EXHORTATION To Them That Want This Helmet of Hope 3/3

           Third Consideration.  Consider the horrid cruelty of this act, for thee, by thy incorrigible and im­penitent heart, to pull down eternal destruction on thy own head.  O what a sad epitaph is this to be found on a man’s grave‑stone!  Here lies one that cut his own throat, that unnaturally made away himself! this the man, that the woman, who would not be re­claimed!  They saw hell before them, and yet would leap into it, notwithstanding the entreaties of Christ by his Spirit and ministers to the contrary!  And the oftener thou hast attempted to do it, and God hath been staying thy hand by his gracious solicitations, the greater will be thy shame and confusion before God, men, and angels, at the last day.  God hath set a brand upon those acts of cruelty which a man com­mits upon himself above all other.  It would speak a man of a harsh currish nature, that could see a horse in his stable or hog in his sty starve, when he hath meat to lay before him; more cruel to hear his servant roar and cry for bread and deny it; yet more horrid if this were done to a child or wife; but of all—because nature cries loudest for self-preservation—the great­est violence that can possibly be done to the law of nature is, to forget the duty we owe to out own life. O what is it then for a sinner to starve his soul by rejecting Christ ‘the bread of life,’ and to let out his soul's blood at this wide sluice!  This is matchless cruelty!  Indeed, that which makes the self-murder of the body so great a crime is, because it doth so emin­ently—I will not say unavoidably—hazard the de­struction of the soul.  O how unworthy then art thou to have so noble a guest as thy soul dwell in thy bos­om, who preparest no better lodgings than hell for it in another world!—that soul whose nature makes it being capable of being preferred to the blissful pres­ence of God in heaven’s glory, if thou hadst not bolted the door against thyself by thy impenitency. But alas! this which is the worst murder is the most common.  They are but a few molesters that we now and then hear of who lay violent hands upon their bodies, at the report of which the whole country trembles; but you can hardly go into any house one day of the week, in which you shall not find some attempting to make away their souls; yea, that carry the very knife and halters in their bosoms—their be­loved sins I mean—with which they stab and strangle them; even those that are full of natural affections to their bodies, so as to be willing to spend all that they are worth, with her in the gospel, on physicians when the life of it is in danger; yet are so cruel to their dying damning souls, that they turn Christ their phys­ician out of doors, who comes to cure them on free cost.

           In a word, those that discover abundance of wis­dom and discretion in ordering their worldly affairs, you would wonder how rational they are, what an ac­count they will give why they do this, and why that; when it comes to the business of heaven and the sal­vation of their souls, they are not like the same men. So that, were you to judge them only by their actings herein, you could not believe them to be men.  And is it not sad, that the soul, which furnisheth you with reason for the despatch of your worldly business, should have no benefit itself from the very reason it lends you to do all your business with.  This, as one well saith, is as if the master of the house, who provides food for all his servants, should be himself kept by them from eating, and so remain the only starved creature in the house.  And is not this the sad judgment and plague of God, that is visibly seen upon many, and those that go for wise men too, stilo mundi —after the manner of the world?  Are not their souls, which give them understanding, to provide for back and belly, house and family, themselves starving in the meantime? being kept by the power of some lust from making use of their understanding and rea­son so far as to put them upon any serious and vig­orous endeavour for the salvation of them.  How then can souls that are so treated prosper?

The Doctrinal Part Of Scripture Bears The Impress Of Deity

EXHORTATION To Them That Want This Helmet of Hope 2/3

           Is this thy case, miserable man, and art thou cutting thy short life out into chips, and spending thy little time upon trifles, when the salvation of thy soul is yet to be wrought out?  Art thou tricking and trim­ming thy slimy carcass, while thy soul is dropping into hell?  What is this but to be painting the when the house is on fire?  For a man to be curious about trim­ming his face, when he is not sure his head shall stand a day on his shoulders!  It was an unseasonable time for Belshazzar to be feasting and quaffing when his kingdom lay at stake and an enemy at the gates.  It would have become a wise prince to have been fight­ing on the wall than feasting in his palace, and fatting himself for his own slaughter, which soon befell him, Dan. 5:30.  And it would become thee better to call up­on thy God, poor sinner, and lie in tears for thy sins at his foot, if yet haply thy pardon may be obtained, than by wallowing in thy sensual pleasures, to stupify thy conscience, and lay it asleep, by which thou canst only gain a little ease from the troublesome thoughts of thy approaching misery.

