THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 2/7

           (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness.  Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive?  ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2, 3.  See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart.  As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds.  You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’  The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him.

           (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth.  As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself.  And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God.  In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure.  They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it.  But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game.  As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy.

3. Cause.  Impotency.  Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies.  The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about.  A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matt. 18:26.  But the great God cannot be put to such straits.  ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ I Sam. 15:29.  As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise.  Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’  ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give.  But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect.  ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isa. 26:4.  Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it.  One man's ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him.  If they him, he is forced to fail them.  Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands.  But God’s power is independent.  Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever.  ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’  And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion.  The Lord God is my strength,’ Hab. 3:17-19.  O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth.  The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants.  ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Ps. 31:19.  It is laid up, as a father hath his child's portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes.  The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise.  ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist.  It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise.