Whence and how hope hath its supporting influence in affliction 1/3

           Second.  Whence and how hope hath its virtue; or what are the ingredients in hope's cordial that thus exhilarates the saint's spirit in affliction.

           First Answer.  Hope brings certain news of a happy issue, that shall shortly close up all the wounds made by his present sufferings.  When God comes to save his afflicted servants, though he may antedate their hopes, and surprise them before they looked for him, yet he doth not come unlooked for.  Salvation is that they lot upon: ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,’ Jer. 29:11—that is, an end suitable to the hopes and expec­tations taken up by you.  Hope is a prying grace; it is able to look beyond the exterior transactions of provi­dence.  It can, by the help of the promise, peep into the very bosom of God, and read what thoughts and purposes are written there concerning the Christian’s particular estate, and this it imparts to him, bidding him not to be at all troubled to hear God speaking roughly to him in the language of his providence. ‘For,’ saith hope, ‘I can assure thee he means thee well, whatever he saith that sounds otherwise.  For as the law, which came hundreds of years after the promise made to Abraham, could not disannul it, so neither can any intervening afflictions make void those thoughts and counsels of love which so long before have been set upon his heart for thy deliver­ance and salvation.’  Now, such a one must needs have a great advantage above others for the pacifying and satisfying his spirit concerning the present pro­ceedings of God towards him; because, though the actings of God on the outward stage of providence be now sad and grievous, yet he is acquainted with heaven's plot therein, and is admitted as it were into the attiring room of his secret counsel, where he sees garments of salvation preparing, in which he shall at last be clad, and come forth with joy.  The traveller, when taken in a storm, can stand patiently under a tree while it rains, because he hopes it is but a show­er, and sees it clear up in one part of the heavens, while it is dark in another.  Providence, I am sure, is never so dark and cloudy but hope can see fair weather a‑coming from the promise.  ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh,’ Luke 21:28.  And this is as black a day as can come.

           When the Christian’s affairs are most disconso­late, he may soon meet with a happy change.  The joy of that blessed day, I Cor. 15:52, comes ¦< •J@µå ¦< Õ4B­ ÏN2V8µ@Ø—‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,’ we shall be ‘changed.’  In one moment sick and sad, in the next well and glad, never to know more what groans and tears mean.  Now clad with the rags of mortal flesh, made miserable with the thou­sand troubles that attend it; ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ arrayed with robes of immortality, embossed and enriched with a thousand times more glory than the sun itself wears in the garment of light which now dazzleth our eyes to look on.  ‘It is but winking,’ said a holy martyr to his fellow‑sufferer in the fire with him, ‘and our pain and sorrow is all over with.’  Who can wonder to see a saint cheerful in his afflictions that knows what good news he looks to hear from heaven, and how soon he knows not?  You have heard of the weapon‑salve, that cures wounds at a distance. Such a kind of salve is hope.  The saints’ hope is laid up in heaven, and yet it heals all their wounds they receive on earth.  But this is not all.  For, as hope prophesies well concerning the happy end of the Christian’s afflictions, so it assures him he will be well tended and looked to while he lies under them.  If Christ sends his disciples to sea, he means to be with them when they most need his company.  The well child may be left a while by the mother, but the sick one she will by no means stir from.  ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,’ Isa. 43:2.

         

The influence of hope on the Christian in affliction

           First.  What influence hope hath on the Christian in affliction.

