APPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN HELMET, ALIKE TO THOSE WHO HAVE, AND TO THOSE WHO HAVE IT NOT 1/3

           Having shown now what the helmet of salvation is, and several of its offices to the Christian, we pro­ceed to bring out how its doctrine applies alike to those who have, and to those who have it not, and the several points of improvement which naturally flow from it.  These may be classed as four.  First. A trial of what metal our helmet of hope is made.  Second. An exhortation to those who, upon trial, find it genu­ine, in which two duties are pressed on them.  Third. Arguments why we should strengthen our hope, with directions how we may do so.  Fourth. An exhorta­tion to those who want this helmet of hope. 

FIRST POINT OF IMPROVEMENT Trial of what metal our helmet of hope is made.   For trial, whether we have this helmet of hope on our heads or no—this helmet, I say, commended to us in the text.  As for such paltry ware, that most are contended with for cheapness’ sake, it, alas! de­serves not the name of a true hope, no more than a paper cap doth of a helmet.  O, look to the metal and temper of your helmet in an especial manner, for at this most blows are made.  He that seeks chiefly to defend his own head—the serpent I mean—will aim most to wound yours.  None but fools and children are so credulous as to be blown up with great hopes upon any light occasion and slight ground.  They who are wise, and have their wits about them, will be as wary as how they place their hopes, especially for sal­vation, as a prudent pilot, that hath a rich lading, would be where he moors his ship and casts his anchor.  There is reason for our utmost care herein, because nothing exposeth men to more shame than to meet with disappointment in their hopes.  ‘They were confounded because they had hoped; they came thith­er and were ashamed,’ Job 6:20; that is, to miss of what they hoped to have found in those brooks.  But there is no shame like to that which  a false hope for eternal salvation will put sinners to at last; some shall rise ‘to shame everlasting,’ Dan. 10.  They shall awake out of their graves, and out of that fool’s paradise also, wherein their vain hopes had entertained them all their lives, and see, instead of a heaven they expected, hell to be in expectation of them, and gaping with full mouth for them.  If the servants of Eglon were so ashamed after their waiting awhile at their prince’s door, from whom they expected all their preferment, to find him, and their hopes with him, dead on the floor, Judges 3:25; O, whose heart then can think what a mixture of shame and horror shall meet in their faces and hearts at the great day, who shall see all their hopes for heaven hop headless, and leave them in the hands of tormenting devils to all eternity!  Hannibal’s soldiers did not so confidently divide the goldsmiths’ shops in Rome among themselves —which yet they never took—as many presumptuous sinners do promise themselves heaven’s bliss and happiness, who must instead thereof sit down with shame in hell, except they can, before they die, show better ground for their hope than now they are able to do.  O what will those fond dreamers do in the day of the Lord’s anger, when they shall see the whole world in a light flame round about them, and hear God —whose piercing eyes will look them through and through—calling them forth before men and angels to the scrutiny!  Will they stand to their hope, and vouch it to the face of Christ, which now they bless themselves so in?  Surely their hearts will fail them for such an enterprise.  None then will speak so ill of them as their own consciences shall do.  God will in that day use their own tongues to accuse them, and set forth the folly of their ridiculous hope to the confusion of their faces before all the world.  The prophet foretells a time when the false prophets ‘shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive, but he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman,’ &c., Zech. 13:4, 5.

           Truly the most notorious false prophet that the world hath, and deceives most, is this vain hope which men take up for their salvation.  This proph­esies of peace, pardon, and heaven, to be the portion of such as [it] never once entered into God's heart to make heirs thereof.  But the day is coming, and it hastens, wherein this false prophet shall be con­founded.  Then the hypocrite shall confess he never had any hope for salvation but what was the idol of his own fancy’s making; and the formalist shall throw off the garment of his profession by which he de­ceived himself and others, and appear to himself and to all the world in his naked colours.  It behooves therefore everyone to be strict and curious in the search of his own heart, to find what his hope is built upon.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 7/7

           Third Assurance.  Hope assures the soul, that while God stays the performance of one promise, he shall have the absence thereof supplied with the pres­ence of another.  And this is enough to quiet the heart of any that understands himself.  God hath laid things in such a sweet method, that there is not one point of time wherein the soul of a believer is left wholly des­titute of comfort, but there is one promise or other that stands to minister unto his present wants.  Some­times, haply, he may want what he strongly desires, yet even then care is taken for his present subsistence; one promise bears the Christian company while another comes.  And what cause hath the sick man to complain, though all his friends do not sit up with him together, if they take it by turns, and never leave him without a sufficient number to look to him?

