Why This Hope is Called the Hope of Salvation

    Second Inquiry.  Why is the Christian’s hope styled a ‘hope of salvation?’  A double reason is ob­vious.

           First Reason.  Because salvation comprehends and takes within its circle the whole object of his hope.  ‘Salvation’ imports such a state of bliss, where­in meet eminently the mercies and enjoyments of the promises, scattered some in one and some in an­other; as at the creation, the light which was first diffused through the firmament was gathered into the sun.  Cast up the particular sums of all good things promised in the covenant, and the total which they amount unto is, salvation.  The ultima unitas—final whole, or unity, gives the denomination to the num­ber, because it comprehends all; so salvation the ul­timate object of the Christian’s expectation, and that which comprehends the rest, denominates his hope.

           Second Reason.  It is called ‘a hope of salva­tion,’ to distinguish it from the worldling’s hope, whose portion, Ps. 16, is in this life, and so his hope also.  It is confessed that many of these will pretend to a hope of salvation; but the truth is, they neither have right to it, nor are they very eager of it.  They think themselves so well seated in this world, that if they might have their wish, it should be that God would not remove them hence.  Even when they say they hope to be saved, their consciences tell them that they had rather stay here than part with this world in hope to mend themselves in the other.  They blow up themselves into a hope and desire of salvation, more out of a dread of hell than liking of heaven.  None I think so mad among them but had rather be saved than damned—live in heaven than lie in hell—yet the best of the whole pack likes this world better than them both.

Why hope is compared to a helmet

           Third Inquiry.  Why is hope compared to a helmet?  For this conceive a double reason.

           First Reason.  The helmet defends the head, a principal part of the body, from dint of bullet and sword; so this ‘hope of salvation’ defends the soul, the principal part of man, and the principal faculties of that, whereby no dangerous, to be sure no deadly, impression by Satan or sin be made on it.  Tempta­tions may trouble but cannot hurt, except their darts enter the will and leave a wound there, by drawing it to some consent and liking of them; from which this helmet of hope, if it be of the right make, and fits sure on the Christian’s head, will defend him.  It is hard to draw him into any treasonable practice against his prince, who is both well satisfied of his favour at pres­ent, and stands also on the stairs of hope, expecting assuredly to be called up within a while to the highest preferment that the court can afford or his king give. No, the weapons of rebellion and treason are usually forged and fashioned in discontent’s shop.  When subject's take themselves to be neglected and slighted by their prince—think that their preferments are now at an end, and [that they] must look for no great favours more to come from him—this softens them to receive every impression of disloyalty that any enemy to the king shall attempt to stamp them withal.  As we see in the Israelites; thinking the men of Judah, of whose tribe the king was, had got a monopoly of his favour, and themselves to be shut out from sharing, at least equally, with them therein; how soon are they —even at a blast or two of Sheba’s seditious trumpet —made rebels against their sovereign?  ‘We have no part in David,’ saith Sheba, ‘neither have we inheri­tance in the son of Jesse: every man to his tents, O Israel!’ II Sam. 20:1.  And see how this treason runs, even like a squib upon a rope.  ‘Every man of Israel went up from after David, and followed Sheba,’ ver. 2. Thus, if once the soul fears it hath no part in God, and expects no inheritance from him, I know no sin so great but it may at the sound of the tempter’s trumpet be drawn to commit.