           First Influence.  Hope stills and silenceth the Christian under affliction.  It keeps the king’s peace in the heart, which else would soon be in an uproar. A hopeless soul is clamorous.  One while it chargeth God, another while it reviles instruments.  It cannot long rest, and no wonder, when hope is not there to rock it asleep.  Hope hath a rare art in stilling a fro­ward spirit when nothing else can; as the mother can make the crying child quiet by laying it to the breast, when the rod makes it cry worse.  This way David took, and found it effectual.  When his soul was out of quiet, by reason of his present affliction, he lays his soul to the breast of the promise.  ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God,’ Ps. 43:5.  And here his soul sweetly sleeps, as the child with the teat in his mouth.  And that this was his usual way, we may think by the fre­quent instances we find to this purpose.  Thrice we find him taking this course in two psalms, Ps 42 and 43. When Aaron and Miriam were so uncivil with Moses, and used him so ill in their foul language, no doubt it was a heavy affliction to the spirit of that holy man, and aggravation of his sorrow, to consider out of whose bow these sharp arrows came; yet it is said, ‘Moses held his peace’—waiting for God to clear his innocency.  And his patience made God, no doubt, the more angry to see this meek man wronged, who durst trust him with the righting of his name; and therefore [it was that] with such speed he wiped off the dirt they had thrown on him, before it could soak in to the prejudice of his good name in the thoughts of others.  Indeed this waiting on God for deliverance in an afflicted state, consists much in a holy silence. ‘Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation,’ Ps. 62:1—or, as the Hebrew, ‘my soul is silent.’  It is a great mercy, in an affliction that is sharp, to have our bodily senses, so as not to lie rav­ing or roaring, but still and quiet; much more to have the heart silent and patient.  And we find the heart is as soon heat into a distemper, as the head.  Now, what the sponge is to the cannon when hot with often shooting, that is hope to the soul in multiplied afflic­tions; it cools the spirit, and meekens it, that it doth not fly apieces, and break out into distempered thoughts or words against God.

           Second Influence.  This hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation, that it can laugh while tears are in the eye—sigh and sing all in a breath.  It is called ‘the rejoicing of hope,’ Heb. 3:6. And hope never affords more joy than in affliction. It is on a watery cloud that the sun paints those curious colours in the rainbow.  ‘Rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and not only so, but we glory in tribulations,’ Rom. 5:2, 3.  Glorying is rejoicing in a ravishment —when it is so great that it cannot contain itself with­in the Christian’s own breast, but comes forth in some outward expression, and lets others know what a feast it sits at within.  The springs of comfort lie high indeed when his joy pours out at the mouth. And all this joy with which the suffering saint is entertained, is sent in by hope at the cost of Christ, who hath provided such unspeakable glory for them in heaven as will not suffer them to pity or bemoan themselves for those tribulations that befall them on the way to it.  Dum mala pungunt, bona promissa un­guunt—while calamities smite with oppression, the gracious promises anoint with their blessings.  Hope breaks the alabaster box of the promise over the Christian’s head, and so diffuseth the consolations thereof abroad the soul, which, like a precious oint­ment, have a virtue, as to exhilarate and refresh the spirit in its faintings, so to heal the wounds and re­move the smart which the Christian’s poor heart may feel from its affliction, according to the apostle in the aforementioned place: ‘Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts,’ Rom. 5:5.

           There are two graces which Christ useth above any other to fill the soul with joy; and they are faith and hope, because these two fetch all their wine of joy without doors.  Faith tells the soul what Christ hath done for it, and so comforts it.  Hope revives the soul with news of what Christ will do.  Both draw at one tap—Christ and his promise.  Whereas the other gra­ces present the soul with its own inherent excellencies —what it doth and suffers for him, rather than what he does for them; so that it were neither honourable for Christ, nor safe for the saint, to draw his joy from this vessel. Not honourable to Christ!  This were the way to have the king’s crown set on the subject’s head, and cry Hosanna! to the grace of Christ in us, which is due only to the mercy of God in us.  For thither we will carry our praise whence we have our joy; and therefore upon our allegiance we are only to ‘rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh,’ Php. 3:3.  And it would be no more safe for us than honourable for him, because of the instability of our hearts, and unconstant actings of our graces, which are as oft ebbing as flowing.  And so our joy could not be constant, because our graces are not; but as these springs lie high or low, so would this rise and fall. Yea, we were sure to drink more water than wine —oftener want joy than have it.  Whereas now, the Christian’s cup need never be empty, because he draws his wine from an undrainable Fountain that never sends any poor soul away ashamed, as the brook of our inherent grace would certainly, at one time or other, do.

