Isa. 25:1. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

Isa. 46: 11. I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass: I have purposed it, I will also do it.

The unbelief of man shall not frustrate the purpose of God.

Rom. 2:3, 4. For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith [promise] of God without effect? God forbid : yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.

2 Tim. 2: 13. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself!

Rom. 4:20-22. He [Abraham] staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded, that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for right

eousness.

The Law cannot disannul the Promise of God.

Gal. 3:17, 18. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it

should make the promise of none effect; for if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to Abraham by promise. (This covenant takes in not the Jewish people only, but all nations; for it is written, In thy seed [the Messiah] shall all nations of the earth be blessed. This UNIVERSAL blessedness can never be confined to the Jewish people exclusively; and as the covenant was legally made and confirmed, it cannot be annulled; it must therefore remain in reference to its object. (Clarke.)

Nothing shall be able to separate us from God's Love.

Rom. 8:38, 39. "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, [nor any other thing whatever,] shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

May the reader, with all the children of God, be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which surpasseth knowledge, that they may be filled with all the fulness of

Him that filleth all in all. (Amen. So be it! So let it be! and so it will be: for all the counsels of God are faithfulness and truth; and not one jot or tittle of his promise has failed, from the foundation of the world to the present day; nor can fail, till mortality is swallowed up of life. Amen and amen. Dr. Clarke, on Eph. 3: 18—21,).

CHAPTER VI.

THE VIEWS OF MR. WESLEY UPON THE COMMANDS OF GOD.

IN a volume of occasional sermons by the Rev. John Wesley, a celebrated English Methodist divine, we find the following remarks in a discourse upon the perfection of mankind. "There is," says he, a very clear and full promise, that we shall all love the Lord our God with all our hearts. So we read, Deut. 30:6: Then will I circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.' Equally express is the word of the Lord, which is no less a promise, though in the form of a command: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.' No words can be more strong than these, no promise can be more express. In like manner, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' is as express a promise as a command. And, indeed, that general and unlimited promise which runs through the whole

gospel dispensation, 'I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts,' turns all the commands into promises, and consequently that among the rest. Let this mind

be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.' The command here is equivalent to a promise, and gives us full reason to expect, that he will work in us what he requires of us."

Mr. Wesley further says, in the same connection, "That when the apostle says to the Ephesians, 'Ye have been taught, as the truth is in Jesus, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on the new man, which is created after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness:' he leaves us no room to doubt but God will thus renew us in the spirit of our mind, and create us anew in the image of God, wherein we were first created. Otherwise it could not be said, That this is the truth as it is in Jesus. The command of God given by St. Peter, 'Be ye holy as he that hath called you is holy, in all manner of conversation,' implies a promise that we shall be thus holy. As God has called us to holiness, he is undoubtedly willing, as well as able, to work this holiness in us. For he cannot mock his helpless creatures, calling upon them to receive what he never intends to give."