           We read of a ‘tree of life,’ Rev. 22:2, ‘which bears twelve manner of fruits, and yieldeth her fruit every month,’ so that it is never without some hanging on it which is fit for the eater.  What can this tree be bet­ter conceived to be than Christ, who yields all manner of fruit in his promises, and comfort for all times, all conditions?  The believer can never come but he shall find some promise ripe to be eaten, with which he may well stay his stomach till the other—whose time to be gathered is not yet come—hangs for further ri­pening.  Here you see the Christian hath provision for all the year long.  When Christ returned to heaven he gave his disciples this to comfort them, that he would come again, and carry them with him unto his father’s house, where no he lives himself in glory, John 14:2, 3. This is sweet indeed.  But, alas! what shall they do in the meantime to weather out those many storms which were to intervene between this promise and the time when it shall be performed?  This also our Sav­iour considered, and tells them he does not mean to leave them comfortless, but gives them another promise to keep house with, in the meantime, i.e. a promise of his Spirit—who should be with them on earth, while [until] he took them to be with him in heaven, John 14:16.  The Christian is never at such a loss wherein hope cannot relieve it.  ‘Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is, for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit,’ Jer. 17:7, 8.  These waters are the promises from which the be­liever draws continual matter of comfort, that as a tree planted by a river flourisheth, however the year goes, so doth he, whatever the temper of God’s ex­terior providence is. Possibly the Christian is in an afflicted state, and the promise for deliverance comes not, yet then hope can entertain him in the absence of that, at the cost of another promise—that though God doth not at present deliver him out of the afflic­tion, yet he will support him under it, I Cor. 10:13.  If yet the Christian cannot find this promise paid into such a height as to discharge him of all impatience, distrust, and other sinful distempers—which to his grief he finds too busy in him for all the promise —then hope hath another window to let out the smoke at, and that is by presenting the soul with those promises which assure the weak Christian that pardoning mercy shall cover those defects which as­sisting grace did not fully conquer.  ‘I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him,’ Mal. 3:1.  So, Micah 7:18‘Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever.’  And certainly God would not have suffered so much impatience to have broken out in Job, but that he would have something left for par­doning mercy to do at the close of all, to which that holy man should see himself beholden, both for his deliverance, and that honourable testimony also which God himself gave of him before his uncharit­able friends, who from his great afflictions, and some discomposure of spirit in them, did so unmercifully burden him with the heavy charge of being a hypocrite.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 6/7

2. There flows in a fulness of benediction, with an enjoyment reaped in God’s full time, which is lost for want of patience to wait thereunto.  Now this ben­ediction is paid into the waiting soul’s bosom two ways.  (1.) He hath that enjoyment sweetened to him with God’s love and favour for his comfort.  (2.) He hath it sanctified to him in the happy fruit it bears for his good.

