THE EIGHTH SERMON.
He shall swallow up death in victory ; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces ; and the rebukes of his people shall he take away from off all the earth : for the Lmxl hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for him, and he will save iis : this is the Lord ; we have iraitedfor him, tee will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. — Isa. XXV. 8, 9.
To come closer to the particulars. ' It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God.' The mouth of the Lord hath spoken gracious things before, hath promised a feast, and an excellent feast. God's manner is first of all to give promises to his church. Why ? His goodness cometh from his goodness, his goodness of gi-ace cometh fi'om his goodness of nature. ' He is good and doth good.' Now the same goodness of disposition which we call bounty, that reserveth heaven and happiness for us in another world, the same goodness will not sufier us to be without all comfort in this world, because the knowledge and revelation of the glory to come hath much com- fort in it. Therefore in mercy he not only inteudeth perfoimance of glory, but out of the same fountain of goodness he intendeth to reveal whatso- ever is good for his church in the way to glory. So that promises of good come from the same goodness of God by which he intendeth heaven. For what moved God to come out of that hidden light, that no man can come into, and discover himself in his Son ? The word in his promises to reveal his mind to mankind, and make known what he will have us to do, and what he will do to us. But only his goodness is the cause of all. And therefore the end of promises in God's intention is to comfort us in the way to heaven, that we may have something to support us. They are promissa, quasi prmnissa. They ai'e promises and premises, and sent before the thing itself.
Now here it cometh that the glory to come is termed the joy of heaven and the glorious estate to come. 'You have need of patience, that you may get the promises.' Heaven and happiness is called the promises, because we have them assured in promises. The blessings of the New Testa- ment are called promises ; as the children of the promise, yea, the heirs of glory ; because all is conveyed by a promise, therefore aU happiness is con- veyed by a promise.
Now the promises are of good things. They are for the spring of them, free, fi'om God's free goodness ; for the measure of them, full ; for the truth of them, constant, even as God himself that promiseth. And there- fore we may well build upon them.
Use. Before I go any farther, I beseech you let us account the promises
600 THE MAKEIAGE FEAST [SeEMON VIIC.
of the good we have to he our best treasure, our best portion, our best riches, for they be called precious promises, 2 Pet. i. 4 ; not only because they be precious in themselves, but because they are from the precious love of God in Christ to us. They are likewise for precious things. They are laid hold of by precious faith, as the Scripture calleth them, and therefore they are precious promises. Let us not only account of our riches that we have ; for what is that wo have, to what we speak of, to that we have in promise ? A Christian is rich in reversion, rich in bills and obligations. Christ hath bound himself to him, and he can sue him out when he pleaseth. In all kinds of necessity, he can sue God for good. He can go to God and say, ' Remember thy promise. Lord, wherein thou hast caused me thy servant to trust,' Ps. cxix. 49 ; and can bind God with his own word.
But I take this only in passage as the foundation of what I am to speak.
From the mouth of God you see the great promises delivered ; and now we have waited for them. That which answereth promises is expectation and waiting.
The second thing, therefore, between the promises, wherein God is a debtor, and the performance, is, that there is a long time, a long clay. Often- times God takes a long day for perfonning of his promise, as four hundred years Abraham's posterity went to be in Eg^^t. And it was four thousand years from the beginning of the world till the coming of Christ, which was the promise of promises, the promise of the seed, a great long day. And therefore Christ is said to come in ' the latter end of the world.' Abraham had promise of a son, but it was not performed till he was an old man. Simeon had a promise to see Christ in the flesh, but he was an old man, ready to yield up the ghost, before it was performed. God taketh a long day for his promises ; long to us, not to him, * for to him a thousand years are but as one day,'