Hope, as the Christian's helmet, supports him in the greatest afflictions

           This hope of salvation supports the soul in the greatest afflictions.  The Christian’s patience is, as it were, his back, on which he bears his burdens; and some afflictions are so heavy, that he needs a broad one to carry them well.  But if hope lay not the pillow of the promise between his back and his burden, the least cross will prove insupportable; therefore it is called ‘the patience of hope,’ I Thes. 1:3.  There is a patience, I confess, and many know not a better, when men force themselves into a kind of quietness in their troubles because they cannot help it, and there is no hope.  This I may call a desperate pa­tience, and it may do them some service for a while, and but for a while.  If despair were a good cure for troubles, the damned would have more ease; for they have despair enough, if that would help them.  There is another patience also very common in the world, and that is a blockish stupid patience, which, like Nabal’s mirth, lasts no longer than they are drunk with ignorance and senselessness; for they no sooner come to themselves to understand the true state they are in, but their hearts die within them.

           But ‘the patience of hope,’ we are now treating of, is a sober grace, and abides as long as hope lasts; when hope is lively and active, then it floats, yea even danceth aloft the waters of affliction, as a tight sound ship doth in a tempestuous sea; but when hope springs a leak, then the billows break into the Chris­tian’s bosom, and he sinks apace, till hope, with much labour at the pump of the promise, clears the soul again.  This was David's very case.  ‘Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul,’ Ps. 69:1.  What means he by ‘coming unto his soul?’ Sure­ly no other than this, that they oppressed his spirit, and as it were sued into his very conscience, raising fears and perplexities there, by reason of his sins, which at present put his faith and hope to some dis­order, that he could not for a while see to the com­fortable end of his affliction, but was as one under water, and covered with his fears; as appears by what follows, ‘I sink in deep mire, where there is no stand­ing,’ ver. 2.  He compares himself to one in a quag­mire, that can feel no firm ground to bear him up. And observe whence his trouble rose, and where the waters made their entrance: ‘O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my sins are not hid from thee,’ ver. 5.  This holy man lay under some fresh guilt, and this made him so uncomfortable under his affliction, because he saw his sin in the face of that and tasted some displeasure from God for it in his outward trouble, which made it so bitter in the going down; and therefore, when once he hath humbled himself in a mournful confession of his sin, and was able to see the coast clear betwixt heaven and him, so as to be­lieve the pardon of his sin, and hope for good news from God again, he then returns to the sweet temper, and can sing in the same affliction where before he did sink.  But more particularly I shall show what powerful influence hope hath on the Christian in af­fliction, and how.  First. What influence it hath.  Second. Whence and how hope hath this virtue.

Hope as the Christian’s helmet makes him FAITHFUL IN THE MEANEST SERVICES

As hope raiseth the Christian’s spirit to attempt great exploits, so it makes him diligent and faithful in the meanest and lowest services that the providence of God calls him to;—for the same providence lays out every one his work and calling, which sets bounds for their habitations on the earth. Some he sets on the high places of the earth, and appoints them hon¬ourable employments, suitable to their place. Others he pitcheth down on lower ground, and orders them in some obscure corner, to employ themselves about work of an inferior nature all their life, and we need not be ashamed to do that work which the great God sets us about. The Italians say true, ‘No man fouls his hands in doing his own business.’ Now, to en¬courage every Christian to be faithful in his particular place, he hath made promises that are applicable to them all. Promises are like the beams of the sun: they shine in as freely at the window of the poor man’s cottage as of the prince’s palace. And these hope trades with, and from these animates the Chris¬tian at his work. Indeed, we are no more faithful in our callings than [we are] acted by faith and hope therein.