           Second Reason.  As the helmet defends the soldier’s head from wounding, so his heart also from swooning.  It makes him bold and fearless in battle though amidst swords and bullets.  Goliath with his helmet of brass and other furniture, how confidently and daringly did the man come on!  As if he had been so enclosed in his armour that it was impossible that any we apon could come near to deliver a message of death unto him!  This made him carry his crest so high, and defy a whole host, till at last he paid his life for his pride and folly.  But here is a helmet that whoever wears it need never be put to shame for his holy boasting.  God himself allows him so to do, and will bear him out in this rejoicing of his hope.  ‘Thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me,’ Isa. 49:23.  This made holy David so undaunted in the midst of his enemies, ‘Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear,’ Ps. 27:3.  His hope would not suffer his heart so much as beat within him for any fear of what they could do to him.  He had this ‘helmet of salva­tion’ on, and therefore he saith, ‘Mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me,’ ver. 6.  A man cannot drown so long as his head is above water. Now it is the proper office of hope to do this for the Christian in times of any danger.  ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh,’ Luke 21:28. A strange time, one would think, for Christ then to bid his disciples lift up their heads in, when they see other ‘men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,’ ver. 26, yet, now is the time of the rising of their sun when others' is setting, and blackness of darkness overtaking them; because now the Christian’s feast is coming, for which hope hath saved its stomach so long—‘your redemption draweth nigh.’  Two things make the head hang down—fear and shame.  Hope easeth the Christian’s heart of both these; and so forbids him to give any sign of a desponding mind by a dejected countenance.  And so much may suffice for explication of the words.  I come now to lay down the one general point of doctrine, from which our whole dis­course on this one piece of armour shall be drawn.

THE HELMET OF SALVATION WHAT IT IS?

  We have done with the connective particle, whereby this piece is coupled to the former, and now come to address our discourse to the piece of armour itself—‘take the helmet of salvation.’  Though we have not here, as in all the other [pieces], the grace expressed, yet we need not be long at a loss for it, if we consult with another place, where our apostle lends us a key to decipher his meaning in this.  And none so fit to be interpreter of the apostle’s words as himself.  The place is, I Thes. 5:8, ‘And for an helmet, the hope of salvation:’ so that, without any further scruple, we shall fasten the grace of ‘hope,’ as in­tended by the Holy Ghost in this place.  Now, in or­der to a treatise of this grace, it is requisite that some­thing be said by explication that may serve as a light set up in the entry, to lead us the better into the several rooms of the point which is to be the subject of our discourse; and this I shall do by showing—First. What ‘hope’ is.  Second. Why called ‘the hope of salvation.’  Third. Why this ‘hope’ is compared to 'a helmet.’

The nature of the hope that forms the helmet.

           First Inquiry.  What is the nature of the hope that forms the Christian’s helmet?  A little to open the nature of this grace of hope, we shall do so as it will best be done, by laying down a plain description of it, and briefly explicating the parts.  Hope is a su­pernatural grace of God, whereby the believer, through Christ, expects and waits for all those good things of the promise, which at present he hath not received, or not fully.

           First.  Here is the author or efficient of hope —God; who is called ‘the God of all grace,’ I Peter 5:10 —that is, the giver and worker of all grace, both as to the first seed and the further growth of it.  It is impos­sible for the creature to make the least pile of grass, or being made, to make it grow; and as impossible to produce the least seed of grace in the heart, or to add one cubit to the stature of it.  No, as God is the father of the rain, by which the herbs in the fields spring and grow, so also of those spiritual dews and influences that must make every grace thrive and flourish.  The apostle, in the former place, teacheth us this when he prays that God would ‘perfect, establish, strengthen, settle them.’  And as of all grace in general, so of this in particular, Rom. 15:13, where he is styled ‘the God of hope;’ and ‘by whom we abound in hope’ also.  It is a supernatural hope; and thereby we distinguish it from the heathens’ hope, which, with the rest of their moral virtues, so far as any excellency was found in them, came from God—to whom every man that cometh into the world is beholden for all the light he hath, John 1:9—and is but the remains of man’s first noble principles, as sometimes we shall see a broken turret or two stand in the midst of the ruins of some stately palace demolished, that serves for little more than to help the spectator to give a guess what godly buildings once stood there.

           Second.  Here is hope’s subject—the believer.  True hope is a jewel that none wears but Christ’s bride; a grace with which none is graced but the be­liever’s soul.  Christless and hopeless are joined together, Eph. 2:12.  And here it is not amiss to observe the order in which hope stands to faith.  In regard of time, they are not one before another; but in order of nature and operation, faith hath preced ency of hope. First, faith closeth with the promise as a true and faithful word, then hope lifts up the soul to wait for the performance of it.  Who goes out to meet him that he believes will not come?  The promise is, as it were, God's love‑letter to his church and spouse, in which he opens his very heart, and tells all he means to do for her.  Faith reads and embraceth it with joy, whereupon the believing soul by hope looks out at his window with a longing expectation to see her hus­band's chariot come in the accomplishment thereof. So Paul gives a reason for his own hope from his faith, Acts 24:14, 15, and prays for the Romans’ faith in order to their hope, Rom. 15:13.

