THREE WAYS by which faith teaches the soul to draw out the virtue of the promises 3/4

 (2.) End.  The second end of the promise is the believer’s comfort.  The word, especially this part of it, was on purpose writ, that ‘through patience and comfort of the Scriptures they might have hope,’ Rom. 15:4.  God was willing to give poor sinners all the se­curity and satisfaction that might be, concerning the reality of his intentions, and immutability of that counsel which his mercy had resolved upon from eternity, for the saving of all those who would em­brace Christ, and the terms offered through him in the gospel; which, that he might do, he makes publi­cation in the Scripture, where he opens his very heart and exposeth the purposes of his love—that from everlasting he had taken up for the salvation of poor sinners—to their own view in the many precious promises, that run like veins throughout the whole body of the Scriptures, and these with all the seals and ratifications which either his wisdom could find, or man’s jealous unbelieving heart desire, and all this on a design to silence the querulous spirit of poor tempted souls, and make their life more comfortable, who, pursued by the hue and cry of their high climb­ing sins, take sanctuary for their lives in Christ Jesus. As we have it in totidem verbis—in so many words, ‘That by two immutable things, in which it was im­possible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us,’ Heb. 6:18.  And because that of the greatness and multitude of the creature's sins, is both the heaviest millstone which the devil can find to tie about the poor sinner’s neck, in order to the drowning him in despair, and that knife also which is the oftenest taken up by the tempted sinner’s own hands for the murdering his faith; therefore the more frequent and abundant provision is made by God against this.  Or read for this purpose these choice scriptures, Ex. 34:5; Jer. 3, the whole chapter; Isa. 1:18; 45:7-9, 12; Heb. 7:25; I John 1:9; these, and such like places, are the strongholds which faith re­treats into when this battery is raised against the soul.

Canst thou for shame be gravelled, saith faith, O my soul, with an argument drawn merely from the greatness of thy sins, which is answered in every page almost in the Bible, and to confute which so consider­able part of Scripture was written?  Thus faith hisseth Satan away with this his argument, that he counts so formidable, as they would do a wrangling sophister out of the schools, when he boldly and ridiculously denies some known principle, acknowledged by all for a truth that have not lost their wits.  But I would not be here mistaken.  God forbid, that while I am curing despair I should cause presumption in any.  These two distempers of the soul are equally mortal and dangerous, and so contrary, that, like the cold stom­ach and the hot liver in the same person, while the physician thinks to help nature in the one to a heat for digesting its food, he sometimes unhappily kindles a fire in the other that destroys nature itself.  Thus, while we labour to cheer the drooping soul’s spirits, and strengthen him to retain and digest the promise for his comfort, we are in danger of nourishing that feverish heat of presumptuous confidence, which is a fire will soon eat out all care to please, and fear to displease, God; and consequently all ground of true faith in the soul.  Faith and fear are like the natural heat and radical moisture in the body, which is never well but when both are preserved.  ‘The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.’  Let me therefore caution thee, Christian. As thou meanest to find any relief from the mercy of God in a day of distress, take heed thou dost not think to befriend thyself with hopes of any favour thou mayest find from it, though thou continuest thy friendship with thy lusts.  [It were] a design as infecable as to reconcile light and darkness, and bring day to dwell with night.  Thou needest not indeed fear to believe the pardon of thy sins—if thou re­pentest of them—merely because they are great; but tremble to think of sinning boldly, because the mercy of God is great.  Though mercy be willing to be a sanctuary to the trembling sinner, to shelter him from the curse of his sin; yet it disdains to spread her wing over a bold sinner, to cover him while he is naught with his lust.  What! sin because there are promises of pardon, and these promises made by mercy, which as far exceeds our sins as God doth the creature!  Truly this is the antipodes to the meaning that God’s mercy had in making them, and turns the gospel with its heels upwards.  [It is] as if your servant should get to your cellar of strong waters, and with them make him­self drunk, which you keep for them when sick or faint, and then only to be used.  O take heed of quaf­fing thus in the bowls of the sanctuary.  It is the sad soul, not the sinning, that this wine of consolation belongs to.