           (1.) He hath it sweetened to him with God’s love and favour for his comfort; which he cannot so well expect that carves for himself, and cannot stay for God in his own time to lay it on his trencher.  There is guilt ever to be found in the company of impatience and distrust.  And where guilt is contracted in the get­ting of an enjoyment, there can be little sweetness tasted when it comes to be used.  O guilt is an embit­tering thing! It keeps the soul in a continual fear of hearing ill news from heaven; and a soul in fear is not in case to relish the sweetness of a mercy.  Such a one may happily have a little tumultuous joy, and warm himself awhile at this rash fire of his own kindling, till he comes to have some serious discourse with his own heart in cold blood, about the way and manner of getting the enjoyment and this is sure to send such a dampness to the heart of the poor creature as will not suffer that fire long to burn clear.  O what a stab it is to the heart of an oppressor, to say of his great wealth, as that king of his crown, ‘Here is a fair estate, but God knows how I came by it!’  What a wound to the joy of a hypocrite!  ‘I have pretended to a great deal of comfort, but God knows how I came by it!’ Whereas the Christian who receives any comfort, in­ward or outward, from God’s hand, as a return for his patient waiting, hath none of these sad thoughts to scare him and break his drought when the cup is in his mouth.  He knows where he had his outward es­tate and inward comfort.  He can bring God to vouch them both, that they with his leave and liking.  There is a great odds between the joy of the husbandman, at the happy inning of his corn in harvest, and the thief’s joy, who hath stolen some sheaves out of an­other’s field, and is making merry with his booty as soon as he is got home.  Possibly you may hear a greater noise and outis^[1] of joy in the thief’s house than the honest husbandman’s, yet no compare be­tween them.  One knock at the thief’s door by an of­ficer that comes to search his house for stolen goods, spoils the mirth of the whole house—who run, one this way and another that.  O what fear and shame must then take hold on his guilty heart, that hears God coming to search for his stolen mercies and comforts!

           (2.) The waiting soul hath enjoyments sanctified to him for his good; and this another wants with all he hath.  And what is the blessing of mercy, but to have it do us good?  Hasty spirits grow worse by en­joyments gathered out of season.  This is a sore evil indeed, to have wealth for our hurt, and comfort for our hurt.  It was the sin of Israel that ‘they waited not for his counsel,’ Ps. 106:13.  God had taken them as his charge, and undertook to provide for them if they would have stood to his allowance; but they could not stay his leisure, ‘but lusted exceedingly in the wilder­ness, and tempted God in the desert,’ ver. 14.  They must have what pleaseth their palate, and when their own impatient hearts call, or not at all.  And so they had: ‘He gave them their request,’ ver. 15.  But they had better been without their feast, for they did not thrive by it, ‘he sent leanness into their soul,’ ver. 15. A secret curse came with their enjoyments, which soon appeared in those great sins they thereupon were left to commit—‘they envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord,’ ver. 16—as also in the heavy judgments by which God did testify against them for the same, Num. 11:31.  Whereas mer­cies that are received in God’s way and time, prove meat of better juice and purer nourishment to the waiting soul.  They do not break out into such bot­ches and plague-sores as these.  As the other are fuel for lust, so these food to the saints’ graces, and make them more humble and holy.  See this in Isa. 30:18, 19, compared with ver. 22, where they, as a fruit of their patient waiting on God for their outward deliv­erance, have with it that which is more worth than the deliverance itself, i.e. grace to improve and use it hol­ily.  It was a great mercy that Hannah had, after her many prayers and long waiting, ‘a son;’ but a greater, that she had a heart to give up her son again to God, that gave him to her.  To have estate, health, or any other enjoyment upon waiting on God for the same, is mercy, but not to be compared with that blessing which seasons and sanctifies the heart to use them for God’s glory.  And this is the ordinary portion of the waiting soul, and that not only in outward comforts, but inward also.  The joy and inward peace which the sincere soul hath thus, makes it more humble, holy, heavenly; whereas the comfort which the hypocrite comes so quickly by, either degenerates into pride and self-conceit, or empties itself into some other fil­thy sink—sometimes even of open profaneness it­self—before it hath run far

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 5/7

1. A fulness of duration.  Enjoyments snatched out of God’s hand, and not given by it, are but guests come, not to stay long; like David’s child born in adultery, they commonly die in the cradle.  They are like some fruit gathered green, which soon rots.

           Is it riches that is thus got?  Some are said to ‘make haste to be rich,’ Prov. 28:20.  They cannot, by a conscionable diligence in their particular calling, and exercise of godliness in their general, wait upon God.  No; the promise doth not gallop fast enough for them; on therefore they spur, and, by sordid prac­tices, make haste to be rich.  But God makes as much haste to melt their estate, as they do to gather.  No salt will keep that meat long from corrupting which was overheated in the driving, nor any care and prov­idence of man keep that estate from God’s curse which is got by so hot and sinful a pursuit.  ‘Wealth gotten by vanity’—that is, vain, unwarrantable courses —‘shall be diminished,’ Prov. 13:11.  Like the unsound fat which great drinkers and greedy eaters gain to themselves, it hath that in it that will hasten its ruin. ‘The getting of treasure by a lying tongue is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death,’ Prov 21:6.  The meaning is, such estates are tossed like a ball, from one to another, and are not to stay long in any hand, till it comes into the godly man’s, whom God oft, by his providence, makes heir to such men’s riches, as you may see, Job 27:11-23; Ecc. 2:26.