           Third.  Here is hope’s object.

1. In general, something that is good.  If a thing be evil, we fear and flee from it; if good, we hope and wait for it.  And here is one note of difference be­tween it and faith.  Faith believes evil as well as good; hope is conversant about good.
2. It is the good of the promise.  And in this faith and hope agree; both their lines are drawn from the same centre of the promise.  Hope without a promise is like an anchor without ground to hold by; it bears the promise on its name.  ‘I stand and am judged,’ saith Paul, ‘for the hope of the promise,’ Acts 26:6.  So David shows where he moors his ship and casts his anchor.  ‘I hope in thy word,’ Ps. 119:81.  True hope will trade only for true good.  And we can all nothing so that the good God hath not promised; for the promise runs thus, ‘No good thing will he withhold from them that walk up­rightly,’ Ps. 84:11.
3. All good things of the promise.  As God hath encircled all good in the promise, so he hath prom­ised nothing but good; and therefore hope’s object is all that the promise holds forth.  Only, as the matter of the promise hath more degrees of goodness, so hope intends its act, and longs more earnestly for it. God, he is the chief good, and the fruition of him is promised as the utmost happiness of the creature. Therefore true hope takes her chief aim at God, and makes after all other promises in a subserviency to heave and lift the soul nearer unto him.  He is called 'the Hope of Israel,’ Jer. 17:13.  There is nothing be­yond God the enjoying of which the believer projects; and nothing short of God that he can be so content with as, for the enjoying of it, to be willing to give God a general and full discharge of what by promise he stands engaged to him for.  Now, because God is only enjoyed fully and securely in heaven’s blissful state, therefore it is called ‘the hope of glory,’ Col. 1:27, ‘the hope of eternal life,’ Titus 3:7, and ‘the hope of salvation,’ I Thes. 5:8.
4. The object of hope is the good of the prom­ise, not in hand, but yet to be performed.  ‘Hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?’ Rom. 8:24.  Futurity is intrinsical to hope’s object, and distinguisheth it from faith, which gives a present being to the promise, and is —the subsistence of things hoped for, Heb. 11:1.  The good of the promise hath a kind of subsistence by faith in the soul.  It is heaven as it were in an interview.  It brings the Christian and heaven together, as if he were there already.  Hence they are said by faith to kiss and embrace the promise, Heb. 11:13, as two friends when they meet.  Faith speaks in the present tense, ‘We are conquerors, yea, we are more than conquerors.’  Hope in futuro—in the fu­ture, ‘I shall.’  And lastly, I inserted or not fully per­formed.  Partial performance of the promise intends hope; but, complete, ends hope, and swallows it up in love and joy.  Indeed, either the full performance of the promise, or execution of the threatening, shuts out all hope.  In heaven the promise is paid and hope dismissed, because we have what was looked for; and in hell the threatening is fully inflicted, and therefore no hope to be found among the damned, because no possibility of release.

           Fourth.  Hope's aid—by whose help and for whose sake it expects to obtain the promise—and that is Jesus Christ.  It waits for all in and through him. He is therefore called ‘our hope,’ I Tim. 1:1, because through him we hope for what is promised, both as the purchaser, by whose death we have hanc veniam sperandi—leave and liberty to expect good from God; and by whose Spir­it we have virtutem sperandi—abil­ity to hope; so that both the ¦>@F\" and *b<"µ4H —the authority and strength to hope comes from Christ; the former by the effusion of his blood for us, the latter by the infusion of his Spirit into us

