Ans. But the answer is easy. God is true in all these ; for God's pro- mises that come from his truth, they are either absolute or conditional. The absolute are those that have nothing annexed to them, but shall cer- tainly be. As God would have sent Christ without all conditions, Christ should have come without all peradveuture, as we say. But now some promises have conditions annexed to them : if a nation repent of their sins, God will repent of the evil he hath threatened, as it is in Jer. xviii. 8. Now those threatenings that are on condition of repentance, if the condition be performed, the sentence is reversed. All the promises are made with ex- ception of the cross ; all must suffer before they come to heaven and be glorified. Now all the promises, with the exception of the cross, are con- ditional. So God is true, both in his absolute promises that are made
COMMENTARY ON
without condition, and he is true in his conditional promises ; because whore he performs the condition, ho will perform likewise that that is tied to the condition. He chan^^oth his sontence sometimes, and his threatening, but not his decree ; for his purpose and decree is to fori^'ive and reverse the sentence, if wo repent. I say, it is a clear truth that God is true, unchange- ably and immutably true.
And it is the prime truth of all truths, that God is, and God is true. As we say of the heavens, unless the heavens were moved, there would be no motion in the earth. For if the sun had not a motion in the zodiac up and down, where were summer and winter ? If he had not his course, where were night and day '? the vicissitude and intercourse of all earthly things ? If the heavenly motion were not, iiiai nioverentur, dr., if those did not move, we could not move, because we depend upon that. So, unless it were true that God were, there is a God, and God is unchangeably true, there would be nothing true in the world ; for all truth is therefore true, because it is answerable to that exemplar truth that is true in God, answerable to God's conceit and decree of things.
This I observe the rather, because it is a fundamental thing. It doth wondrously stablish our faith in divine truths, when we know it comes from God that is true. If we would seek for evidences of our faith, then we must go within us, and see what love, and what hope, what combat be- tween the flesh and spirit there is ; but if we look for anything to stablish our faith, go out of us, consider the unchangeable truth of God, whose truth it is.
God as God creating a reasonable creature, he must give him some re- vealed truth, he could not be worshipped else. How must we know this revealed truth whereby he will be worshipped by the reasonable creature (for no man will be served by his servant as he pleaseth) ? How shall we know these certain truths ? Because they come from his nature. God is true ; and as God is true, * so our word to you was not yea and nay,' that is, it was true. There is the same ground of the certainty of evangelical truth as there is of God himself to be true.
To add a little further in the point, consider the truth of God every way, the faithfulness of God, as it signifies in the original, ' as God is faithful.' Consider what relations God hath put upon him in his divine truth, how he will be thought on. And then bring those relations to his nature ; for there we must pitch at last. What is he to us ? and how hath he revealed himself to us ? Thus and thus. What is he in his nature ? So and so ; and there we must rest.
For instance, the Lord hath made many promises. Who is it that hath made them ? He that is true and unchangeably trae. There the soul rests in the nature of God. But what relations hath he put upon him ? He is a God, and a Lord, and a Judge, and a Father, &c.
Now, as he is God, he is true : therefore he will do all things that a true God should do. He will uphold his creature, while he will have his crea- ture continue ; he will give it life, and being, and motion.
And as a Lord he will do with his own what he list, and it is not for us to contend with him why he will do this or that, why he makes one rich and another poor. He is Lord of all, and a true Lord. Therefore we must give authority to this true Lord.
And then, as he is a Judge, he corrects men for sin, and rewards them for the good they do. As a Judge, sometime he punisheth them inwardly in conscience, sometimes outwardly. All the good we have is from this,
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 18. 863
that he is a faithful and true God ; therefoi-c there we must rest. He is a true Judge, he ' rewards every man according to his works, whether they be good or evil,' Mat. xvi. 27.