God Judges iii. 20. We should never read the word but with reverence, con- Use 3. Take occasion from hence likewise to shame ourselves for our infidelity* in the promises. When we are in any disconsolate estate, we are in Job's case. Being in trouble, the consolation of the Almighty seemed light to him, Job. xv. 11. These be the comforts of God. When we come to comfort some, though the sweet promises of the gospel be opened, yet they do not consider them as being the word, the consolations of the Almighty, and therefore they seem light to them. But it should not be so. Consider they be the comforts of the word, and therefore we should hear them with faith, labour to affect them, and shame ourselves. Is this God's word that giveth this direction, that giveth this comfort, and shall I not regard it? Is it the consolation of the Almighty, and shall not I embrace it? Therefore we should be ashamed, not to be more affected with the heavenly sweet things promised of God than we are. A man that refuseth heavenly comforts to embrace comforts below, how should he reflect upon himself with shame? Hath God promised such things, God that cannot lie ? and shall I lose my hope of all these glorious things, for the enjoying of the pleasures of sin for a season? I profess myself to be a Christian, where is my faith? where is my hope? A man must acknowledge either I have no faith; for if I had faith believing God speaking these excellent things, I would not venture my loss of them to get the enjoyment of poor temporary things here, for the good things promised in another world. Labour, therefore, to bring men's hearts to believe the word, and desire God to seal it to our souls that it is so. Means. I will give one direction. Labour for the Spirit of God, that writ the word, that indited the word. Beg of God to seal to our souls that it is the word, and that he would sanctify our hearts to be suitable to the * That is, disbelief,' or 'unbelief.'-G. That is, to love' them.-G. word, and never rest till we can find God by his Spirit seasoning our hearts, so that the relish of our souls may suit to the relish of divine truths, that when we hear them we may relish the truth in them, and may so feel the work of God's Spirit, that we may be able to say, he is our God. And when we hear of any threatening, we may tremble at it, and any sin discovered, we may hate it. For unless we, by the Spirit of God, have something wrought in us suitable to the word, we shall never believe the word to be the word. And therefore pray the Lord, by his Spirit to frame our hearts to be suitable to divine truths, and so frame them in our affections, that we may find the word in our joy, in our love, in our patience, that all may be seasoned with the word of God. When there is a relish in the word, and in the soul suitable to it, then a man is a Christian indeed to purpose. Till then men will apostatize, turn papist, turn atheist, or any thing, because there is a distance between the soul and the word. The word is not engrafted into the soul. They do not know the word to be the word by arguments fetched from the word, and therefore they fall from the power of the word. But if we will not fall from divine truths, get truth written in the heart, and our hearts so seasoned by it, and made so harmonious and suitable to it, that we may embrace it to death, that we may live and die in it. To go on : In that day shall it be said, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him.' Here is a gracious promise, that shutteth up all spoken before. He spake of great things before. And now here is a promise of a day, wherein he will make all things promised, good to the soul of every believing Christian. In that day it shall be said, This is our God; we have waited for him; he will save us.' It is an excellent portion of Scripture to shew the gracious disposition that the Spirit of God will work in all those that embrace the gracious promises of God. The time shall come when they shall say, 'Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and now we enjoy him.' The points considerable are these: 1. First of all by supposition that there be glorious excellent things promised to the people of God; rich and precious promises of feasting, of taking away the veil, of conquest over death by victory, of wiping away tears and removing rebukes. Great things, if we go no farther than my text. 2. Secondly, these have a day when they shall be performed, which is not presently; for the end of a promise is to support the soul till the performance. God doth not only reserve great things for us in another world, but to comfort us in the way, doth reach out to us promises to comfort us till we come thither. There is a time when he will perform them, and not only a time, but there are likewise promises of performance. At that time the promises of these great things shall be performed. 3. The next thing is, that God will stir up in his children a disposition suitable. That is, the grace of waiting. As great things were promised before, so the soul hath a grace fit for it. We have waited for thee.' 4. And as they wait for them, while they are in performing, so they shall enjoy them. 