           Second Consideration.  Consider it is possi­ble—I do not mean in the way thou art in, for so it is as impossible that thou shouldst get to heaven, as it is that God should be found a liar—but it is possible that thou who art now without hope, mayest by a timely and vigorous use of the means obtain a hope of salvation; and certainly a possible hope carries in it a force of strong argument to endeavour for an actual hope.  There is never a devil in hell so bad but if he had a thousand worlds at his dispose—and every one better than this we dote on—would exchange them all for such a may be, yea count it a cheap pennyworth too.  It was but a possibility that brought that heathen king of Nineveh from his throne to lie grovelling at God’s foot in sackcloth and ashes, and that king will rise up in judgment against thee if thou dost not more.  For that was a possibility more remote than thine is.  It was spelled out, not from any express promise that dropped from the preacher to encourage them to humble themselves and turn to the Lord —for we read of nothing but desolation denounced —but from that natural theology which was imprinted on their minds.  This taught them to hope that he who is the chief good would not be implacable.  But you have many express promises from God’s faithful lip, that if you in his tie and way seek unto him, as sure as God is now in heaven, you shall live there with him in glory.  ‘Your heart shall live that seek God,’ Ps. 69:32.  Yea there are millions of blessed ones now in heaven experimenting the truth of this word, who once had no more right to heaven than your­selves now have; and that blissful place is not yet crowded so full but he can and will make room for you if indeed you have a mind to go thither.  There is one prayer which Christ made on earth that will keep heaven-gate open for all that believe on him unto the end of the world.  ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word,’ John 17:20.  This is good news indeed.  Me­thinks it would make your souls leap within your breasts, while you sit under the invitations of the gos­pel, as the babe once did in Elizabeth’s womb, upon the virgin Mary’s salutation.  Say not then, sinners, that ministers put you upon impossibilities, and bid you climb a hill inaccessible, or assault a city that is unconquerable.  No; it is the devil, and thy own unbe­lieving heart—who together conspire thy ruin—that tell thee so.  And as long as you listen to these coun­sellors you are like to do well, are you not?  Well, whatever they say, know, sinner, that if at last thou missest heaven—which God forbid—the Lord can wash his hands over your head and clear himself of your blood; thy damnation will be laid at thine own door.  It will then appear there was no cheat in the promise, no sophistry in the offer of the gospel. What God did tender he was willing to give, but thou didst voluntarily put eternal life from thee, and thy heart, whatever thy lying lips uttered to the contrary, did not like the terms.  ‘But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me,’ Ps. 81:11.  So that when the jury shall go on thy murdered soul, to inquire how thou camest to thy miserable end, thou wilt be found guilty of thine own damnation: nemo amittit Deum nisi qui dimittit eum—none loseth God but he that is willing to part with him.