Now, you shall observe, God lays his promise, so as it may strengthen our hands and hearts against the chief discouragement that is most like to weaken them in their callings. The great discouragement of those high and public employments—magistracy and ministry—is the difficulty of the province, and oppo¬sition they find from the angry world. These there¬fore are guarded and supported with such promises as may fortify their hearts against the force and fury with which the world comes forth to oppose them. ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee: be strong and of a good courage,’ Joshua 1:5, [a promise] which was given to Israel’s chief magistrate. And the minister’s prom¬ise suits well with this, as having ordinarily the same difficulties, enemies, and discouragements: ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations;...and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,’ Matt. 28:19, 20. Again, the temptation which usually haunts persons in low and more ignoble callings, is the very meanness of them; which occasions discontent and envy in some, to see themselves on the floor, and their brother preferred to more honourable services; in others, dejection of spirit, as if they were, like the eunuch, but dry trees, unprofitable, and brought no glory to God, while others, by their more eminent places and callings, have the advantage of being highly serviceable to God in their generations. Now, to arm the Christian against this temptation, and remove this discouragement, God hath annexed as great a reward in the promise to his faithfulness in the meanest em¬ployment, as the most honourable is capable of. What more mean and despicable than the servant’s employ¬ment? yet no less than heaven itself is promised to them if faithful. He is speaking there to such. ‘What¬soever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ,’ Col. 3:23, 24. Where observe,

First. What honour he puts on the poor serv¬ants’ work. He serves the Lord Christ; yea, in the lowest piece of work that belongs to his office. His drudgery is divine service, as well as his praying and hearing; for he saith, ‘Whatsoever ye do.’ Again observe,

Second. The reward that is laid up for such; and that is as great as he shall receive that hath been faith¬ful in ruling kingdoms, ‘the reward of the inherit¬ance.’ As if God had said, ‘Be not, O my child, out of love with thy coarse homely work. Ere long thou shalt sit as high as he that sways sceptres. Though your employment now be not the same with his, yet your acceptation is the same, and so shall your reward also be.’ Thus we see, as we bestow more abundant honour on those members which we think less hon¬ourable; so doth Christ with those members of his body which, by reason of their low place in the world, may be thought to be most despised—he puts an abundant honour upon them in his promise. And where hope is raised, the Christian cannot but take sweet satisfaction from the expectation thereof. The poor ploughman that is a saint, and plows in hope of reaping salvation, would be as well contented with his place and work as the bravest courtier is with his. Think of this, when any of you have a servant to choose; if you would have your work faithfully and heartily done, employ such about it—if they be to be had—as have a hope of salvation. This will not suffer them to wrong you, though they could. Their helmet will defend them from such temptations. Jacob was a true drudge for his master Laban by day and by night, though he used him none of the best in chop¬ping and changing his wages so oft. But Jacob served in hope, and expected his reward from a better master than Laban; and this made him faithful to an unfaith¬ful man. Joseph would not wrong his master, though at the request of his mistress. He chose to suffer his unjust anger, rather than accept of her unchaste love. The evidence of this grace in a servant is better se¬curity for his faithfulness than a bond of a thousand pounds.

INSTANCES wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits 5/5

    Second.  These present attainments of grace or comfort, they do embolden the soul to expect yet more; and so provoke the Christian to press on for the full payment of all.  See both these in David: ‘Be¬cause thou hast been my help, therefore in the sha¬dow of thy wings will I rejoice,’ Ps. 63:7.  The present boon he hath got makes him rejoice in hope of what is yet to come, and by this scent he is carried out with full cry to pursue the chase for more, as appears in the very next words, ‘my soul followeth hard after thee,’ ver. 8.  And no wonder, if we consider that God gives his people their experiences with this very no¬tion stamped on them, i.e. to raise their expectations for further mercies at his hand: ‘I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope,’ Hosea 2:15.  God is there speaking to a soul converted and newly taken into covenant, what blessings he will bestow on it, as the happy effects of its reconciliation to God and marriage with Christ, and he alludes to his dealing with Israel, who came out of a desolate wilderness—where they had wan¬dered, and endured unspeakable hardship, forty years —into a pleasant fruitful country, in the very en¬trance where whereof this Achor lay, which, when God gave them, he would not have them look on it as in itself it was a little spot of ground, and not so much worth, but as the opening of a door through which he would undertake to let them into the possession of the whole land in process of time; which circum¬stance, believed by them, made Joshua advance his banners with so much courage against the proudest of his enemies, well knowing that man could not shut that door upon them which God had opened to them.

