But what is a promise ?
A promise is nothing but a manifestation of love ; an intendment of be- * Cf. notes hh, a, Vol. III., p. 532.— G. t That is, ' foolish.'— G.
PRKCIOUS PROMISES. 119
stowing some good, and removing some evil from us. A declaring of a man's free engagement in this kind is a promise. It always comes from love in the party promising, and conveys goodness to the believing soul. Now what love can there be in God to us since the fall, which must not be grounded on a better foundation than ourselves ? If God love us, it must be in one that is first beloved. Hereupon comes the ground of the promises to be in Jesus Christ. All intercourse between God and us must be in him that is able to satisfy God for us. The almighty Creator will have our debts discharged before he enters into a covenant of peace with us.
Now this Christ hath perfectly done, and thereby reconciled lost sinners. Hereupon the promise immediatel}'' issues from God's love in Christ to believing souls. He must first receive all good for us, and we must have it at the second hand from him. The promises in Christ are as the spirits in the body. They run through all the ages of the church. Without him there is no mercy nor comfort to be had. God cannot look on this cursed nature of ours out of Christ ; and therefore whosoever apprehends any mercy from God, he must apprehend it in Christ, the promised seed. To make it clearer. Our nature since the fall is odious to God ; a sinful, cursed nature remains in the best of us ; and therefore that God may look peace- ably upon it, he must look upon it in him that hath it undefiled, and in him whom he loves, even his only Son, like unto himself, that hath taken our nature upon him.
Now, our nature in Christ must needs be lovely and acceptable ; and if ever God love us, it is for Christ alone, who was predestinated before all worlds to be a sacrifice for us, to be the head of his church, 1 Peter i. 10. He was ordained to do us good before we ourselves were ordained. Christ is the first beloved, and then we. God loves us in his beloved one. ' This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,' Mark i. 11. As if the Lord had said, I am pleased in him, and in all his ; in his whole mystical body. Christ is the Son of God by nature, we by adoption. Whatever good is in us is first and principally in him. God conveys all by the natural- Son to the adopted sons. Therefore, all the promises are made to us in Christ. He takes them from God for us. He himself is the first promise, and all are ' yea and amen in him.' They are not directed to us abstracted from him; but we are elected in Christ, sanctified in him, acquitted from sin through him. ' By his stripes we are healed,' Isa. liii. 5. If Christ had not satisfied the wrath of God by bearing our iniquities upon the cross, we had been liable every moment to condemnation. If he had not been free from our sins, we had for ever lain under the burden of them. ' You are yet in your sins,' saith St Paul, ' if Christ be not risen,' 1 Cor. XV. 17. We are freed from our debts, because Christ our surety is out of prison. He is in heaven, and therefore we are at liberty.
The promises are a deed of gift which we have from and by Christ, who is the fii-st object of all the respect that God hath to us. Why are the angels attendants on us ? Because they attend upon Jacob's ladder ; that is, upon Christ, that knits heaven and earth together. So that the angels, because they attend upon Christ first, become likewise our attendants. We have a promise of ' eternal life,' but this life is ' in his Son,' 1 John v. 11. God blesseth us with all spiritual blessings in him, Eph. i. 3, and makes us sons in him the natural Son. Whatsoever prerogative we enjoy, it is in Christ first, and so belongs to us ; but no further than we by faith are made one with him. How darest thou think of God, who is a ' consuming
* That is, ' Son of his nature,' not at all in the modern sense of ' natural.'— G.
120 YEA AND AMEN ; OR,
fire ? ' Heb. xii. 29, and not think of him as he is pleased and pacified with thy person in Christ, who took thj' nature upon him, to be a foundation of comfort, and a second Adam ; a public person, satisfying divine justice for all that are members of his body ?
We may think upon God with comfort, when we see him appeased in his Christ. As long as he loves Christ, he cannot but love us. Never think to have grace, or salvation, or anything without Christ. Doth God love me ? Doth he do good to my soul for my own sake, abstracted from his Son ? No, surely. Then should I fly from his presence. But he looks upon me in his beloved, and in him accepts of my person. Therefore our Saviour prayeth, ' I desire thee, blessed Father, that the love wherewith thou lovest me, may be in them, and I in them,' John xvii. 23.