Two Inferences To Be Drawn From The Connection Of Graces

           First Inference.  Let it learn thee, Christian, this wisdom, whenever thou findest any grace weakened, either through thy negligence not tending it, or Sa­tan’s temptations wounding it, speedily to endeavour to recovery of it; because thou dost not only lose the comfort which the exercise of this one grace might bring, but thou weakenest all the others.  Is he a bad husband who hazards the fall of his house by suffering a hole or two in the roof go unmended?  What, then, art thou that puttest thy whole gracious state in dan­ger, by neglecting a timely repair of the breach made in any one of thy graces?  And so when thou art temp­ted to any sin, look not on it as a single sin, but as having all other sins in its belly.  Consider what thou dost before thou gratifiest Satan in any one motion; for by one sin thou strengthenest the whole body of sin.  Give to one sin, and that will send more beggars to your door; and they will come with a stronger plea than the former; another, why mayest thou not do this for them, as well as that?  Thy best way is to keep the door shut to all; lest, while thou intendest to en­tertain only one, all crowd in with it.  But if it were possible that thou couldst break this connection of sin, so as to take off one link that pleaseth thee best, and not draw the whole chain after thee by commit­ting this, yet know there is a connection of guilt also. ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,’ James 2:10.  As he that administereth to the estate of one deceased, though it be never so little that he takes into his hands, be­comes liable to pay all his debts, and brings all his creditors upon him; so by tampering but with one sin, and that a little one, thou bringest the whole law upon thy back, which will arrest thee upon God’s suit, as a trespasser and transgressor of all its commands. A man cannot stab any part of the face but he will disfigure the whole countenance, and wrong the whole man.  Thus the law is copulative; an affront done to one redounds to the dishonour of all, and so is resented by God the lawgiver, whose authority is equally in all.

           Second Inference.  This may comfort those who trouble themselves with the thoughts of future chan­ges which may befall them, and so alter the scene of their affairs, as to call them to act a part they never much thought upon; and what shall they do then, say they?  Now, blessed be God, they make a shift to serve God in their place.  But what if straits come? poverty, sickness, or other crosses, make a breach in their bank?  How, alas! shall they then behave them­selves?  Where is their faith, patience, contentment, and other suffering graces, that should enable them to walk on these waves without sinking?  They fear, alas! little of these suffering graces is in their hands for such a time.  Well, Christian, for thy encouragement know, that if the graces of thy present condition —those I mean which God calls thee to exercise now in thy prosperous state—be lively, and quit them­selves well, thou mayest comfortably hope the other suffering graces, which now stand unseen behind the curtain, will do the same, when God changeth the scene of thy affairs and calls them upon the stage to act their part.  The more humble thou art now with thy abundance, the more patient thou wilt certainly show thyself in thy penury.  So much as thy heart is now above the world’s enjoyments, even so much thou wilt then be above the troubles and sorrows of it. Trees, they say, grow proportionably under ground to what they do above ground; and the Christian will find something like this in his graces.

THE CONCATENATION OF GRACES in their birth growth and decay 2/2

     But, may be, thy love to Christ is also lodged in a cloud.  Well, then, see whether thou canst spy no evangelical repentance, loathing thee with the sight of thy sins, as also enfiring thee with revenge against them, as those enemies which drew thee into rebel­lion against God, yea, were the bloody weapon with which thou hast so oft wounded the name and mur­dered the Son of God.  Behold, the grace thou look­est for stands before thee.  What is love to God, if zeal against sin as God’s enemy be not?  Did not Abi­shai love David, when his heart boiled so over with rage against Shimei for cursing David, that he could not contain, but breaks out into a passion, saying, ‘Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head?’ II Sam. 16:9.  And by thy own acknowledgment it troubles thee as much to hear thy lusts bark against God, and thy will is as good to be the death of them, if God would but say his fiat to it, as ever Abishai’s was to strike that traitor's head off his shoulders; and yet art thou in doubt whether thou lovest God or no?  Truly then thou canst not see fire for flame, love for zeal. Thus, as by taking hold of one link you may draw up the rest of the chain that lies under water, so by discovering one grace, thou mayest bring all to sight. Joseph and Mary were indeed deceived, when they supposed their son to be in the company of their kin­dred, Luke 2:44.  But so canst thou not here.  For this holy kindred of graces go ever together, they are knit, as members of the body, one to another.  Though you see only the face of a man, yet you doubt not but the whole man is there.