           Thus every particular assistance God gives the Christian against one corruption, is intended by God to be an Achor—‘a door of hope,’ from which he may expect the total overthrow of that cursed seed in his bosom.  When he adds the least degree of strength to his grace or comfort he gives us an Achor, or door of hope, that he will consummate both in glory.  O what courage this must needs bring to thee, poor heart, in thy fears and faintings!  Paul had many enemies at Ephesus to oppose him, but having ‘an effectual door opened unto him,’ for his encouragement, he went on undauntedly, I Cor. 16:9.  As an army, when, after stub¬born resistance by the enemy, who labour what they can to keep them out, the door or gate of the city flies open, then the soldiers press in amain with a shout, ‘the city is our own.’  Thus when, after long tugging, and much wrestling with God for pardon of sin, or strength against sin, the door of the promise flies open, and God comes in with some assisting, com¬forting presence, now hope takes heart, and makes the soul fall on with double force and zeal.

INSTANCES wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits 4/5

  FOURTH INSTANCE.  Hope begets in the Chris¬tian a holy impatience after further attainments, espe¬cially when it grows to some strength.  The higher our hopes of salvation rise, the more will our hearts widen and distend themselves in holy desires.  ‘Not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body,’ Rom. 8:23. Methinks rejoicing would better become them for what they have already, than groan¬ing for what they have not. Who may better stay long for their dinner, than they who have their stomachs stayed with a good breakfast?  This would hold in bodily food, but not spiritual.  No doubt, the sweet¬ness which they tasted from their first fruits in hand did cheer their spirits; but the thoughts of what was behind made them groan.  Hope waits for all, and will not let the soul sit down contented till all the dishes be on the board—till the whole harvest that stands on the field of the promise be reaped and well inned; yea, the more the Christian hath received in partial payments, the deeper groans hope makes the soul fetch for what is behind. 

And that,

           First.  Because these foretastes do acquaint the Christian more with the nature of those joys which are in heaven, and so enlarge his understanding to have more raised conceptions of the felicity those en¬joy that are arrived there.  And the increasing of his knowledge must needs enlarge his desires; and those desires break out into sad groans, to think what sweet wine is drunk in full bowls by glorified saints, and he living where only a sip is allowed, that doth not satisfy but kindle his thirst.  It is harder now for him to live on this side heaven than before he knew so much. He is like one that stands at the door within which is a rich feast.  He hears them how merry they are.  Through the keyhole he sees what variety they have; and by a little which he licks from the trenchers that are brought out is sensible how delicious their fare is. O how such a one’s teeth would water after their cheer; which another misse th not that hears not of it, or only hears, and tastes not of their dainties!  The nearer the soul stands to heaven, and the more he knows of their joys, the more he blesseth them and pities himself.  None long for heaven more than those who enjoy most of heaven.  All delays now are exceed¬ingly tedious to such.  Their continual moan is, ‘Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?’  The last year is thought longer by the apprentice than all his time before, because it is nearer out.  And if delays be so tedious, what then are desertions to such a soul, who hath his hopes of salva¬tion raised high by the sweet illapses of the Spirit and foretastes of glory!  No doubt Moses’ death so nigh Canaan, after he had tasted of the fruit of the land at the spies’ hand, was exceeding grievous.  To lose a child grown up, when we seem ready to reap our hopes conceived of him, is more than to part with two in the cradle, that have not yet drawn our conceptions far.  The Christian indeed, cannot quite lose his hopes.  Yet he may have them nipped and set back, as a forward spring, by after claps of winter weather, which pinches so much the more because the warm beams of the sun had made the herbs come forth and disclose themselves.  And so desertions from God do make the saddest impression upon those, above all others, whose expectation had advanced far, and, by the present sense of divine goodness, been unfolded into a kind of rejoicing through hope of glory.  Now to meet with a damp from the frowns of the Almighty, and to be benighted by the withdrawing of that light which did so ravish it, O how dreadful must this sudden change be to the soul!

