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what was spoken last day, I shall now further speak upon this truth, in handling these two things:

I. I will shew you what is a promising God, and what is to be considered therein.

II. What need we have of a promising God; that there is no other God can save us but a promising God.

Lastly, I shall make application of the point.

I. What is a promising God? It is the true God manifesting his grace and mercy to us, and securing that by his faithful word, that is a promising God; he is the true God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. Consider, in this matter, the high and eternal rise of all promises; and that is the infinite, unaccountable love of God unto the chosen. The promise of God is but the birth of the purpose of God. The purpose of God springs from nothing, the promise of God springs from somewhat. There had never been a word of good-will to the children of men spoken by God, if there had not been thoughts of good-will framed in his heart from eternity. This we find sometimes called the promise: God that cannot lie, promised before the world began, Titus i. 2. The meaning is, he purposed it before the world began, and as soon as the world began he revealed it. This is carefully to be taken notice of, That all the promises of God spring from this purpose of God, and are designed by our Lord in their true application to answer the purpose; that as the purpose of his grace is a sure and limited one, determined, and distinct; so the promise is of the same design. Who hath saved us, saith the apostle, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Tim. i. 9, 10.

2. About this promising God and his promises, we are to consider the channel wherein they run; and this is all in and through Jesus Christ. That man looks with a bad eye upon any of the promises of God, that does not see Christ in them; and they do not see Christ rightly, unless they see all the pro

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45 mises in him. We see the covenant in him, and him in the covenant; all the promises of God are in him; he was promised himself, and all the blessings that are promised, are purchased by him, and left to his people as a legacy in his last will, confirmed by his own death.

3. The promises in this promising God, come to be consi dered as they lie before us in the word. There they are indited by the Holy Ghost, and written by holy men of God, that were acted by the Spirit of God; and, if I may so speak, there we have them in black and white.

4. We would consider the promise as the father of be lievers, or the mother in a figurative phrase. Every believer is a child of promise: Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise, Gal. iv. 28. Not only are we heirs of the promise, for that relates to the estate, Gal. iii. 29. Heb. vi. 17. and xi. 7, 9.; but children of the promise, begotten again to a lively hope through the promise. When a poor creature is converted, it is the promise of God that does it. The efficacy of the promise of God, in its begun performance, does change and renew the heart, Jam. i. 18. 1 Pet. i. 23. The apostle, concerning his own conversion, says, It pleased God, who se parated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, Gal. i. 15. It was a kind of strange separation. The poor young man was left of God as eminently as any youth in all Judea; at his best he was a superstitious blinded Jew, and at his worst a bitter enemy to the name of Jesus Christ. Who would think now this man was separated from his mother's womb for God? he seemed to be separated from God, and separated to the vengeance of God. For all this, grace seized his heart, and he is called in due time. These things we are to conceive when we speak and think of a promising God: the rise of them, in the purpose of God's heart; the channel of all the promises, in and through the heart's blood of our Lord Jesus; recorded to us in the word, and in God's good time applied to the heart, to call in the heirs of promise, and to bring them home to possess their estate.

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II. The second thing is, What need we have of a promising God? This must be a name peculiarly applied unto the God

we call upon and believe in. Since sin hath come into the world, there is an absolute necessity of our having to do with a promising God, and of God's dealing with us as a promising God, otherwise there can be nothing but ruin on our part.

1. Because God cannot be savingly known but as a promising God. The promise of God is both a veil, and a glass that we perceive God in. It is a veil upon his inconceivable, unapproachable glory: it is a glass wherein we may perceive, and may get near to him. We cannot possibly take up any comfortable, saving, right apprehensions of God, but as he is clothed and veiled to us in a promise. His own glory is unapproachable; his justice, his majesty, these great attributes of his, are all amazing and confounding to poor creatures. But when God comes near to us, and promises great and good things to us, then we come to know him. It is remarkable how Moses dealt with God, and God dealt with Moses, Exod. xxxiii. from ver. 13. to the end. The man is there praying for Israel under their great sin, and under God's great wrath for it: Shew me now thy ways, says he, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy sight. At last he arises, Shew me thy glory, ver. 18. Whether Moses was led or left unto any unbecoming desire, to his desiring more than his present state could permit, we cannot peremptorily say. He was in a high degree of communion with God, as any mere man in this world ever was. The Lord answered him most graciously, and fitly to our purpose. Moses prays that he may behold God's glory. What! had he not seen enough already? He saw, with all the people, the glory of God in the giving of the law; he saw a great deal more in his more near approaches to God; he saw it yet more in his staying with God forty days in the mount; he saw the pattern of the temple in the mount. Moses yet, for all this, cries, I beseech thee shew me thy glory, as if he had never before seen any thing of the glory of the Lord. Says the Lord, I will make all my goodness to pass before thee, (my greatness would confound thee), and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. Accordingly the Lord

