1. The engagements of God's covenant — [God has entered into covenant with his Church and people, and undertaken to preserve them from apostasy. Nor is this covenant liable to be broken, like that which he made with the Israelites in the wilderness1 : it is and will be " ever- lasting," because God himself engages to do all which is re- quisite for our support. " He will not depart from us to do us good ;" he may, like a wise parent, sometimes frown, and sometimes chastise ; but, while he acts in this manner, he does it for our good, no less than when he lifts up the light of his countenance upon us. He has said that, "if we break his statutes, and keep not his commandments, he will visit our transgression with the rod, and our iniquity with stripes ; nevertheless his loving-kindness will he not utterly take from us, nor suffer his faithfulness to fail; his covenant will he not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of his lipsV " He engages further that we shall not depart from him." Here, doubtless, is the greater danger, seeing we have a heart " bent to backslide from him ;" and, if left by him for one moment, we should relapse into all our former sins. But he knows how to establish the wavering, or restore the fallen ; and thus to " perfect his own strength in our weakness." He may leave us for a season, as he did Hezekiah, that we may know what is in our hearts: but he assures us, that our " steps shall be ordered by him," and that our " light shall shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day :" he will so " draw us, that we shall run after him ;" and so " keep us from falling, that an entrance may be ministered unto us abundantly into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."]
2. The exertions of his power —
[God speaks of himself in language accommodated to our low apprehensions of his nature, and declares that he will exert all his power, and find all his delight, in doing us good. His people, after their dismission from Babylon, laboured under many difficulties in rebuilding their city and temple; yet, through the good providence of God, they surmounted all. Thus shall we meet with many obstructions before we arrive at the Paradise above : but God will regard us as trees of righteousness, and " will plant us in that land assuredly with his whole heart and with his whole soul." Who then shall defeat his efforts, or disappoint his aim ? " If God be for us, who can be against us ? " In vain shall earth and hell be confederate against us; for " hath he said, and will he not do it? hath he spoken, and will he not make it good? " He will
•"• Jer. xxxi. 31, 32. * Ps. lxxxix. 31—34.