4. He would falsify all his own great and precious promises —
[How express is that promise which he has made to all his sheep, that " none shall ever pluck them out of his handsM" Will he be unmindful of this? or is he become so weak that he is not able to fulfil it ? He said to his Disciples, " Ye have not chosen me ; but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain1" but how can this be true, if he suffer them to be- come barren, and to be cut down at last as cumberers of the ground ? Why did he say, " Believe in God : believe also in me," if he meant, after all, to disappoint our confidence? Can we conceive, that, after comforting his Disciples with the assurance, that he was " going to prepare mansions in his Father's house for them, and would come again and receive them to himself111;" can we conceive, I say, that he should leave them to take up their abode in the regions of everlasting- darkness and despair? No: he is " the Amen, the true and faithful Witness ;" and " every promise that is made to us in him, is yea and Amen," as immutable as God himself".]
Address —
1. Those who are inquiring after the way of sal- vation—
[Nothing can be more plain than the way of salvation, as it is marked out in our text. How must we " be reconciled to God ? Through the death of his Son." How must we be justified and saved from wrath? We must " be justified by 'his blood," and " saved from wrath through him." How, after having been reconciled to God by the death of Christ,
f Ps. lxviii. 18. « Deut. x. 8. h Rom. viii. 34.
• Rom. xvi. 20. k John x. 27 — 30. ' John xv. 10.
«•■ John xiv. 2, 3. n 2 Cor. i. 20.