or estimate their amount? It is not common, indeed, that greatness and worth should be equally united in the same object. What is magnificent as to the extent of its power, is not often in a like degree valuable for its excellence. But in the promises of God greatness and worth are found in the same profusion, and serve to augment the glory and effulgence of the whole.

They are EXCEEDING GREAT, if you regard the author of them, God; who bestows them in a manner worthy of himself, confirming them by his oath, and fulfilling them by the greatness of his power and faithfulness. They are great, if you consider the subjects of them, deliverance from all evil, the bestowing of all good, every thing that man, a needy, guilty, weak, sinful creature, burdened with a corrupt nature, and beset by powerful and crafty spiritual foes, can want, in a world of temptation and misery. They are great, if you view the multitude which no man can number of every nation and kindred and people and tongue, to all whose several necessities, in all ages of the church, and under every variety of circumstances, they are exactly adapted. They are great, if you look forward to the final end which they are to accomplish, the eternal salvation of the faithful in the vision of God. In short, they cannot but be exceeding great-the very greatest possible -when you consider that they come from God and lead to him, that they satisfy and fill the utmost desires and even conceptions of the Christian's mind in his most matured state of knowledge and feeling; that they contain all that man can receive, and all that God, in the munificence of his bounty, sees it necessary to bestow.

Nor is their VALUE less than their greatness. The impenitent indeed can know nothing of the real worth of the promises of God, because they were never in a state of mind to perceive their need of

them or to experience the relief they afford. General notions of God's mercy bring little blessedness into the heart. But a holy apprehension of our personal concern in the precious promises of God, is as life from the dead. It is as a fragrance which restores the fainting traveller. It is as a reprieve to a condemned criminal. It derives an inestimable value, not only from the benefits which it conveys, but also from the urgency of the danger from which it delivers us. What must be the value of the promise of pardon and eternal life to a soul trembling with a sense of its guilt and agitated with despair! What the importance of consolation, in the very tide and torrent of affliction! What the assurance of strength and victory, under the very pressure of the conflict! The promises are to the true Christian treasures of light and truth, seals of salvation, securities of future bliss, conveyances of the inheritance of heaven. They are fraught with peace, and hope, and joy; they assure us of our interest in the love of our dying and risen Saviour, and of our participation in all the rich communications of the Holy Spirit; they serve to fill the empty and raise the drooping heart, to excite the sinking faith, and quicken the exhausted patience. Let him speak their preciousness who has felt it, who has lain a penitent at the foot of Calvary, who has wrestled in tears against a rebellious nature, who has anticipated the horrors of that gulf, to which his sins would have sunk him, and the bright radiance of that bliss to which the promises exalt his hope.

And if the promises as they were revealed in the Old Testament were thus exceeding great and precious, what must they be now that they have received all the explications and additions of the New -all those which our Lord himself uttered with his gracious lips-all those which abound in the various. parts of the inspired books with which the canon of

Scripture closes. Here we have the promises unfolded and enlarged, placed in the brightest light, and communicated with the most attractive benignity. What was dark before is now clear, what was preparatory is now perfect, what was earthly is now spiritual, what was temporary is now eternal. The blessings of the promises are now exhibited in all their profusion and all their glory, since Christ has actually appeared: whilst the manner in which they are conveyed is no longer figurative and obscure, but direct and intelligible, open to every understanding and unveiled to every heart.

Such then are the promises which are GIVEN TO US through the knowledge of Him who has called us to glory and virtue. The freeness with which they are bestowed, enhances inconceivably their worth. Our guilt as sinners would for ever have excluded us from the blessings they unfold, if they were to be purchased by our own merit; our alienation from God, would have equally prevented our employing any efforts to obtain them, if they were to be sought for, in the first instance, by our own spontaneous exertions. But they are given. When God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son to die for sinners, with him he freely gave us all things. All the promises of God in Christ are yea and in him amen to the glory of God by us. They are thus set before all mankind in the Gospel, and every penitent sinner is invited to come and partake of the blessings comprised in them. Nay, they are actually bestowed on every true penitent. When by divine grace he inclines his ear, and comes to Christ, the everlasting covenant, to use the language of the Prophet, is made with him, even the sure mercies of David. This covenant, as we have already seen, comprehends all the various promises of God, which are graciously fulfilled according as his circumstances and true interests require, and in

the time and manner which seem best to the wisdom of God. In short, it comprehends all the blessings connected with that eternal life, which is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The greater part of the separate promises are indeed conditional, as we shall have to notice under the next head of this discourse, and can only be appropriated as we fulfil the terms on which they are suspended; yet as these conditions are not meritorious, but are in fact the subject of other promises, and are performed by the grace of the Holy Spirit; and as the blessings conveyed by all of them, even pardon, holiness, consolation, and eternal life, are at least gratuitously bestowed, we must ascribe the praise of the whole, not in any respect to ourselves, but entirely and unreservedly to the free and unmerited mercy of God.

But it is time for us to consider,

II. THE DESIGN FOR WHICH THESE PROMISES ARE -GIVEN, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

The two designs of the promises, then, are a deliverance from the corruptions of the world, and a participation of the purity of God. When the gracious promises of Scripture are rightly believed and appreciated, they prove the means of rescuing us from a sinful and worldly life; and they direct and enable us to aspire after a conformity to the divine nature. These two effects are inseparable: we must be detached from the world, if we would be followers of God. The full accomplishment of the promises is to be experienced in the entire renewal of the soul, and its resemblance of God in his holiness. This is what the text states simply and explicitlythat by these you might be partakers of the divine

nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

What this CORRUPTION is, need scarcely be described. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. Men by their concupiscence and ungoverned passions corrupt each other. We have only to look into our cities and towns and villages, even in this Christian country, to be appalled at the rebellion against God, and consequent misery, which unbridled desires of various kinds occasion. From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, pride, blasphemy, foolishness; all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

The DIVINE NATURE stands opposed to all this corruption. We are partakers of it, not as to its essence, but as to its moral qualities so far as they are communicable. There are many perfections of the blessed God to which the divine nature in us bears no resemblance-as his omniscience, omnipotence, supremacy, and independent and necessary existence. There are many parts also of the renewed disposition in us which have no counterpart in God, and which would be imperfections in him-as submission, humility, fear, and faith. But so far as the moral attributes of God are opposed to the corruption of the world, we are made partakers of them. We are to be holy as God is holy. We are to be renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created us. We are to put on the new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. We are to purify ourselves even as God is pure. We are to be followers of God, as dear children. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love,