them, when it first discovers and afterwards lives upon their preciousness. The word of promise is the established means in the hand of the Spirit of begetting faith and of strengthening it: for a sinner can expect no good from God, unless he vouchsafe to give him a free promise. The scripture is a revelation of God's will, in which he engages, for Christ's sake, to bestow graces and blessings upon his children; but the unawakened sinner sees no want of those graces and blessings, until the Holy Spirit convince him of sin, stir up guilt in his conscience, and make him sensible of his danger. Then he is glad to hear of a promise, and is asking, who will show me any good? The Lord God sends him the gospel, with a free offer of all good, and out of his infinite grace offers him the unsearchable riches of Christ. The Holy Spirit enables him to accept the offer, and to rely and to act faith upon the word of promise. Faith looks at the word, sees what God has promised therein, rests and stays upon him for the fulfilling of it, and by this dependence and reliance upon the word of promise, the believer calls upon and engages the divine power to fulfil it. And the fulfilling of it gives it a peculiar sweetness and preciousness to the believer's soul. Every fresh proof of God's faithfulness to fulfil it strengthens the believer's reliance and dependence upon it, and thereby it grows more precious to all the faculties of his soul. The understanding sees and acknowledges the promises to be important realities, the will chooses them for its inheritance, and the affections love them and live upon them. Thus they become more and more precious. Tried promises are precious promises. Every time the believer goes boldly to the throne of grace, and asks through Christ the fulfilling of any promise, and receives it, then his faith grows, and as his faith grows exceedingly, so the promises grow exceedingly precious.

But all our experience here is only an earnest and foretaste of their future preciousness. The chief part of them is to be fulfilled beyond the grave, and many

of them at the last day, and even then there will be no adequate description of their preciousness. The saints in glory will be able only to set forth half their praise, the promises being still completing through the endless ages of eternity, so that it will require an eternity to show forth all their praise. May it be your happiness, my brethren, now to experience by faith the greatness and preciousness of the promises, and to have reason daily to praise him, in whom they are made, and by whom they will be all made good for ever and ever! Such are the promises. They are exceeding great and precious. They are certainly so in themselves, but do they, my brethren, appear so to you at present? If they do not, consider a lit tle what your state is before you are interested in the promises. You are transgressors of that law which has decreed, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Under this sentence you live, subject to whatever is meant by the soul's dying from God. You are liable to the wrath and justice of the Almighty, and to those eternal torments which he has threatened to inflict upon sinners; and, was it not for his long suffering, which of you would have been spared to this hour? And while the long-suffering of God is waiting, he sends his ministers with the glad tidings of the gospel to offer you a free pardon. They invite you in Christ's name and in Christ's words. They assure you of his readiness to receive you into his favour, and to forgive and to forget all your offences. For your encouragement they relate unto you his promises, which cannot be broken. They earnestly press you to accept of them, and to be happy in the enjoyment of them. But in vain. Their message is ineffectual. You had rather have the realities of sin than the earnests of the promises, And what is this but absolute infidelity? For if you knew what sin is, and believed the divine promises to be so great and precious as they are, you would certainly prefer them to the delights of sin. Whereas you neither believe the word, nor the oath, nor the covenant of God; which

is really practical atheism: for you are without Christ, you are strangers from the covenant of promise, you have no hope, and you are withont God, abro, atheists in the world. You may not perhaps deny the being of God, but you live without Christ, and without God in the world, and therefore you are practical atheists. While you are in this state you cannot possibly have any true happiness, not in time, because your sins are unpardoned, not in eternity, because then you will receive the punishment of unpardoned sin. And is this a true description of your guilt and of your danger? You know it is. The word of God will not suffer you to doubt of it, unless you deny its authority. And how then do you de- · termine to act? What! will you still seek your happiness in the ways of sin? God forbid! Turn ye, turn ye unto the Lord; certainly he bids higher for your hearts than Satan can. His promises are greater than sin or the world can make. You know they are. And still his promises follow you, although you have often turned a deaf ear to them. Once more I

call and invite you in his name. O that he would speak to your hearts, and call effectually! My brethren, ye are sinners, God offers you pardon. You are guilty, he offers you free justification. He promises you his Son to be your Saviour, his Spirit to be your sanctifier, his grace to be your strength, his glory to be your eternal inheritance. He opens his treasury, and invites you to come, and to receive freely of unsearchable and inestimable riches. Come then at the invitation of this gracious God, and hearken no longer to the lying promises of sin. If the Lord has now put it into your hearts to seek the fulfilling of the great things which he has engaged to give his people, may he enable you to seek until you find him faithful and just to fulfil all his promises !

2. There are many of you seeking and waiting for the fulfilling of them. You are convinced of the sinfulness of your hearts and lives, and are humbled under a sense of your vileness and helplessness, and you

find the necessity of being saved from your sins, but you cannot rely with such confidence upon the word of God, as to believe that you shall be heirs of promise. But why not? To whom are the promises made? Are they not made to sinners? And are they not discoveries of God's gracious intentions towards them in the Son of love? And since you are sinners, convinced of sin, and waiting for mercy, surely the promises are made to you, and by relying on them they are yours.

But you are afraid to rely upon them. What! are you afraid God will break his promise? Consider what has been before said of the security which God has vouchsafed to give you, in order to silence your doubts and fears, and to put an end to all strife in your consciences. He has given you his word, and his oath, and his covenant. These are immutable things; and why then should you fear to rely upon those things which cannot possibly change or fail?

Perhaps you believe that the promises are immutable, and yet you are afraid to rely upon them, because of the greatness of your sins. The greatness of your sins should humble you, but not drive you to despair; for are there not great promises for great sinners? Is it not written, "come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool ?"

But still you are afraid to rely upon the promises, because you have got such a wicked heart. You think there is not any person in the world, whose heart is so wholly set in them to do evil as yours is. Be it desperately wicked, yet can you desire God to create in you a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within you? If you can, then hear what he has promised: "a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."

Why then do you stagger at the promises of God through unbelief? Are you complaining of your corruptions, and are they so many and strong that they

tempt you to think there is no mercy for you? Bring them to the blood of sprinkling, and when you are cleansed from the guilt of sin, the Lord has promised that his grace shall be sufficient for you, and that sin shall not have dominion over you. Your corruptions, be they ever so many, or ever so strong, shall be subdued by his almighty grace.

What then still hinders you from relying on God's promises? Can they ever fail ? No. On God's part all is fixed and immutable; and whatever it be on your part which makes you stagger at the promises, has itself a promise, that you shall be delivered from it, which renders your unbelief more inexcusable. Whatever sin it be, or guilt, or corruption, or misery, the Lord has promised you salvation from it. He will redeem you from all evil, from all the evil of sin, and from all the evil of punishment. He has given his word, and his word cannot be broken. And why then cannot you rely upon it, especially since God has promised to deliver you from that very thing, which hinders your reliance upon his word? Is this indeed the case ? And are you convinced of it? Why then do you make God a liar, by not believing the record which he hath given of his Son? O beg of him to enable you to give glory to his word of promise, by relying upon it, and by setting to your seal that God is true, and then God will set to his seal, and the Spirit of promise will seal you to the day of redemption !

3. Blessed be his rich grace and love, who is daily fulfilling his promises. Many of you have had hap py experience of his faithfulness to fulfil them. You ought always to remember, my Christian friends and brethren, that whatever you enjoy of grace, or hope for in glory, is freely promised and freely given you in Jesus Christ; and let your gratitude bear some proportion to his mercies. He has opened the treasury of his promises, and has put you in possession of his unsearchable riches. O what manner of love is this, that he should raise you from the lowest beggary