'We have waited for thee, and we will be glad in thy salvation.' We shall so enjoy them, that we shall joy in them. Good things, when they be enjoyed, they be joyed in. 5. Again, 'we shall rejoice in our salvation, we shall glory in our God.' I i VOL. II. After they be a while exercised in waiting, then cometh performance, then they be enjoyed, and they be enjoyed with joy, in glorying in God. For that is the issue of a Christian, when he hath what he would enjoy, when he enjoyeth it with joy, when the fruit of it is that God hath his glory, and therefore the heart can rejoice in his salvation. Then there is a day, as for the exercising of his people here by waiting, so there is a day of performing promises. In that day.' That is, a day of all days. When that day cometh, then all prophecies and promises shall be accomplished to the uttermost. But before that great day, there is an intermediate performance of promises assisted by waiting, to drop comfort to us by degrees. He reserveth not all to that day. There be lesser days before that great day. As at the first coming of Christ, so at the overthrow of antichrist, the conversion of the Jews, there will be much joy. But that is not that day. These days make way for that day. Whensoever prophecies shall end in performances, then shall be a day of joying and glorying in the God of our salvation for ever. And therefore in the Revelations where this Scripture is cited, Rev. xxi. 4, is meant the conversion of the Jews, and the glorious estate they shall enjoy before the end of the world. 'We have waited for our God,' and now we enjoy him. Aye, but what saith the church there? Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.' There is yet another, 'Come, Lord,' till we be in heaven. So that though intermediate promises be performed here, yet there is another great day of the Lord to be performed, which is specially meant here. 6. The last thing considerable in the words is the manner of expression. They are expressed full of life, and with repetition, to make them sure and more certain,' In that day it shall be said, This is our God; we have waited for him; he shall save us.' He bringeth them in speaking these words of affection. Indeed, when we come to enjoy the performance of God's gracious promises, if we should live to see the fulness of the Gentiles come, and Jews called, we should speak of it again and again. Affections are large, and few expressions will not serve for large affections. It will be no tautology to say, 'This is our God; we have waited for him.' Beloved, times are yet to come which may much affect the hearts of the children of God. Howsoever we may not live to see the performance of these things, yet we shall all live to see that day of judgment, and then we shall say, This is our God; we have waited for him.' We now see God in the promises, and then we shall see him 'face to face,' whom we have waited for in the promises, and we shall see him in heaven for ever. While we live here we 'Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him.' are in state of waiting, we are under promises, and a condition under promises is a waiting condition; a condition of performance is an enjoying condition. We are in a waiting condition till our bodies be raised out of the grave; for when we die we wait for the resurrection of our bodies. We may say as Jacob when he was dying, 'I have waited for thy salvation.' We are in a waiting condition till body and soul be joined together at the day of judgment for ever. And there we should labour to have those graces that are suitable for this condition. The things we wait for are of so transcending excellency, as glory to come, that they cannot be waited for, but* the Spirit, by the things waited for, fitteth us to wait for them. A man cannot wait for glory of soul * That is, 'unless.'-ED. and body, but the Spirit that raiseth up faith to believe, and hope to wait, will purge, and fit, and prepare him for that glorious condition. 'He that hath this hope purifieth himself, as he is pure,' 1 John iii. 3. Oh, it is a quickening waiting, and a purging waiting. It is efficacious by the Spirit to fit and purify his soul suitable to that glorious condition he waits for. Where that is not, it is but a conceit. A very slender apprehension of the glory to come will make men better. He that hath hope of heaven and happiness under glory, it will make him suitable to the place he looketh for. THE EIGHTH SERMON. He shall swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebukes of his people shall he take away from off all the earth for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.—Isa. XXV. 8, 9. To come closer to the particulars. 