W^hat a comfort is this, that we may go to God in Christ, and claim the promises boldly; because we see out of the love he bears to .Christ, he loves us, and hath made us promises in him, and as verily as he loves him, so he loves us, and will perform all his gracious promises to us ? If we lay fast hold on Christ, I say, he can as soon alter his love to Christ as to us ; for he loves us with the same love that he loves Christ with, he loves us in his beloved. He hath ' blessed us with all spiritual blessings in him,' Eph. i. 3, he hath made us sons in him that is the natural Son ; and as his love is unchangeable to his Son, so it is to us in Christ.
If a prince's love to any man be founded and grounded upon the love he bears to his son, if he loves his son he loves such a man, because his son loves him. Surely he may have great comfort that it will hold ! Because his afiection is natural and unalterable, he will alway love his son. Thei'e- fore he will love him whom his son loves alway. Now Christ is the Son of God, he loves us in his Son ; he hath given us rich promises in his Son. He hath given him the first promise, and all other promises of forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting in and through him. As long as he loves Christ, he will love us, and as sui'e as he loves Christ, he will love us.
Nothing in the world can separate his love from his own Son, and no- thing in the world can separate God's love from us, because it is in his Son. Christ loves his mystical body as well as his natural body ; and God loves the mystical body of Christ as he loves his natural body. He hath advanced that to glory at his right hand, and will he leave his mysti-
894 COMMENTARY ON
cal body the church ? Will he not advance that ? Doth he not love whole Christ ? Yes ! God loves whole Christ. Our nature that he hath taken to him, it is the chief thing, the most lovely thini,' in heaven or earth, next to God ; and he loves all that are in him, his mystical body. For indeed he gave us to Christ. He hath sealed and anuinlcd him. He is anointed by (rod the Father for us.
Upon what an unchangeable, eternal ground is tlie love of God built, and the faith of a Christian ! How can the gates of hell prevail against the faith of a Christian, when it carries him to the promises, and from the promises to the love of God, and from thence to Christ, upon whom the love of God is founded ? Before the faith of a Christian can be shaken, the promises must be of no eilect, they must be ' yea and nay,' and not ' yea.' And if the promises be shaken, the love of God must be uncertain, and Christ uncertain. Heaven and earth must be overturned to overturn the faith of a Christian. There is notliing in the world that is so firm as a believing Christian, that casts himself on the promises, that are alway '3'ea;' and to make them 'yea,' they are founded on Christ, the Son of God's love.
Well, these promises, coming from such love, may be ranked into divers ranks. I will touch some of them, to shew how we are to carry ourselves, to make comfortable use of this, that * all the promises are yea and amen in Christ.'
(1.) There are some universal j)romiscs, for the good of all mankind; as that God would never destroy the world again. Or (2.) promises that concern more particularly his church. And those are promises either of outward things, or of spiritual and eternal things, of grace and glory.
Now, for the manner of promising, they admit of this distinction : all the promises that God hath made to us, either (1.) they are absolute, with- out any condition. So was Christ. God promised Christ, let the world be as it will, Christ did and would have come. And so the promise of his glorious coming, he will come, let men be as they will. There will be a resurrection. Some promises (2.) be conditional in the manner of pi'o- poundlng, but yet absolute in the real performance of them. As, for ex- ample, the promises of grace and glory to God's children. The promise of forgiveness of sins, — God will forgive their sins if they believe, if they repent. They are propounded conditionally, but in the performance they are abso- lute, because God performs the covenant himself; he performs our part and his own too. For since Christ, though he propounded the promises of the gospel with conditions, yet he performs the condition ; he stirs us up to attend upon the means, and by his Spirit in the word he works faith and repentance, which is the condition. Faith and repentance is his gift.
He ' writes his law in our hearts,' Jer. xxxi. 33, and teacheth us how to love. So, though they be conditionally propounded (for God deals with men as men hj way of commerce, — he propounds it by way of covenant and condition), yet in the covenant of grace, which is truly a gracious covenant, he not only gives the good things, but he performs the condition, by the Spirit working our hearts to believe and to repent.