2. Use.  As it may relieve the sincere Christian, so it will help to uncase and put the hypocrite to shame, who makes great pretensions to some one grace when he hates another at the same time—a certain note of a false heart.  He never had any grace that loves not all graces.  Moses would not out of Egypt with half his company, Ex. 10.  Either all must go or none shall stir.  Neither will the Spirit of God come into a soul with half of his sanctifying graces, but with all his train.  If therefore thy heart be set against any one grace, it proves thou art a stranger to the rest; and though thou mayest seem a great ad­mirer and lover of one grace, yet the defiance thou standest in to others washeth off the paint of this fair cover.  Love and hatred are of the whole kind; he that loves or hates one saint as such, doth the same by ev­ery saint; so he that cordially closeth with one grace, will find every grace endeared to him upon the same account; for they are as like one to another, as one beam of the sun is to another beam.

           Second Connection.  Sanctifying graces are con­nected in their growth and decay.  Increase one grace, and you strengthen all; impair one, and you will be a loser in all; and the reason is, because they are recip­rocally helpful each to other.  So that when one grace is wounded, the assistance it should and would, if in temper, contribute to the Christian’s common stock, is either wholly detained or much lessened.  When love cools, obedience slacks and drives heavily, be­cause it wants the oil on its wheel that love used to drop.  Obedience faltering, faith weakens apace. How can there be great faith when there is little faithful­ness?  Faith weakening, hope presently wavers; for it is the credit of faith’s report, that hope goes on to ex­pect good from God.  And hope wavering, patience breaks, and can keep shop windows open no longer, because it trades with the stock hope lends it.  In the body you observe there are many members, yet all make but one body; and every member so useful, that the others are beholden to it.  So in the Christian there are many graces, but one new creature.  And the eye of knowledge cannot say to the hand of faith, ‘I have no need of thee,’ nor the hand of faith to the foot of obedience, but all are preserved by the mutual care they have of one another.  For, as ruin to the whole city may enter at a breach in one part of its wall, and the soul run out through a wound in a par­ticular member of the body; so the ruin of all the graces may, yea must needs, follow on the ruin of any one.  There is indeed a stronger bond of necessity between graces of our souls than there is between the members of our body.  It is possible, yea ordinary, for some member to be cut off from the body without the death of the whole, because all the members of the body are not vital parts.  But every grace is a vital part in the new creature, and so essential to its very being that its absence cannot be supplied per vicarium—by substitution.  In the body one eye can make a shift to do the office of it fellow which is put out; and one hand do the other's work that is cut off, though may not be so exactly; but faith cannot do the office of love, nor love the work of obedience.  The lack of one wheel spoils the motion of the whole clock.  And if one grace should be wanting, the end would not be attained for which this rare piece of workmanship is set up in the saint’s heart.

THE CONCATENATION OF GRACES, in their birth, growth, and decay 1/2

Note.  The sanctifying saving graces of God’s Spirit are linked inseparably together; there is a con­nection of them one to the other, and that in their birth, growth, and decay.

           First Connection.  In their birth.  Where one sanctifying grace is, the rest are all to be found in its company.  It is not so in common gifts and graces. These are parcelled out like the gifts Abraham bestowed on the children he had by his concubines, Gen. 25:6.  One hath this gift, another hath that, none hath all.  He that hath a gift of knowledge may want a gift of utterance, and so of the rest.  But sanctifying graces are like the inheritance he gave to Isaac; every true believer hath them all given him.  ‘He that is in Christ is a new creature.’  And, ‘Behold all things are be­come new,’ II Cor. 5:17.  Now, the new creature con­tains all.  As natural corruption is a universal princi­ple of all sin, that sours the whole lump of man’s na­ture; so is sanctifying grace an universal principle, that sweetly seasons and renews the whole man at once, though not wholly.  Grace comes, saith one, into the soul, as the soul into the body at once.  In­deed, it grows by steps, but is born at once.  The new creature hath all its parts formed together, though not its degrees.  Some one grace may, we confess, be per­ceived to stir, and so come under the Christian’s notice, before another.  He may feel his fear of God putting forth itself in a holy trembling, and awe upon his spirit, at the thoughts of God, before he sees his faith in the fiduciary recumbency of his soul upon God; yet the one grace is not in its production before the other.  One part of the world hath been discov­ered to us long after the other; yet all the world was made together.  Now this connection of graces in their birth is of double use.

