Men are very atheists in this point ; for they are more careful a great deal to leave them rich, to leave them great, than to leave them good ; and so they leave them a little goods perhaps, but they leave the curse and vengeance of God with it. I beseech you, therefore, enlarge this comfort, that the promises of God concerning all good things are made in Christ, they are yea and amen to ourselves, and to all ours, to our posterity.
Thus I have laboured to lay open a little to you the promises. You may enlarge them yourselves. Therefore take this course :
First, consider your present estate, if you ivonld make iise of this portion. It is our portion. Our best inheritance are the promises, and indeed they are a good child's portion. Though the world take all from us, though God strip us of all, if ho leave us his promises, we are rich men. There- fore the psalmist calls them his portion, and his inheritance ; and indeed so they are : because they are so many bonds whereby God is bound to us ; they are so many obligations.
And if a wretched exacting man think himself as rich as he hath bonds, though he have not a penny in his purse ; he that hath a thousand pounds in bonds, thinks himself richer than he that hath a hundred pounds in money, and he thinks he hath reason to be so, because he hath good ■security; certainlj-, a Christian that hath rich faith in the rich promises, he is a rich man, because he hath many bonds; and when he pleaseth he can sue his bonds, and God is well pleased with it. Therefore indeed there is little difference between a Christian in poverty and a rich Christian ; only the one hath more for the present, but God is the riches of the other. As for a w^orldUng, he hath but a cistern when he hath most ; the other hath the spring, he hath God in covenant, and God's promises.
Let us therefore consider every day the exigents* we are in, whether in want of grace, or want of assistance and necessaries, or want of comfort ; and according to that, let us consider what we are to do. Ai-e we at our wits' end now ? Is there no hope for this in Israel ? Yes ! God hath left us rich and precious promises. Let us look to them.
In the next place, then, /Vo»t our wants look to the promises, and propor- tion, the promises to our ivants ; rank the promises. It were a good work. Oh, that we shoidd have so many promises, and yet have them to seek when the devil besiegeth us. He layeth siege to shake our consciences, and we are to seek in the time of temptation. Let us remember the promises answerable to our necessities.
If we be troubled with sin, call to mind the promise of forgiveness. If * That is, ' exigencies.' — G.
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 20. 405
we be troubled with want, call to mind the promise of supply. If we be troubled with fear for the time to come, call to mind the covenant of grace, the marriage for everlasting. ' God, whom he loves, he loves to the end,' John xiii. 1. God loves us in Christ. He loves Christ for ever. There- fore he will love us for ever. So, as I said before, suit the promises to oui- present estate.
And from the promises have a higher rise yet : go to him in ivhom they are made. They are rich promises indeed, good promises ; but how shall I know they shall be performed ? In whom are they made ? In whom ? God loves thee in Christ. What is he ? God and man. He is God, and therefore able to perfonn them : he is man, and therefore he loves thee as his own flesh, and therefore he will perform them. He is ' the Son of God's love.' God for his sake, as Mediator, will perform them. Heaven and earth shall conspire for thy good, rather than thou shalt miss of the performance of the least promise. Therefore from thy wants go to the promises, and from the promises go to Christ, and consider him. He is anointed of God for thee. He is anointed that he might be thy Christ, and thy Jesus, that he might be thy Saviour, * Immanuel, God ^\^th us,' Isa. vii. 14, that he might reconcile God in us, that in office he might be so, that he might bring God and us together. Consider him.
And then go to God, and consider ivhat relation in Jesus Christ God hath put tqmn him. In Christ God is a Father, and what can a father deny to his adopted son in Christ, whom he looks on in his natural Son Christ ?
Yea, and to settle our minds the more, let us consider the relations that God and Christ hare put upon them, and the relations ue stand in ; and the many promises we have in Christ, who is anointed and sealed by God the Father to be our Saviour, and to bestow good upon us. God is become our Father. What a world of promises is in that word Father '? What will a father deny to his son ? What if God had not left particular promises in Scriptm-e, if he had left but the relation of a father, it had been promise enough. What can a father deny his child ?