proclaimed it, chap. xxxiv. 6; 7. Will you take in now this that I drive at from this quotation, that a clear perceiving by faith of the sovereign grace and goodness of God in his promises of grace and compassion to poor sinners, is the most beneficial and highest discovery of divine glory that sinners can arrive at, and that believers should desire in this world. When we pray that God would shew us his glory, the Lord will understand it thus, and answer it thus: I will cause all my goodness to pass before thee. The more we see of his goodness, the more we see of his glory.

2. God cannot be worshipped acceptably, but as a promising God. Says the apostle, It is required that every man that comes to God to worship, must believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, Heb. xi. 6.; that he is a gracious God, not only great in his being, but good, and bountiful, and kind, and gracious to them that seek him.

3. God cannot be trusted in, unless he be known as a promising God. Trust in God, faith in him, is a special point of worship; it is not a duty of worship so much as it is a grace that should accompany every duty. Now, whence can faith in God arise unless God speak some good to us? Faith arising from any other spring, is a dream and vain imagination of our own minds, not bottomed upon the single, sole word of God. They that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee, Psalm ix. 10. In Jacob's pleading, Gen. xxxii. 9, 13. see how exactly he stands upon God's word. He not only calls God, the God of his father Abraham, and the God of his father Isaac, that was a promising God; but the God that said unto me, Return unto thy country, and to thy kindred, and I will deal well with thee, ver. 9. And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, ver. 12. See how Jacob's wrestling stood, how, if I may so speak, the man behaved himself in his mighty wrestling with God, all with the force of his word; upon that word of his; saith he to the Lord, "Lord, thou bidst 66 me, I am in the way thou bidst me go in; and thou saidst, "I will surely do thee good."

4. God cannot be loved but as a promising God. Love

to God is promised, and love to God arises from the discoveries of God's goodness to us and the clearer these discoveries be, love still increases.

5. All the enjoyment we have of God in this life, is enjoying of him as a promising God. Pray now which way is it that there is that intercourse, and that familiarity, that mutual dealing between God and us, that is called by those blessed names in the word; fellowship with him, enjoyment of him, finding of him? All stands in this; we approach to God by the warrant of his promise, he draws near to us according to his promise, and in the fulfilment of it. The promise is as it were Jacob's ladder, by which God comes down to us, and we rise up to him again. The communion which believers have on earth is with God as a promising God; and the communion the glorified have with him above, is with God as a performing God; and, if I may so speak, until God has performed all he has promised, he must never lose the name of a promising God to a believer.

Lastly, In the great wisdom of God, this name of God is appointed to be the great name wherein he will be glorified. The greatest glory that is given to God, is given under the name of a promising God. What is the reason that Abraham is especially said to give glory to God? He was strong in faith, giving glory to God, Rom. iv. 20. Believing is but thinking, it is no more; but it is a rare thing, it is a great thought; and a great many things seem far bigger than believing. Doing seems to be a great deal greater than believ ing. Abraham's offering his son Isaac was a great act; ay, but the excellency of it lay in the faith he did it by. The reason why believing is specially said to give glory to God, is, because the Lord hath a special mind and design to have himself glorified in the soul, under the name of a promising God: and ali good things shall come to his people, to make them happy by virtue of the promise. But the maker of the promise, and the keeper of the promise, and the performer of the promise, must have all the glory. All that is in the promise is ours, but all the praise of making it is his; it is made by grace, kept by grace, performed by grace; all this glory is to be given to him.

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