SIX DIRECTIONS how we may strengthen our hope 7/7

           Some promises have their day of payment here, and others we must stay to receive in heaven.  Now the payment which God makes of some promises here, is an earnest given to our faith, that the other also shall be faithfully discharged when their date ex­pires; as every judgment inflicted here on the wicked is sent as a penny in hand of that wrath the full sum whereof God will make up in hell.  Go therefore, Christian, and look over thy receipts.  God hath promised ‘sin shall not have dominion over you;’ no, not in this life, Rom. 6:14.  It is the present state of a saint in this life that is intended there.  Canst thou find this promise made good to thee? is the power of sin broken and the sceptre wrung out of this king’s hand, whom once thou didst willingly obey as ever subject his prince? yea, canst thou find he hath but begun to fall by thy unthroning him in thy heart and affections?  Dost thou now look on sin not as thou wert wont, for thy prince, but as a usurper, whose tyranny, by the grace of God, thou art resolved to shake off, both as intolerable to thee and dishonour­able to God, whom thou now acknowledgest to be thy rightful Lord, and to whose holy laws thy heart most freely promiseth obedience?  This, poor soul, may assure thee that thou shalt have a full dominion over sin in heaven ere long, which hath begun already to lose his power over thee on earth.  It is observable how David rears up his hope to expect heaven’s per­fect state of holiness from his begun sanctification on earth.  First, he declares his holy resolution for God, and then his high expectation from God.  ‘As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be sat­isfied, when I awake, with thy likeness,’ Ps. 17:15. Hast thou found God’s supporting hand in all thy tempta­tions and troubles, whereby thou art kept from sink­ing under them?  A David would feed his hope for eternal salvation with this, ‘thou hast holden me by my right hand,’ Ps. 73:23.  Now observe hope’s infer­ence, ‘Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and af­terward receive me to glory,’ ver. 24.

           And as experiences carefully kept and wisely im­proved, would conduce much to strengthening the Christian’s hope on its chief object—salvation; so also would they lift up its head above all those dis­tracting fears which arise in the Christian's heart, and put him to much trouble from those cross and af­flicting providences that befall him in this life. Cer­tainly David would have been more scared with the big looks and brag deportment of that proud Goliath, had not the remembrance of the bear and the lion which he slew brought relief to him and kept them down.  But he had slain this uncircumcised Philistine in a figure when he tore in pieces those unclean beasts.  And therefore when he marches to him, this is the shield which he lifts up to cover himself with, ‘The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine,’ I Sam. 17:37.  If experiences were no ground for hope in future straits —temporary now I mean—then they would not have the force of an argument in prayer.  But saints use their experiences to do them service in this case, and make account they urge God very close and home when they humbly tell him what he hath already done for them, and expect he should therefore go on in his fatherly care over them.  ‘Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns,’ Ps. 22:21.  And no doubt a gracious soul may pray in faith from his past experience, and expect a satisfactory answer to that prayer wherein former mercies are his plea for what he wants at present. God himself intends his people more comfort from every mercy he gives them, than the mercy itself singly and abstractly considered amounts to.  Suppose, Chris­tian, thou hast been sick, and God hath, at thy hum­ble prayer, plucked thee out of the very jaws of death, when thou wert even going down his throat almost; the comfort of this particular mercy is the least God means thee therein; for he would have thee make it a help to thy faith, and a shore [support] to thy hope, when shaken by any future strait whatever.  ‘Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilder­ness,’ Ps. 74:14.  God in that mercy at the Red Sea, we see, is thinking what Israel should have to live on for forty years together, and looked that they should not only feast themselves at present with the joy of this stupendous mercy; but powder it up in their memo­ries, that their faith might not want a meal in that hungry wilderness all the while they were to be in it. Experiences are like a cold dish reserved at a feast. Sometimes the saint sits down with nothing else on his table but the promise and his experience; and he that cannot make a soul‑refreshing meal with these two dishes deserves to fast.  Be sure, Christian, thou observest this in every mercy—what is the matter of present thankfulness, and what is ground of future hope.  Achor is called ‘a door of hope,’ Hosea 2:15. God, when he gives one mercy, opens a door for him to give, and us to expect more mercy through it.  God compares his promise to ‘the rain,’ which maketh the earth ‘bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,’ Isa. 55:10.  Why shouldst thou, O Christian, content thyself with half the bene­fit of a mercy?  When God performs his promise, and delivers thee out of this trouble and that strait, thou art exceedingly comforted, may be, with the mercy, and thy heart possibly enlarged at present into thank­fulness for the same.  It is well. Here is ‘bread for the eater’—something at present feasts thee.  But where is the ‘seed for the sower?’  The husbandman doth not spend all his corn that he reaps, but saves some for seed, which may bring him another crop.  So, Christian, thou shouldst feast thyself with the joy of thy mercy, but save the remembrance of it as hope-seed, to strengthen thee to wait on God for another mercy and further help in a needful time.