I. God As Coming Under Obligations To Us.

A marvelous and blessed idea. He limits His action, regards Himself as bound to a certain line of conduct.

 1. Obligations From His Act Of Creation.

A faithful Creator,' bound to take care of those whom He has made. To supply their necessities. To satisfy their desires. To give to each the possibility of discharging its ideal.

 2. Obligations From His Past Self.

God is faithful by whom ye were called,' therefore He will do all that is imposed on Him by His act of calling.

He cannot begin without completing. There are no abandoned mines. There are no half-hewn stones in His quarries, like the block at Baalbec. And this because the divine nature is inexhaustible in power and unchangeable in purpose.

 3. Obligations From His Own Word.

A revelation is presupposed by the notion of faithfulness. It is not possible in heathenism. Dumb idols,' which have given their worshippers no promises, cannot be thought of as faithful. By its grand conception of Jehovah as entering into a covenant with Israel, the Old Testament presents Him to our trust as having bound Himself to a known line of action. Thereby He becomes, if we may so phrase it, a constitutional monarch.

That conception of a Covenant is the negation of caprice, of arbitrary sovereignty, of mystery. We know the principles of His government. His majestic I wills' cover the whole ground of human life and needs for the present and the future. We can go into no region of life but we find that God has defined His conduct to us there by some word spoken to our heart and binding Him.

 4. Obligations From His New Covenant And Highest Word In Jesus Christ.

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.'