           Again, is it comfort and inward joy?  Some make too much haste for this.  They are not like other Christians, who use to have a wet seed-time, and are content to wait for joy till harvest, or at least till it be in some forwardness, and the seed of grace, which was sown in tears of humiliation, appears above ground in such solid evidences as do in some degree satisfy them concerning the reality and truth of the same.  Then indeed the sincere Christian’s spirit begins to cheer up, and his comfort holds, yea increaseth more and more, as the sun that, after a contest with some thick mist, breaks forth, and gets a full victory of those vapours which for a while darkened it.  ‘The light of the righteous rejoiceth,’ Prov. 13:9—that is, over all his fears and doubts.  But there are others so hasty that they are catching at comfort before they were ever led into acquaintance with godly sorrow.  They are delivered without pain, and their faith flames forth into the joy of assurance, before any smoke of doubtings and fears were seen to arise in their hearts.  But alas! it is as soon lost as got, like too forward a snibbing spring, that makes the husband­man weep at harvest; or a fair sunshine day in winter, that is the breeder of many foul ones after it.  The stony ground is a clear instance of this, Mark 4, whose joy was a quickly down as up.  A storm of persecution or temptation comes, and immediately he is offend­ed.

           In a word, take but one instance more, and that is in point of deliverance.  Such hasty spirits that can­not wait for the promise to open their prison door, and God to give them a release in his time, but break prison, and by some unwarrantable practice wind themselves out of trouble; do we not see how miser­ably they befool themselves?  For while they think, by the midwifery of their sinful policy, to hasten their deliverance, they kill it in the birth, which, had it come in God’s time, might have stayed many a fair day with them.  The Jews are a sad instance of this; who, though God gave them such full security for their deliverance from the Babylonian hand, would yet take their own course, hoping, it seems, to com­pass it sooner by policy than they could expect it to be effected by providence, and therefore to Egypt they will post in all haste, not doubting but they shall thence bring their deliverance.  But alas! it proved far otherwise; for all they got was to have more links add­ed to their chain of bondage, and their lordly masters to use greater rigour upon them, which God, by his prophet, bids them thank their own hasty unbelieving spirits for.  ‘Thus saith the Lord God, the holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength, and ye would not,’ Isa. 30:15.  Indeed, if we look on such as have quietly waited by hope for God’s coming to their help, we shall find they ever sped well.  Joshua, who bore up against all discouragements from God and man, steadfastly believing, and patiently waiting, for the land God had promised, did he not live to walk over their graves in the wilderness that would have turned back to Egypt? and to be witness to their destruction also, who presumptuously went up the hill to fight the enemy and take the land—as they vainly hoped—before God’s time was come? Deut. 1.  Yea, did not he at last divide the land, and lay his bones in a bed of honour, after he had lived to see the promise of God happily performed to his people? So David, whose hope and patience was admirable in waiting for the kingdom after he had the promise of it; especially if we consider what fair opportunities he had to take cruel Saul out of the way, whose life alone did stand betwixt him and the throne.  Neither did he want matter to fill up a declaration for the satisfaction and pacifying the minds of the people, if he had a mind to have gone this way to the crown; but he knew those plausible arguments for such a fact, which would have pleased the multitude, would not have pa­cified his own conscience, and this stayed his hand from any such ripping open the womb of the promise, to come by the crown with which it was big, but left it to go its full time, and he lost nothing by it.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 4/7