1. Use.  To relieve the sincere Christian when in doubt of his gracious state, because some one grace which he inquires for, cannot at present be discerned in his soul by him.  Possibly it is faith thou hast been looking for, and it is not at any hand to be heard of. Well, Christian, do not presently unsaint thyself till thou hast made further trial of thyself.  Send out therefore thy spies to search for some other grace—as thy love to Christ; may be thou wilt hear some tidings of this grace, though the other is not in view.  Hath not thy love to God and Christ been seen by thee in such a temptation, chasing it away with Joseph’s answer to his wanton mistress, ‘How...can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’  Yea, mayest thou not see it all the day long, either in thy sincere care to please him, or hearty sorrow when thou hast done anything that grieves him? in which two veins run the life‑blood of a soul’s love to Christ.  Now, know to thy comfort, that thy love can tell thee news of thy faith.  As Christ said in another case, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen my Father,’ John 14:9; so say I to thee, ‘Thou that hast seen thy love to Christ, hast seen thy faith in the face of thy love.’

      

FOUR CONSIDERATIONS pr3/3 oving the sin of despair to exceed all others together 3/3

Consideration 3.  Despair strengthens and en­rageth all other sins in the soul.  None fight so fiercely as those who look for no quarter.  They think them­selves dead men, and therefore they will sell their lives as dear as they can.  Samson despaired of ever getting out of the Philistines’ hands—his eyes being now lost, and he unfit to make an escape.  What doth he meditate, now his case is desperate, but his ene­mies’ ruin, though it costs him his own?  He cares not though he pulls the house on his own head, so it may but fall on the Philistines’ also.  Absalom, when by the cursed counsel of Ahithophel he had, as he thought, made himself so hateful to David as to put him past all hope of being treated with, then breaks out with a high rage and seeks the ruin of his royal father with fire and sword.  So cruel a thing is despair, it teaches to show no respect where it looks for none. But most clearly it appears in the devil himself, who, knowing himself to be excepted from the pardon, sins with a rage as high as heaven.  And the same sin hath the same effects in men that it hath in the devil, ac­cording to the degrees of it that are found in them. ‘They said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices,’ Jer. 18:11, 12.  Did you never see a sturdy beggar—after a while knocking at a door, and concluding by the present silence or denial that he shall have nothing given him—fall into a cursing and railing of them that dwell there?  Even such foul lan­guage doth despair learn the sinner to belch out against the God of heaven.  If despair enters it is im­possible to keep blasphemy out.  Pray, therefore, and do thy utmost to repel this dart, lest it soon set thy soul on a flame with this hell‑fire of blasphemy.

           Hear, O you souls smitten for sin, that spend your life in sighs, sobs, and tears for your horrid crimes past, would you again be seen fighting against God as fierce as ever?  As you would not, take heed of despair.  If thou once thinkest that God's heart is hardened against thee, thy heart will not be long hardening against him.  And  this, by the way, may administer comfort to the thoughts of some gracious but troubled souls, who can find no faith that they have, yea, who are oft reckoning them­selves among despairers.  Let me ask thee who art in this sad con­dition, this one thing, Canst thou find any love breathing in thy heart towards God, though thou canst find no breath of love coming at present from him to thee?  And art thou tender and fearful of sin­ning against him, even while thou seemest to thy own thoughts to hope for no mercy from him?  If so, be of good comfort; thy faith may be weak, but thou art far from being under the power of despair.  Desperate souls do not use to reserve any love for God, or care for the pleasing of him.  There is some faith surely in thy soul which is the cause of these motions, though, like the spring in a watch, it be itself unseen, when the other graces moved by it are visible.

