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and ground of faith: therefore, when there is a promife meet for you, and fuited of God to your cafe, stretch out the withered hand to receive it at his call, never ftopping for fear that the power of God be not enabling you; for no fooner will you effay to ftretch out your hand, than the power of God will be before-hand with you, though, perhaps, in an unfenfible manner: whereas, if you wait for a fenfible feeling of his power, you are not believing, nor trufting in his word. If you would believe, it must be when you feel him not: for, believing is not feeling; and feeling is not believing.

OBJECT. But, if I believe his word without feeling his power, I fear, I fhall but prefume, and take the promife only in my own ftrength; or, like the ftony-ground hearers, receive the word with joy, by a temporary faith, which will fail.

ANSW. People may indeed fay they believe, and fancy they believe, and deceive themselves: but fancy is one thing, and faith is another; true, right, and folid belief, is what you need not fear can be done in your own ftrength! What! to take the word of a God for your fecurity; to quit the law-way of falvation, and flee to the gofpel promife; and to truft the faithfulness of a God pledged in his promife, for your falvation from fin and corruption, as well as from hell and damnation; to fet to your feal that God is true, and to receive his record with particular application to yourself: if you do this, never fear that you are doing it by your own ftrength for it is not natural, but fupernatural power that is dealing, when you are acting. If you get a heart to embrace the promife, you may be sure the promise is embracing you; for it is only virtue coming out of it, that enables you to embrace it: before your embracing of it, the virtue may be infenfible and invifible; but after the embracement, you may find fenfible virtue. When the woman touched the hem of Chrift's garment, fenfible virtue came out of him; but there was fome invifible and infenfible virtue came first from him to enable her to touch him; but fhe never

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wift of that precedent virtue, till once he touched him. A man may not know, till he believe, that it is the power of God that is dealing with him to make him believe, God's power deals and works fo wonderfully in this matter; "No man can tell whence it comes, and whither it goes," John iii. 8. What impreffions the ftamp of his power hath made, and how it makes the impreffion, cannot be feen till on the back of it, or af terwards, in order of nature at leaft; even as the impreffion that the feal makes upon the melted wax is not feen till the feal be lifted, and there the impreffion remains. You cannot fee yourfelf in a glafs, till you look to it; but look to it when you will, your image in the glafs is before-hand with you: fo, look to God in the promife; but lo, his looking to you therein prevents you. Your embracing the promife will flow from the promise embracing you; therefore when the promife is fet before you, and held out to you to be believed, take it in God's name, without any more ado; and then fay with yourself, now there is a word for me, and it is the word of the God of truth; therefore that word and I fhall never part; welcome, O bleffed word, death fhall not feparate you and me; I will hing by this hook, I will rely upon his word, till all be made good to me. And thus you will receive the ingrafted word, that is able to fave your foul.

III. The Third Head of the method was, To ftate the comparison, and run the parallel betwixt believers and Ifaac; and fo to fhew more particularly, how they are, as Ifaac, the children of promife. And here the parallel may be ftated in thefe following particulars.

1. As Ifaac was the child of Abraham, fo are believers children of Abraham; "Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith, the fame are the children of Abraham," Gal. iii. 17. See alfo ver. 29. "And if ye be Chrift's, then are ye Abraham's feed, and heirs according to the promife." As Ifaac was a child of Abraham, not by natural power, for both his body and Sarah's were dead; but by a gracious promife, Gen. xvii. 19.; even fo, believers are the children of Abraham, not by VOL. IV. natural

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natural descent, fuch as the Jews boafted of, when they faid, We have Abraham for our father;" but by virtue of the gracious promise made to Abraham, that, “ In his feed [i. e. in Chrift], all nations of the earth fhall be bleffed,” Gal. iii. 8. compared with Gen. xviii. 18. To "Abraham and his feed was the promise made: He says not, unto feeds, as of many; but as of one; and to thy feed, which is Chrift," Galat. iii. 16. Thus, as Ifaac was a child of the promife made to Abraham; fo believers are not only children of the promise made to Abraham, but also the children of the promise made to Chrift, the feed of Abraham; " In thy feed [that is, in Chrift, fhall they be bleffed. To Abraham and his feed were the promises made;" and as Abraham trusted God for the accomplishment of the promife of Ifaac, Rom. iv. 19, 20. 3.; even fo, Chrift trufted his Father for the accomplishment of the promise made to him concerning his elect children, Heb. ii. 13.; there he is brought in faying, "I will put my truft in him;" and then, "Behold I, and the children which God hath given me.”. Abraham's confidence was ftrong, but Christ's confidence in his Father was perfect; it was not poffible that the Mediator could diftruft his Father.