EXHORTATION To Them That Want This Helmet of Hope 1/3

   First Consideration.  How deplored a thing it is to be in a hopeless state.  The apostle makes him to be ‘without God’ that is ‘without hope’—‘having no hope, and being without God in the world,’ Eph. 2:12.  God, to the soul, is what the soul is to the body. If that be so vile and noisome a thing, when it hath lost the soul that keeps it sweet; what is thy soul when nothing of God is in it?  ‘The heart of the wicked is little worth,’ saith Solomon.  And why? but because it hath not God to put a value on it.  If God, who is light, be not in thy understanding, thou art blind; and what is an eye whose sight is out fit for but to help thee break thy neck?  If God be not in thy conscience to pacify and comfort it, thou must needs be full of horror or void of sense; a raging devil or a stupid atheist.  If God be not in thy heart and affections to purify them, thou art but a shoal of fish, a sink of sin. If God be not in thee, the devil is in thee; for man’s heart is a house that cannot stand empty.  In a word, thou canst not well be without this hope neither in life nor death.  Not in life—what comfort canst thou take in all the enjoyments thou hast in this life with­out the hope of a better?  A sad legacy it is which shuts the rebellious child from all claim to the inher­itance.  Thou hast an estate, it may be, but it is all you must look for.  And is it not a dagger at the heart of thy joy to think thy portion is paid thee here, which will be spent by that time the saint comes to receive his?  Much less tolerable is it to be without this hope in a dying hour.  Who can without horror think of leaving this world, though full of sorrows, that hopes for no ease in the other?  The condemned malefactor, as ill as he likes his smokey hole in the prison, had rather be there, than accept of deliverance at the hangman's hand; he had rather live still in his stink­ing dungeon than exchange it for a gibbet.  And great­er reason hath the hopeless soul—if he understands himself—to wish he may spend his eternity on earth, though in the poorest hole or cave in it—and that under the most exquisite torment of stone or gout —than to be eased of that pain with hell’s torment. Hence is the sad confusion in the thoughts of guilty wretches when their souls are summoned out of their bodies.  This makes the very pangs of death stronger than they would be, if these dear friends had but a hopeful parting.  If the shriek and mournful outcry of some friends in the room of a dying man may so dis­turb him as to make his passage more terrible, how much more then must the horror of the sinner’s own conscience under the apprehensions of that hell whither it is going, amaze and affright him?  There is a great difference between a wife’s parting with her husband, when called from her to live at court under the shine of his prince’s favour, whose return after a while she expects with an accumulation of wealth and honour; and another whose husband is taken out of her arms to be dragged to prison and torment.

An objection answered with some practical reflections 2/2

     (2.) Reflection.  Remember how oft God hath confuted thy fears and proved thy unbelief a false prophet.  Hath he not knocked at thy door with in­ward comfort and outward deliverances, when thou hadst put out the candle of hope, given over looking for him, and been ready to lay thyself down on the bed of despair?  Thus he came to Hezekiah, after he had peremptorily concluded his case desperate, Isa. 38:10, 11.  Thus to the disciples in their unbelieving dumps, ‘We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel,’ Luke 24:21.  They speak as if now they were in doubt whether they should own their former faith or no.  Hath it not been formerly thus with thee? wert thou never at so sad a pass—the storm of thy fears so great—that the anchor of hope even came home, and left thee to feed with misgiving and despairing thoughts, as if now thy everlasting night were come, and no morning tale more expected by thee? yet even then thy God proved them all liars, by an unlooked for surprise of mercy with which he stole sweetly upon thee?  If so, press and urge this experience home upon thyself, to encourage thy hope in all future temptations.  What, O my soul! thou wouldst say, wilt thou again be seared with these false alarms?—again lend an ear to thy distrustful de­sponding thoughts, which so oft thou hast found liars, rather than believe the report of the promise, which never put thy hope to shame as these have done? The saints are oft feeding their hopes on the carcass of their slain fears.  The time which God chose, and the instrument he used, to give the captive Jews their jail-delivery and liberty to return home, were so incredi­ble to them—who now looked rather to be ground in pieces by those two millstones, the Babylonians with­in, and the Persians without the city—that when it came to pass, like Peter whom the angel had carried out of prison, Acts 12:1-17, it was some time before they could come to themselves, and resolve whether it was a real truth or but a pleasing dream, Ps. 126:1.