INSTANCES wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits 3/5

Nothing but a steadfast well grounded hope of salvation can buy off the creature's worldly hopes. The heart of man cannot be in this world without a hope; and if it hath no hope for heaven, it must of necessity take in at earth, and borrow one there such as it can afford. What indeed can suit an earthly heart better than an earthly hope?  And that which is a man's hope—though poor and peddling—is highly prized, and hardly parted with.  As we see in a man like to drown, and [who] hath only some weed or bough by the bank’s side to hold by; he will die with it in his hand rather than let go; he will endure blows and wounds rather than lose his hold. Nothing can take him from it, but that which he hopes may serve better to save him from drowning.  Thus it is with a man whose hope is set upon the world, and whose happiness [is] expected to be paid in from thence.  O how such a one hugs and hangs about the world!  You may as soon persuade a fox to come out of his hole, where he hath taken sanctuary from the dogs.  Such a one to cast off his hopes!  No, he is undone without this pelf and that honour; it is that he hath a lid up his hopes in, and hope and life are ever kept in the same hand.  Scare and threaten him with what you will, still the man's heart will hold its own.  Yea, throw hell fire into his bosom, and tell him this love of the world, and making gold his hope, will damn him another day, still he will hold to his way.

           Felix is a fit instance for this, Acts 24:26.  Paul preached a thundering sermon before him; and though the preacher was at the bar, and Felix on the bench, yet God so armed the word, that he ‘trembled’ to hear the prisoner speak ‘of righteousness, temper¬ance, and judgment to come.’  Yet this man, notwith¬standing his conscience was struggling with the fears of judgement, and some sparks of divine vengeance had taken fire on him, could at the same time be sending out his heart on a covetous errand, to look for a bribe, for want of which he left that blessed servant of God in his bloody enemies' hands; for it is said, ver. 26, ‘he hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him.’ But he missed his market; for, as a sordid hope of a little money made him basely refuse to deliver Paul, so the blessed hope which Paul had for another world made him more honourably disdain to purchase his deliver¬ance at his hands with a bribe.

           THIRD INSTANCE.  This hope of salvation, where it is steadfast, makes the Christian active and zealous for God.  It is called ‘a lively hope,’ I Peter 1:3.  They are men of mettle that have it.  You may expect more from him than many others, and not be deceived. Why are men dull and heavy in their service of God? Truly because their hopes are so.  Hopeless and life¬less go together.  No marvel the work goes hardly off a hand, when men have no hope, or but little, to be well paid for their labour in doing of it.  He that thinks he works for a song, as we say, will not sing at his work—I mean, be forward and cheery in it.  The best customer is sure to be served best and first, and him we count the best customer that we hope will be the best paymaster.  If God be thought so, we will leave all to do his business.  This made Paul engage so deep in the service of the gospel, [as] even to lose his worldly friends, and lay his own life to stake, it was ‘for the hope of the promise,’ Acts 26:6. This made the other Israelites that feared God follow the trade of godliness so close, ‘unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come,’ ver. 7.  Mark, they are both instant, and con¬stant, ¦< ¦6J,<,\‘.  They run with full speed, stretch¬ing themselves forth as in a race; and this, at night and day—no stop or halt in their way, but ever put¬ting on. And what is it that keeps them in breath? even the hope that they shall at last come to that salvation promised.  Nothing better to expectorate and clear the soul of this dull phlegm of sloth and listlessness of spirit in the service of God, than hope well improved and strengthened. It is the very physic which the apostle prescribes for this disease: ‘We desire that every one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end; that ye be not slothful,’ Heb. 6:11, 12.

INSTANCES wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits 2/5

What is the sin this would not prostrate?  Art thou tempted to any sensual lust?  Ask thy hope what thou lookest to be in heaven.  And canst thou yield to play the beast on earth, who hopest to be made like the pure and holy angels in heaven?

