I speak this the rather to cross their base practices, who, when God calls them to stand for his cause and truth, they will bend and bow the sacred truth (which is always ' yea and amen ' ) to their own by-ends and base respects. As if the opinion of any man in the world were the rule of their faith and obedience. This is to make God no God. Is not right right? Is not the law the law ! Is not the word of Christ a word that alters not but remains stedfast to all eternity ?
Assure yourselves there is a truth of God that we must maintain to tho death, not only in opposing heresy, but resisting of impiety wheresoever we meet it. John Baptist was a martyr when he stood out against Herod, and said, ' Thou must not have thy brother Philip's wife,' Mat. xiv. 3. He would not be meal-mouthed in reproving his sin, but cried out against the unlawfulness of it, though it cost him his life. Men ought to sutfer for the truth, and not, for base ends, deny the least word of God, because it is a divine sparkle from himself.
' For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him are amen.'
This comes in after this manner. The word that I preached, saith Paul, is invariable, because Christ himself is always yea, and I have preached nothing but Jesus Christ among you. My preaching, then, must needs be a certain and immutable truth.
There are divers readings of the words (b), but the most material is (as this translation and the best expositors have it), ' All the promises of God * That is, ' naughty/ wicked. — G.
118 YEA AND AMEN ; OR,
in Christ aro yea ; ' that is, they are certain and constant in him. And then they arc * amen ; ' that ^is, in Christ they arc fulfilled. In him they are made, and in him they arc accomplished. The whole carriage of the promises are in Christ ; for his sake they were first given, and in him they shall be performed. As Christ himself was yesterday and to-day, and the same for ever, so are all God's promises made in him, undoubtedly, eter- nally, and unchangeably true to all posterities.
Here are divers truths which oiler themselves to our consideration.
Obs. first. Take notice, that since the fall of man, it hath jileased our ffood God to establish a cove)iaut of f/race in Jesus Christ, and to make him a second Adam, by whom we might be restored to a better estate than ever we had in the first Adam. In which happy condition there can be no intercourse betwixt God and man without some promise in his Christ, so that now God deals all by promises with us. The reason is this.
Reason 1. How can j^oor dust and ashes dare to chalknr/e auijthinr/ of the great Majcsti/ of heaven, without a ivarrant from himself? How can the con- science be satisfied ? (Conscience, j'ou know, is a knowledge together with God.)* How can that rest quiet in anything but in what it is assured comes from God ? And therefore, for any good I hope for from God, it behoves me to have some promise and word of his mouth for it, this being his con- stant course of dispensation to his people. "V\Tiile we live in this world we are always under hope. ' We rejoice in hope of the glory of God,' Rom. V. 2. Now, hope looks still to the promise, whereof some part is unpei'formed.
How doth heaven difier from earth but in this ? Heaven is a place all for performances. Here we have some performances to encourage us, but are always under some promise not yet accomplished. And therefore, the manner of our apprehension of God in this world exceedingly differs from that in heaven.
Here it is by faith and hope ; there it is by vision. Vision is fit for per- formance. Faith and hope look always to a w^ord revealed ; God therefore rules his church in this manner for their greater good. Alas ! what can we have from God but by the manifestation of his own good will ? May we look for favour from God for anything in ourselves ? It is a fond f conceit.
Reason 2. Again, God ivill hare his church ruled by jn-omises in all ages, to exercise the faithful in lyrayer and dependence upon him. God will see of what credit he is among men, whether they will rely upon his bare promise or no. He might do us good, and give us no promise ; but he will try his graces in us, by arming us against all difficulties and discouragements, till the thing promised be performed to us. Promises are, as it were, the stay of the soul in an imperfect condition ; and so is faith in them, until our hopes shall end in full possession. And we must know that divine promises are better than earthly performances. Let God give man never so much in the world, if he have not a promise of better things, all will come to nothing at the last. And therefore God supports the spirits of his servants against all temptations, both on the right hand and on the left, by sweet promises. He will have them live by faith, which always hath relation to a promise. This is a general ground, then, that God now in Christ Jesus hath appointed to govern his church by way of promises.