           Now, see what effect this strange disappointment of their fears had upon their hope for afterward.  It sends them to the throne of grace for the accomplish­ment of what of what was so marvellously begun. ‘The Lord hath done great things for us; whereof we are glad.  Turn again our captivity, O Lord,’ ver. 3, 4. They have got a hand-hold by this experiment of his power and mercy; and they will not now let him go till they have more.  Yea, their hope is raised to such a pitch of confidence, that they draw a general conclusion from this particular experience for the comfort of themselves or others in any future distress.  ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.  He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him,’ ver. 5, 6.

           (3.) Reflection.  Remember what sinful distem­pers have broke out in thy afflictions and tempta­tions, and how God hath, notwithstanding these, car­ried on a work of deliverance for thee.  So that thou mayest say, in respect of these enemies in thy bosom, what David spake triumphantly in regard of his ene­mies without, that ‘God hath prepared a table before me in the presence of thy enemies,’ yea, of his ene­mies.  While thy corruptions have been stirring and acting against him, his mercy hath been active for thy deliverance.  O what a cordial-draught this would be to thy fainting hope!  That which often sinks the Christian’s heart in any distress, inward or outward, and even weighs down his head of hope that it cannot look up to God for help and succour at such a time, is the sense of those sinful infirmities which then dis­cover themselves in him.  ‘How,’ saith the poor soul, ‘can I look that God should raise me out of this sick­ness, wherein I have bewrayed so much impatience and frowardness?  Or out of that temptation in which I have so little exercised faith, and discovered so much unbelief?  Surely I must behave myself better before any good news be sent from heaven to me.’  It is well, poor Christian, thou art sensible of thy sins as to be thy own accuser, and prevent Satan’s doing it for thee; yet be not oppressed into discouragement by them.  Remember how God hath answered the like objections formerly, and saved thee with a ‘notwith­standing.’  If these could have hardened his bowels against thee, hadst thou been alive, yea, out of hell this day?  Didst thou ever receive a mercy of which God might not have made stoppage upon this very account that makes thee now fear he will not help thee?  Or, if thou hast not an experience of thy own at hand—which were strange—then borrow one of other saints.  David is an instance beyond exception. This very circumstance with which his deliverance was, as I may say, en­amelled, did above all affect his heart: ‘I said in my haste, All men are liars.  What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?’ Ps. 116:11, 12.  He remembered his sinful and distempered carriage; and this he mentions, as to take shame for the shame, so to wind up his heart to the highest peg of thankfulness.  He knows not how to praise God enough for that mercy which found him giving the lie to God’s messenger—even Samuel him­self—that was sent to tell him it was a coming.  And he doth not only make this circumstance an incentive to praise for what is past, but lays it down for a ground of hope for the future.  ‘I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee,’ Ps. 31:22.  As if he had said, ‘When I prayed with so little faith, that I as it were unprayed my own prayer, by concluding my case in a manner desperate; yet God pardoned my hasty spirit, and gave me that mercy which I had hardly any faith to expect.’  And what use doth he make of this experi­ence, but to raise every saint's hope in a time of need? ‘Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord,’ ver. 24.

An objection answered with some practical reflections 1/2

           But, you will possibly say, how can a saint’s past experience be so helpful to his hope for the future, when God, we see, often crosseth the saint’s experi­ences?  He delivers them out of one sickness, and takes them away, may be, with the next; he saves them in one battle without a scratch or hurt, and in another a while after they are killed or wounded; how then can a saint ground and bottom his hope from a past deliverance to expect deliverance in the like strait again?

           Answer 1.  There is the same power still in God that was then.  What he did once for thee he can with as much ease do again; and this is one way thy experi­ences may help thee. Thou hast seen God make bare his arm, so that except thou thinkest that he since hath lost the strength or use of it, and is become at last a God with a lame hand, hope hath an object to act upon, and such one as will lift thy head above water.  Indeed, the soul never drowns in despair till it hath lost its hold on the power of God.  When it questions whether God will deliver, this is a sad leak, I confess, and will let in a thousand fears into thy soul; yet so long as the Christian can use this pump —I mean, act faith on the power of God, and believe that God can deliver when he pleases—thou gh it will not clear the ship of his soul of all its fears, yet it will keep it from quite sinking, because it will preserve him in a seeking posture.  ‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean,’ Mark 1:40.  And for thee to say God cannot deliver, who hast been an eyewitness to what he hath done, were not only to betray thy great unbelief, but to forfeit thy reason as a man also.  But,