'It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God.' The mouth of the Lord hath spoken gracious things before, hath promised a feast, and an excellent feast. God's manner is first of all to give promises to his church. Why? His goodness cometh from his goodness, his goodness of grace cometh from his goodness of nature. • He is good and doth good.' Now the same goodness of disposition which we call bounty, that reserveth heaven and happiness for us in another world, the same goodness will not suffer us to be without all comfort in this world, because the knowledge and revelation of the glory to come hath much comfort in it. Therefore in mercy he not only intendeth performance of glory, but out of the same fountain of goodness he intendeth to reveal whatsoever is good for his church in the way to glory. So that promises of good come from the same goodness of God by which he intendeth heaven. For what moved God to come out of that hidden light, that no man can come into, and discover himself in his Son? The word in his promises to reveal his mind to mankind, and make known what he will have us to do, and what he will do to us. But only his goodness is the cause of all. And therefore the end of promises in God's intention is to comfort us in the way to heaven, that we may have something to support us. They are promissa, quasi præmissa. They are promises and premises, and sent before the thing itself. Now here it cometh that the glory to come is termed the joy of heaven and the glorious estate to come. 'You have need of patience, that you may get the promises.' Heaven and happiness is called the promises, because we have them assured in promises. The blessings of the New Testament are called promises; as the children of the promise, yea, the heirs of glory; because all is conveyed by a promise, therefore all happiness is conveyed by a promise. Now the promises are of good things. They are for the spring of them, free, from God's free goodness; for the measure of them, full; for the truth of them, constant, even as God himself that promiseth. And therefore we may well build upon them. Use. Before I go any farther, I beseech you let us account the promises of the good we have to be our best treasure, our best portion, our best riches, for they be called precious promises, 2 Pet. i. 4; not only because they be precious in themselves, but because they are from the precious love of God in Christ to us. They are likewise for precious things. They are laid hold of by precious faith, as the Scripture calleth them, and therefore they are precious promises. Let us not only account of our riches that we have; for what is that we have, to what we speak of, to that we have in promise? A Christian is rich in reversion, rich in bills and obligations. Christ hath bound himself to him, and he can sue him out when he pleaseth. In all kinds of necessity, he can sue God for good. He can go to God and say, Remember thy promise, Lord, wherein thou hast caused me thy servant to trust,' Ps. cxix. 49; and can bind God with his own word. But I take this only in passage as the foundation of what I am to speak. From the mouth of God you see the great promises delivered; and now we have waited for them. That which answereth promises is expectation. and waiting. The second thing, therefore, between the promises, wherein God is a debtor, and the performance, is, that there is a long time, a long day. Oftentimes God takes a long day for performing of his promise, as four hundred years Abraham's posterity went to be in Egypt. And it was four thousand years from the beginning of the world till the coming of Christ, which was the promise of promises, the promise of the seed, a great long day. And therefore Christ is said to come in the latter end of the world.' Abraham had promise of a son, but it was not performed till he was an old man. Simeon had a promise to see Christ in the flesh, but he was an old man, ready to yield up the ghost, before it was performed. God taketh a long day for his promises; long to us, not to him,' for to him a thousand years are but as one day,' Reason 1. The promises of God are long in performing; for to exercise our faith and our dependence to the full ; Reason 2. To take us off from the creature; and Reason 3. To endear the things promised to us, to set the greater price upon them when we have them. Many other reasons may be given, if I intended to enlarge myself in that point. A Christian hath a title to heaven. As soon as he is a Christian, he is an heir to heaven. Perhaps he may live here twenty or forty years more before God takes him up to glory. Why doth he defer it so long? Reason 4. The reason is, God will fit us for heaven by little and little, and will perfume us as Esther was perfumed before she must come to Ahasuerus, Esth. ii. 12. There were many weeks and months of perfuming. So God will sweeten and fit us for heaven and happiness. It is a holy place; God a holy God. Christ is that holy one; and for us to have everlasting communion with God and Christ in so holy a place, requireth a great preparation. And God, by deferring it so long, will mortify our affections by little and little, and will have us die to all base things here in affection before we die indeed. David had title to the kingdom as soon as ever he was anointed; but David was fitted to be an excellent king, indeed, by deferring the performance of the promise till afterward. So in our right and title and possession of heaven, there is a long time between. Our Saviour Christ was thirty-four years before he was taken up to heaven, because he was to work our salvation. And he was willing to suspend his glory for such a time, that he might do it; to suspend his glory due to him from the first moment of his conception. For by virtue of the |