           Is it a sin of profit that bewitcheth thee?  Is not a hope of heaven a spell strong enough to charm this devil?  Can gold bear any sway with thee that hopest to be heir of that city where gold bears no price? Wherefore is that blissful place said to be paved with gold, but to let us know it shall be there trampled up¬on as of no account?  And wilt thou let that now lie in thy heart, that will ere long be laid under thy feet?

           Is it a sin of revenge?  Dost thou not hope for a day when thy dear Saviour will plead thy cause, and what needest thou then take his work out of his hand?  Let him be his own judge that hath no hope; the Judge, when he comes, will take his part.

           SECOND INSTANCE. This hope ennobles and en¬ables the Christian to contemn the present world, with all its pomp, treasure, and pleasure, to which the rest of the sons of men are, every man of them, basely enslaved and held by the leg as a prisoner by this chain.  When once faith makes a discovery of land that the Christian hath lying in heaven, and, by hope, he begins to lot upon it as that which he shall shortly take up at his remove from earth; truly then the price of this world’s felicity falls low in his account; he can sell all his hopes from it very cheap, yea, he can part with what he hath in hand of this world’s growth, when God calls him to it, more freely than Alexander did the cities he took; because, when all this is gone, he shall leave himself a better hope than that great monarch had to live upon.  The hopes of heaven leave a blot upon the world in the Christian’s thoughts.  It is no more now to him, than the asses were to anointed Saul.

           Story tells us of some Turks who have, upon the sight of Mahomet’s tomb, put their eyes out, that they might not defile them, forsooth! with any common object after they had been blessed with seeing one so sacred.  I am sure many a gracious soul there hath been, who by a prospect of heaven’s glory—the palace of the great God—set before the eye of their faith, have been so ravished with the sight, that they have desired God even to seal up their eyes by death, with Simeon, who would not by his good will have lived a day after that blessed hour in which his eyes had be¬held the ‘salvation’ of God.  Abraham was under the hope of this salvation, and therefore ‘he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country;...for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God,’ Heb. 11:9, 10.  Canaan would have liked [pleased] him well enough, if God had not told him of a heaven that he meant to give him, in comparison to which, Canaan is now but Cabul—a dirty land, in his judgment.  So Paul tells us not only the low thoughts he hath himself of the world, but as they agree with the common sense of all believers, whose hope is come to any consistency and settlement, ‘for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour,’ Php. 3:20. Mark, he sets the saint with his back upon earth; and draws his reason from their hope—‘from whence we look,’ &c.  Indeed, he that looks on heaven must needs look off earth.  The soul’s eye can as little as the body’s eye be above and below at the same time.  Every man converseth most where he hopes for to receive his greatest gains and advantage.  The publican sits at the receipt of custom: there come in his gains.  The courtier stands at his prince’s elbow.  The merchant, if you will find him, look for him in his warehouse or at the exchange.  But the Christian’s hope carries him by all these doors.  Here is not my hope, saith the soul; and therefore not my haunt.  My hope is in heaven, from whence I look for the Saviour to come, and my salvation to come with him; there I live, walk, and wait.

INSTANCES wherein hope has raised the Christian to noble exploits 1/5

FIRST INSTANCE. This hope raiseth in the Chris¬tian heroic resolution against those lusts that held him before in bondage.  The Israelites who couched so tamely under the Egyptian burdens, without any attempt made by them to shake off the oppressor’s yoke, when once Moses came from God to give them hope of an approaching salvation, and his report had gained some credit to be believed by them, it is strange to see what a mighty change the impression of their new conceived hope made upon them.  On a sudden their mettle returns, and their blood, that with anguish and despair had so long chilled, and been even frozen in their veins, grows warm again. They who had hardly durst let their groans be heard —so cowed were their spirits with hard labour—dare now, fortified with hope, break open their prison doors, and march out of Egypt towards the place of rest promised, maugre [in spite of] all the power and wrath of enraged Pharaoh, who pursued them.  Truly, thus it is with a soul in regard of sin’s bondage.