           Answer 2.  To give a more close answer to the question, the saint, from his former experiences, even of temporal salvations, may, yea ought, not only be­lieve that God can, but also that he will, save him in all future straits and dangers of this nature; only, he cannot conclude that he will do it in the same way as in former deliverances.  And none I hope will say, if he hath deliverance, that his experiences are crossed because God doth use another method in the convey­ance of it to him. A debt may be fully satisfied, as with money, so with that which is money worth, ex­cept the bond restrains the payment otherwise.  Now there is no clause to be found in any promise for tem­poral mercies, that binds God to give them in specie or in kind.  Spiritual mercies—such I mean as are saving and essential to the saint’s happiness—these indeed are promised to be given in kind, because there is nothing equivalent that can be paid in lieu of them; but temporal mercies are of such an inferior nature, that a compensation and recompense may be easily given in their stead; yea, God never denies these to a saint, but for his gain and abundant advan­tage.  Who will say the poor saint is a loser whose purse God denieth to fill with gold and silver, but filleth his heart with contentation? or the sick saint, when God saves him not by restoring to former health, but by translating to heaven?  And so much may suffice for answer to the objection propounded. I shall wind up this head with two or three reflections to be used by the Christian for his better improving past experiences when he is at a plunge.

           (1.) Reflection.  Look back, Christian, to thy past experiences, and inquire whether thou canst not find that thy God hath done greater matters for thee than this which thou now hast so many disquieting fears and despairing thoughts about.  I suppose thy present strait great; but wert thou never in a greater, and yet God did at last set thy feet in a large place? Thou art now in a sad and mournful posture; but hath not he brightened a darker cloud than this thou art now under, and let thee out of it into a state of light and joy?  Surely thy staggering hope may prevent a fall by catching hold of this experience.  Art thou not ashamed to give thyself for lost, and think of nothing but drowning, in a less storm than that out of which God hath formerly brought thee safe to land? See David relieving his hope by recognizing such an experiment as this, ‘Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from fall­ing,’ Ps. 56:13.  Hast thou given me the greater, and wilt thou stand with me for the less?  Haply thy present fear, Christian, is apostasy.  Thou shalt one day fall by the hand of thy sins; this runs in thy thoughts, and thou canst not be persuaded otherwise. Now it is a fit time to recall the day of God’s convert­ing grace.  Darest thou deny such a work to have passed upon thee?  If not, why then shouldst thou despair of perseverance?  That was day wherein he saved thy soul.  ‘This day,’ saith Christ to Zacchaeus, ‘is salvation come to this house,’ Luke 19:9.  And did God save thy soul by converting grace, and will he not keep thy feet from falling by his sustaining grace? Was it not both more mercy and power to take thee out of the power of sin and Satan, than it will cost him to preserve thee from falling into their hands again?  Surely the Israelites would not so often have feared provision in the wilderness, had they remem­bered with what a high hand God did bring them out of Egypt.  But, may be it is some outward affliction that distresseth thee.  Is it greater than the church’s was in cruel bondage and captivity? yet she had some­thing to recall that put a new life into her hope.  ‘The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him,’ Lam. 3:24.  See, she makes a spiritual mercy—because incomparably greater of the two—a ground of hope for temporal salvation, which is less. And hast not thou, Christian, chosen him for thy por­tion?  Dost thou not look for a heaven to enjoy him in for ever?  And can any dungeon of outward afflic­tion be so dark that this hope will not enlighten? Recall thy experiences of his love to thy soul, and thou canst not be out of hope for thy body and outward condition.  He that hath laid up a portion in heaven for thee, will lay out surely all the expenses thou needest in thy way thither.

      

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.