Labour, O ye saints! to strengthen your hope. There is, as a weak faith, so a wavering unsteadfast hope. This you are by the diligent use of all means to establish and consolidate. Now, then, hope is firm and solid when the Christian doth not fluctuate formidine opposti—with the fear of being opposed, but, by this anchor hold that hope hath on the promise, is kept from those dejections and tumultuous fears with which they that have no hope are swallowed up, and they whose hope is but weak are sadly dis¬composed and shaken. Solidum est quod sui solius est plenum—that is a solid body which is compact and free from heterogeneal mixtures. The more pure gold is from dross, and whatever is of a different na¬ture to itself, the more solid it is. So hope, the more it is refined from groundless presumption on the one hand, or slavish fear and distrust on the other, the more solid and strong it is. This in Scripture is called ‘the assurance of hope.’ Now to provoke you to a holy zeal in your endeavour after this, consider, FIRST. It is thy duty so to do. SECOND. If thou do not thou wilt show thou little esteemest Christ and his salvation. THIRD. Thou knowest not what stress thy hope may be put to before thou diest.
ARGUMENTS why we should strengthen our hope. — FIRST ARGUMENT. Consider it is thy duty so to do. Indeed by the Papist’s doctrine, no man is bound to labour for such an assurance. But whether we should believe God or them, judge ye. What saith the Spirit of God, ‘We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: that ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.’ Observe,
First. The thing he exhorts to endeavour for, —‘to the full assurance of hope.’ They whose hope is weak sail with but a scant side-wind. The apostle would have them go before the wind, and be carried with a full gale to heaven, which then is done when the soul, like a sail spread to the wind, is so filled with the truth and goodness of the promise, that it swells into an assured hope of what is promised, and rejoiceth in a certain expectation of what it shall have when it comes to the shore of eternity, though it be now tossed and weather-beaten with a thousand temptations and trials in its passage thither.
Second. Observe whom he presseth this duty upon; not some few choice Christians, as an enterprise laid out for them above the rest of their fellow-soldiers, but every person that will prove himself a Christian. ‘We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence,’ &c. In our civil trade, and particular worldly calling, it were sinful for every poor man to propound such a vast estate to himself in his own desires as he sees some few—the wealthiest merchants in a city—have got by their trade, so as no less shall content him. But in the spiritual trade of a Christian it is very warrantable for every Christian to covet to be as rich in grace as the best. Paul himself will not think himself wronged if thou desirest to be as holy man as himself was, and labourest after as strong a faith and steadfast a hope as he had; yea, thou oughtest not to content thyself with what thou hast, if there were but one degree of grace more to be had than what at present thou hast obtained. And,
Third. Observe what he imputes the weakness of the saints’ grace to; not an impossibility of attain¬ing to more, but their sloth and laziness. And there¬fore he opposeth this to that blessed frame of heart he so much wisheth them, ‘That ye be not slothful,’ Heb. 6:12. Indeed it is the diligent hand makes rich; as in this world’s goods, so in this heavenly treasure also.
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