that I have done in it, saith the Lord God;" Dan. xii. 10, "Many shall be
purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and
none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand." After
the promise of delivering those that were carried away to Babylon, there
is another promise added of that which was much better: Jer. xxiv. 7, "I
will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be
my people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto me with
their whole heart;" Psal. cxxx. 8, "He shall redeem Israel from all his
iniquities;" Zeph. iii. 12, 13, "I will also leave in the midst of thee an
afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall
a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth." Let your souls now apply
these and the like promises, and cry, Lord, remember thy promise, and let
not a jot of thy good word fall to the ground. Secondly, As the promises
of spiritual and eternal blessings, so the promises of peace and temporal
deliverances are not legal, but even evangelical. If we be not refined and
purged as we ought to be, that is a matter of humiliation to us, but it is
also a matter of magnifying the riches of free mercy: Isa. xlviii. 9-11,
"For my name's sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I
refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off. Behold, I have refined thee,
but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For
mine own name's sake, even for mine own sake, will I do it." The Lord is
there arguing with his people, to humble them, to convince them, and to
cut off all matter of glorying from them; and among other things, lest
they should glory in this, that whatever they were before, they became
afterward as silver refined seven times in the furnace:(1417) Nay, saith
the Lord, I have refined you in some sort, but not as silver, not so as
that you are clean from your dross; but I have chosen you, and set my love
upon you, even while you are in the furnace not yet refined; and I will
deliver you, even for my own name's sake, that you may owe your
deliverance for ever to free mercy, and not to your own repentance and
amendment. A land is accepted, and a people's peace made with God, not by
their repentance and humiliation, but by Christ believed on: Mic. v. 5,
"This man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into ou