           O how impotent and poor spirited is a soul void of this heavenly hope! what a tame slave hath Satan of him!  He is the footstool for every base lust to trample upon.  He suffers the devil to back and ride him whither he pleaseth, without wincing.  No puddle so filthy, but Satan may draw him through it with a twine thread.  The poor wretch is well enough con¬tented with his ignoble servitude, because he knows no better master than him he serves, nor better wages than the swill of his sensual pleasures which his lusts allow him.  But, let the news of salvation come to the ear of this sin deluded soul, and a spiritual eye be given him to see the transcendent glory thereof, with a crevice of hope set open to him, that he is the per¬son that shall inherit it, if willing to make an ex-change of Satan for Christ, and of the slavery of his lusts for the liberty of his Redeemer’s service—O what havoc then doth the soul begin to make among his lusts!  He presently vows the death of them all, and sets his head at work how he may soonest and most effectually rid his hands of them.  ‘Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure,’ I John 3:3.  He now looks upon his lusts with no better eye than a captive prince would do on his cruel keepers, out of whose hands could he but make an escape, he would presently enjoy his crown and kingdom; and therefore meditates his utmost revenge upon them.  There may be some hasty pur-poses taken up by carnal men against their lusts, upon some accidental discontent they meet with now and then in the prosecution of them; but, alas! the swords they draw against them are soon in their sheaths again, and all the seeming fray comes to nothing in the end.  They, like Esau, go out full and angry in a sudden mood, but a present comes from their lusts that bribes them from hurting them; yea, so reconciles them to them, that, as he did by his broth¬er, they can fall upon the necks of those lusts to kiss them, which a while before they threatened to kill; and all for want of a true hope of heaven to outbid the proffers their lusts make to appease their anger, which would never yield a peace should be patched up with them on such infinite hard terms as it must needs be, the loss of eternal salvation.  He that hath a mind to provide himself with arguments to arm him against sin’s motions, need not go far to seek them; but he that handles this one well, and drives it home to the head, will not need many more.

Hope, as the Christian’s helmet stirs him to noble exploits

           Hope of salvation puts the Christian upon high and noble exploits.  It is a grace born for great ac­tions.  Faith and hope are the two poles on which all the Christian’s noble enterprises turn.  As carnal hope excites carnal men to their achievements which gain them any renown in the world, so is this heav­enly hope influential unto the saints’ undertakings. What makes the merchant sell house and land, and ship his whole estate away to the other end almost of the world—and this amidst a thousand hazards from pirates, waves and winds—but hope to get a greater by this bold adventure?  What makes the daring soldier rush into the furious battle, upon the very mouth of death itself, but hope to snatch honour and spoil out of its jaws?  Hope is his helmet, shield, and all, which makes him laugh on the face of all danger.  In a word, what makes the scholar beat his brains so hard —sometimes with the hazard of breaking them, by overstraining his parts with too eager and hot a pur­suit of learning—but hope but hope of commencing some degrees higher in the knowledge of those secrets in nature that are locked up from vulgar under­standings?—who, when he hath attained his desire, is paid but little better for all his pains and study, that have worn nature in him to the stumps, than he is that tears the flesh off his hands and knees with creeping up some craggy mountain, which proves but a barren bleak place to stand in, and wraps him up in the clouds from the sight of others, leaving him little more to please himself with but this, that he can look over other men's heads, and see a little farther than they.  Now if these peddling hopes can prevail with men to such fixed resolutions for the obtaining of these poor sorry things, which borrow part of their goodness from men's fancy and imagination, how much more effectual must the Christian’s hope of eternal life be to provoke him to the achievement of more noble exploits!  Let a few instances suffice.  First. This hope raiseth in the Christian a heroic res­olution against those lusts that held him before in bondage.  Second. This hope ennobles and enables the Christian to contemn the present world with all its pomp, treasure, and pleasure, to which the rest of the sons of men are, every man of them, basely enslaved.  Third. This hope, where it is steadfast, makes the Christian active and zealous for God.  Fourth. It begets in the Christian a holy impatience after further attainments, especially when it grows to some strength.