Heavenly Promises

William Spurstowe, The Wells of Salvation Opened, p. 71, quoted by Peter Lewis, The Genius of Puritanism, p. 116:

I have sometimes thought that a believer's looking on a promise, is not unlike a man's beholding of the heavens in a still and serene evening, who, when he first casts up his eye, sees haply a star or two only to peep, and with difficulty to put forth a feeble and disappearing light. By and by, he looks up again, and both their number and lustre are increased. A while after, he views the heavens again, and then the whole firmament, from every quarter, with a numberless multitude of stars, is richly enamelled as with so many golden studs.

So, when a Christian first turns his thoughts toward the promises, the appearances of light and comfort which shine from them, do oft times seem to be as weak and imperfect rays, which neither scatter fears nor darkness. When again he sets himself to ripen and improve his thoughts upon them, then the evidence and comfort which they yield to the soul is both clear and distinct: but when the heart and the affections are fully fixed in the meditation of a promise, Oh... what legions of beauties do then appear from every part of it which both ravish and fill the soul of the believer with delight!