elect, precious : and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded.' John vi. 40, * And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life : and r will rai.«e him up at the last day.' Ver. 47, ' Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.' John xi. 25, ' Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' Ver. 26, ' And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.' John XX. 31, ' But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that believing ye might have life through his name.' Look, as certainly as the unbeliever shall be cast into outer darkness, so certainly shall the believer be partaker of the glorious in- heritance of the saints in light ; for certainly the promises are as true as the threatenings : Acts xvi. 30, 31, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' The apostle speaks not doubtingly, Perhaps thou shalt be saved ; nor they do not say, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and it may be thou mayest go to heaven ; but they .speak boldly, confidently, peremptorily, ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.' Jo.shua xxiii. 14, xxi. 45. O my soul ! what greater certainty and security can any man have than the infallible promise of that God that is truth itself, who will not, who cannot, deny his word ? But the same love and free grace that moved him to infuse grace into his children's souls, will move him also to keep the word that is gone out of his mouth, and to make good whatever he hath promised. Thus you evidently see that the promises prove an in- separable connection between grace and glory, between faith and ever- lasting life ; so that, let me but prove that I have a saving faith, and the scriptures last cited prove infallibly that I shall be saved.
Oh labour as for life, daily to give a firm and fixed assent to the truth of those blessed promises last cited, and hold it as an indisputable and inviolable principle, that whosoever believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ, or whosoever hath received Christ as his Lord and Saviour, shall be certainly saved.' This is the person that hath the word, the promise, the covenant, the oath of that God that cannot possibly lie, or die, for the pardon of his sin, and for the salvation of his soul. Now, 0 my soul, what security couldst thou ask more of a deceitful man, than that which the great Jehovah, the faithful God, of his own accord, hath given to thee, viz., his word and his oath ? Now not to believe God upon his promise and oath, is to make him a liar, yea, the worst of liars ; yea, it is to do worse than the devils, for they ' believe and tremble.' Though the word of the Lord deserves the greatest credit that any mortals can give unto it, he being truth itself that hath said it, though it hath no oath nor no asseverations to be its surety, yet God, in his infinite condescending love to poor sinners, that he may sink the truth of what he saith deeper into the hearts and minds of his people, and leave the fairer and fuller print in our assents to the same, he sets on the word of promise with the weight of asseverations and oaths ; yea,, and to all these he hath annexed his broad seal, the Lord's supper, and the privy seal of his Spirit. Oh unreasonable unbelief ! shall not the oath of God silence all
' 1 Tim. i. 15 ; 1 Jolm i. 9 ; Heb. vi. 17, 18 ; Ezek. xxxii. 11, xviii. o2 ; 1 John v. 10-14 ; James ii. 19.
282 A CABINET OF JEWELS. [ChAP. I.
disputes ? A man would never desire of any honest man, so much as God hath condescended to, for the confirmation of our faith. Witness his promises, his covenant, his oath, and his seals ; and therefore let us give glory to him by believing, and quietly rest upon his faithfulness.
O sirs ! that soul that dares not take his.sanctification as an evidence, 3"ea, as a choice and sure evidence of his interest in Christ, and of the Lord's precious love to him, according to the promises of his favour and grace, several of which hath been but now under consideration, that soul ought to acknowledge it as his sin, yea, as his great sin, for which he deserves to be smartly rebuked, as making God a loud liar. O my friends ! it is a spiritual peevishness and sinful crossness that keeps many good men aud women long in a sad, dark, doubting, perplexed, and disconsolate condition ; and certainly it is no small sin to set light by any work of the blesssd Spirit, and the joy, comfort, and peace that we might have by it. Ah, how many are there that fear the Lord, who quench, grieve, vex, and provoke the Holy Spirit, by denying his work, and by quarrelling against themselves, and the blessed work of the Spirit in them ! Certainly it is the duty of every Christian to hear as well what can be said for him, as what can be said against him. Many poor, weak, and yet sincere Christians, are often apt to be too sour, rigid and bitter against their own souls ; they love to practise a merciless severity against themselves ; they do not indifferently, impartially con- sider how the case stands between God and their own souls.^ It is in this case, as Solomon speaks in another : ' There is that maketh him- self rich, and yet hath nothing ; and there is that maketh himself poor, and yet hath great riches,' Prov. xiii. 7- That is, there be those in the world that pretend they are rich, and make a show before men as if they were men of great estates, whereas indeed they are exceeding poor and needy .^
There are not a few that stretch their wing beyond their nest ; that bear a port beyond their estates ; that trick up themselves witli other men's plumes, laying it on above measure in clothes, in high entertain- ments, in stately buildings, in great attendance, &c., when not worth one groat in all the world, but either they die in prison, or lay the key under the door,^ or comiDound for twelve pence in the pound, &c. And there are others again that are exceeding rich and wealthy, and yet feign themselves and look upon themselves to be very poor and needy. To apply this spiritually, it is the damning sin of the self-flattering hypocrite, to make himself rich, to make himself significant, to make his condition better than it is, Rev. iii. 17 ; and it is the vanity, the folly of some sincere Christians to make their condition worse than indeed it is, to make themselves more miserable and unhappy than indeed they are. Ah, Cliristians ! it is sad with you, it is night with you, when you read over the evidences of God's love to your souls, a-s a man does a book which he intends to confute. Is it not sad when Christians shall study hard to find evasions to wheel oft' all those comfort.s, refreshings, cheer- iags, and supports, that are tendered to them, that are due to them, and
' Ps. Ixxii. 2, Ixsxviii ; Job. xv. 11, xvi. 8, 9.