           Consideration 4.  The greatness of this sin of despair appears in this, that the least sin envenomed by it is unpardonable, and without this the greatest is pardonable.  That must needs of all sins be most abominable which makes the creature incapable of mercy.  Judas was not damned merely for his treason and murder; for others that had their hands deep in the same horrid fact, obtained a pardon by faith in that blood which through cruelty they shed; but they were these heightened into the greatest malignity possible, from the putrid stuff of despair and final impenitency with which his wretched heart was filled, that he died so miserably of, and now is infin­itely more miserably damned for.  Such being despair, then, oh, let us shrink from the woful gulf!

FOUR CONSIDERATIONS proving the sin of despair to exceed all others together 2/3

           O my soul, saith faith, thou didst ill, yea, very ill, in breaking the holy laws of God, and dishonouring the name of the great God of heaven and earth there­by; let thy heart ache for this.  But thou dost far worse by despairing of mercy.  In this act thou rejectest Christ, and keepest him off from satisfying the justice of the law that is injured by thee, and from redeeming the honour of his name from the reproach thy sins have scandalized it with.  What language speaks thy despair but this?  Let God come by his right and hon­our as he can, thou wilt never be an instrument active in the helping of him to it, by believing on Christ, in whom he may fully have them with advantage.  O what shame would despair put the mercy of God to in the sight of Satan his worst enemy!  He claps his hands at this, to see all the glorious attributes of God served alike and divested of their honour.  This is meat and drink to him.  That cursed spirit desires no better music than to hear the soul ring the promises, like bells, backward; make no other use of them than to confirm it in its own desperate thoughts of its dam­nation, and to tell it hell‑fire is kindled in its conscience, which no mercy in God will or can quench to eternity.  As the bloody Jews and Roman soldiers exercised their cruelty on every part almost of Christ’s body, crowning his head with thorns, goring his side with a spear, and fastening his hands and feet with nails; so the despairing sinner deals with the whole name of God.  He doth, as it were, put a mock crown on the head of his wisdom, setting it all to naught, and charging it foolishly, as if the method of salvation was not laid with prudence by the all‑wise God.  He nails the hands of his almighty power, while he thinks his sins are of that nature as put him out of the reach and beyond the power of God to save him. He pierceth the tender bowls of God through his mercy, of which he cannot see enough in a God that not only hath, but is, mercy and love itself, to per­suade him to hope for any favour or forgiveness at his hands.  In a word, the despairing soul transfixeth his very heart and will, while he unworthily frames no­tions of God, as if he were unwilling to the work of mercy, and not so inclined to exercise acts of pardon and forgiveness on poor sinners as the word declares him.  No, despair basely misreports him to the soul, as if he were a lame God, and had no feet—affec­tions, I mean—to carry him to such a work as forgiving sin is.  Now, what does the sum of all this amount to?  If you can, without horror and amaze­ment, stand to cast it up, and consider the weight of those circumstances which aggravate the flagitiousness of this unparalleled fact, surely it riseth to no less than the highest attempt that the creature can make for the murdering of God himself; for the infinitude of God’s wisdom, power, mercy, and all his attributes, are more intrinsical to the essence and being of God, than the heart‑blood is to the life of a mortal man. Shall he that lets out the heart‑blood of a man, yea, but attempts to do it, be a murderer—especially if he be a prince or a king the design is against—and des­ervedly suffer as such a one? and shall not he much more be counted and punished as the worst of all murderers that attempts to take away the life of God —though his arm and dagger be too short for the purpose—by taking from him in his thoughts the infinitude of those attributes which are, as I may say, the very life of God?  Surely God will neither part with the glory, nor suffer the dishonour, of his name at the hands of his sorry creature; but will engage all his attributes for the avenging himself on the wretch that attempts it.  O tremble therefore at despair. Nothing makes thy face gather blackness, and thy soul hasten faster to the complexion of the damned souls, than this.  Now thou sinnest after the similitude of those that are in hell.