
 shade of an overhanging rock ? ^Tet a still greater won- 
 der is witnessed here. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTH CAROLINA TRACT SOCIETY. 
 Printed by Evans &, Cogswell, No. 3 Broad St., Charleston. S.,C. 
 
Hollinger Corp. 
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