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2. As Ifaac was the fpecial feed of Abraham, of whom it was faid, “In Ifaac fhall thy feed be called," Heb. xi. 18. Gen. xxi. 12. Rom. ix. 7.: even fo, believers are God's peculiar people, a chofen generation; "To that believe, he is precious :-You are a chofen generation, a royal priefthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you fhould fhew forth the praifes of him who hath called us out of darkness to his marvellous light," 1 Pet. ii. 7,8. Abraham had another fon, namely, Ishmael; but the promife was not to Ifhmael; but to Ifaac: fo God hath other people that are his children, not only by creation, but by general adoption, and church-membership, and whose right to the promises is but general in point of accefs and warrant to believe, fealed in the facrament of baptifm; which yet is fuch as renders them inexcufable, when they do not improve that right of accefs they have: but believers are the

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children of God by a special adoption, having a special intereft in, and poffeffion of the promise.

3. Ifaac was the fruit of prayer, as well as the child of promife to Abraham. You may fee the prayer of Abraham concerning a feed, Gen. xv. 3. "Lord God, what wilt thou give me, feeing I go childlefs?" May we not allude to this here? The children of God are not only the children of the promise made to the Mediator, but also the children of prayer made by him; they are the fruit of Chrift's prayer, mediation, and interceffion, John xvii. 20. He prayed not only for all that are believers, but for all that fhould believe on him; and he prays them all to heaven, ver. 24. "Father, I will, that they also whom thou haft given me, may be with me, where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou haft given me; for thou loved me before the foundation of the world."

4. Ifaac was the child of a promife, whereof the accomplishment was long delayed; tho' yet the delay did carry no prejudice to the certainty of the promise, as to its accomplishment, which took place in the fulness of time appointed of God, Gen. xvii. 21. and chap. xxi. 2. Thus it is with believers, the children of the promife; there is a fet time of their birth, or their being brought forth out of the womb of the promife; and the Lord waits, as it were, for that time which he hath fet; "He waits to be gracious," Ifa. xxx. 18. And after they are actually the children of the promise, by converting grace, there is a fet time for accomplishing particular promifes to them, for which they are to wait; "The vifion is for an appointed time, but at the end it fhall speak, and not lye; tho' it tarry, wait for it, because it will furely come, it will not tarry," Hab. ii. 3. It was more than twenty years after God promifed Abraham a feed, that Ifaac was born. Perhaps there is a twenty year old promise, or a ten year old promife, or what you got fo many years ago, not yet like to be accomplished. But, believer, the time is drawing near: as a man that is far off, every ftep he takes in his return, he draws nearer and nearer home; fo the fulness of time is coming for the promise to bring forth, and the vifion to fpeak; it does not tarry

in the day, nor in the night, though it feems to tarry, but approaches every moment: the longer you live, believer, the nearer you come to the accomplishment of the promife; "Now is your falvation nearer than when you believed." The promise of Ifaac, however long delayed, was as certain as the promife of Chrift's coming; for Chrift was to come of him: even so, the children of promife fhall all as certainly be brought forth, and the promife as certainly be accomplished to them, as it is certain that Chrift the promised seed is come. Indeed, the accomplishment of that promife of his coming, is a certain pledge of the accomplishment of all the reft of the promifes; for, they are all chained to that great link: it was the leading promife, though about four thousand years before it was accomplifhed; yet," In the fulnefs of time, God fent his Son, made of a woman," and fo accomplished that promife on which all the reft depended. God will not forget to keep his day, were it never fo long betwixt the promife and the day that he hath fet, Exod. xii. 41. compared with Gen. xv. 13.

5. Ifaac was a child of the promife, born in a very unlikely, unexpected, and wonderful manner. Infuperable difficulties flood in the way; outward means did fail; and, by the courfe of nature, no fuch thing could be expected as the promifed Ifaac. Abraham was an hundred years old, and his body was dead and withered; Sarah was ninety years old, and her womb was dead and barren, Rom. iv. 19. Heb. xi. 11. Even fo it is with believers, the children of promife; when the promife comes to its full time of bringing forth its iffue, the birth of any of the children of promife is always furprifing, wonderful, and moft unlikely, to natural fenfe and carnal reafon, when mountains of fin and guilt, and infuperable difficulties are in the way. Thus we will find the gofpel coming in with the fweetest cordial, even when the law is raising the greatest difficulty; as in Ifa. xliii. 22,-25. "Thou haft not called upon me, O Jacob; thou haft been weary of me, O Ifrael;-thou haft made me to ferve with thy fins, and wearied me with thine iniquities." Who could expect

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