V. It makes promises and threatenings useless.--I apprehend promises are intended to encourage the fainthearted, and such as are ready to be discouraged in their way; and the Lord who has made them, no doubt, designs to fulfil the same. They are not mere baubles, but the firm and never-failing words of God. Yet they are conditional. I know no promise made to us, in the way of experience, but there is a condition either expressed or implied. The only promises which can in any measure be said to be unconditional, are such as respect Christ's coming into the world, the pouring out of the Spirit, or the preaching of the Gospel. But as for such as respect the forgiveness of sins, consolation, sanctification, or glorification, they are all conditional, and, as such, are intended to encourage all who are travelling to Mount Zion. So with regard to the threatenings; they are intended to warn the unruly, and put a check upon the disobedient; so that no sinner may rush upon his own damnation, without being duly apprised of the same. "And why is he apprised? Barely to torment him before the time?" No, verily; but, like the citizen's hearing the sound of the trumpet, that he may take the warning, and escape the danger. But if there is an irrevocable decree, if all things are so ordered and fixed from eternity, then are the threatenings mere scare-crows; they can answer no valuable end at all, and might as well be given to stocks and stones as to human beings, if they have no power to take the awful warning. And does not this make the word of God of none effect? Certainly; if promises have no power to allure and encourage, that is, if the human race are not to be moved by them, and if their power of obeying is wholly taken from them, it is in vain for God to call out, "How long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity? Turn ye at my reproof. Unto you, O men, I call! and my voice is unto the sons of men." It is in vain for him to say, "Come, let us reason together; though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as wool: And though they be red like crimson, they shall be as snow. Come, let us reason together!" "Reason! with what?" Brutes, nay stocks and stones! How absurd! Would a wise man make such a proposal? How does this inconsistent scheme reflect upon the infinitely wise and gracious God? Shall vain man throw such an odium upon his Maker? God forbid! But such an odium does this decree throw upon unerring wisdom; and all the quibbles in the world cannot clear it of the same. Again: let God speak like thunder, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God!" yet if the sinner is incapable of taking the warning, what empty bombast does it make of the awful threatening! But let God be true, and every man a liar who can cast such vile reflections upon his righteous proceedings.