Promises, Preciousness of the – Charles Spurgeon

ALL hail, you fair promises! You meet me as the angels met Jacob at Mahanaim; but all hail, fair precepts! You meet me as Nathan met David, and rebuke me for my sins. You also are my friends, and I salute you and am glad to bear you company. Brethren, we cannot do without a promise, precept, exhortation, and rebuke; the compound of the Scripture, like the powders of the merchants for sweetness and excellence, must not be injured by being robbed of one single ingredient. Love the precept, I pray you; be of the mind of David, who wrote the whole of the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm, not so much in praise of the promises as in praise of the statutes and the laws of God, as he found them given in that part of the Old Testament which it was his privilege to read. Sometimes a precept is the necessary counteracting principle to guard us from the perversion of a promise. Promises alone are like sweetmeats given to children which when too profusely eaten bring on sickness, but the precept comes in as a healthy tonic, so that you may feed upon the promise without injury.