 Second Assurance.  Hope assures the Christian, that though God stays long, yet, when he does come, he will abundantly recompense his longest stay.  As the wicked get nothing by God’s forbearing to execute his threatening, but the treasuring up more wrath for the day of wrath; so the saints lose nothing by not having the promise presently paid into them, but ra­ther do, by their forbearing God a while, treasure up more joy against the joyful day, when the promise shall be performed.  ‘To them who by patient con­tinuance...seek for glory and honour,...eternal life,’ Rom. 2:7.  Mark, it is not enough to do well, but to ‘continue’ therein; nor that neither, except it be ‘pa­tient continuing in well-doing’—in the midst of God’s seeming delays; and whoever he be that can do this, shall be rewarded at last for all his patience.  Plough­ing is hungry work, yet because it is in hope of reaping such an abundant increase, the husbandman faints not.  O my soul, saith hope, though thou wantest thy dinner, hold but out a while, and thou shalt have din­ner and supper served in together when night comes. The sick fits and qualms which the Christian hath in the absence of the promise are all forgot, and the trouble of them over, when once it comes and he is feasted with the joy it brings.  ‘Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life;’ Prov. 13:12—that is, when it cometh in God’s time after long waiting, then it causeth an overflowing joy.  As there is a time which God hath set for the ripening the fruits of the earth, before which, if they be gathered, it is to our loss; so there is a time set by God for the good things of the promise, which we are to wait for, and not unseasonably pluck, like green apples, off the tree—as too many do, who, having no faith or hope to quiet their spirits while [until] God’s time comes, do therefore snatch that by unwarrant­able means, which would in time drop ripe into their bosoms.

           And what get these short‑spirited men by their haste?  Alas! they find their enjoyments thin and lank, like corn reaped before it is fit for the sickle, wherewith he that bindeth the sheaves, filleth not his bosom.  Therefore we find this duty of waiting press­ed under this very metaphor.  ‘Be patient, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord,’ James 5:7.  Stay God’s time, till he comes according to his promise, and takes you off your suffering work, and be not hasty to shift yourselves out of trouble. And why so?  ‘Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.  Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ The husbandman who, the proverb saith, is, dives in novum annum—rich in hope of the next year’s crop —though he gladly would have his corn in the barn, yet waits for its ripening in the ordinary course of God’s providence.  When the former rain comes he is joyful, but yet desires the latter rain also, and stays for it, though long in coming.  And do not we see, that a shower sometimes falls close to the time of harvest, that plumps the ear to the great increase of the crop, which some lose, that, through distrust of providence, put in their sickle too soon?  I am sure mercies come fullest when most waited for.  Christ did not so soon supply them with wine at the marriage of Cana, as his mother desired, but they had the more for staying a while.  There is a double fullness, which the Christian may hope to find in those enjoyments that he hath with long patience waited for, above another that can­not stay God’s leisure.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 3/7

           (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness.  Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive?  ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2, 3.  See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart.  As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds.  You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’  The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him.

           (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth.  As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself.  And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God.  In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure.  They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it.  But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game.  As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy.

3. Cause.  Impotency.  Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies.  The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about.  A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matt. 18:26.  But the great God cannot be put to such straits.  ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ I Sam. 15:29.  As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise.  Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’  ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give.  But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect.  ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isa. 26:4.  Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it.  One man's ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him.  If they him, he is forced to fail them.  Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands.  But God’s power is independent.  Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever.  ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’  And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion.  The Lord God is my strength,’ Hab. 3:17-19.  O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth.  The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants.  ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Ps. 31:19.  It is laid up, as a father hath his child's portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes.  The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise.  ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist.  It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise.

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           (1.) His name is truth and faithfulness.  Now can truth itself lie, or faithfulness deceive?  ‘In my Fa­ther’s house,’ saith Christ, ‘are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go,...I will come again and receive you,’ John 14:2, 3.  See here the candour and nakedness of our Saviour’s heart.  As if he had said, ‘This is no shift to be gone, that so I may by a fair tale leave you in hopes of that which shall never come to pass. No; did I know it otherwise than I speak, my heart is so full of love to you, that it would not have suffered me to put such a cheat upon you for a thous­and worlds.  You may trust me to go; for as surely as you see me go, shall your eyes see me come again to your everlasting joy.’  The promises are none of them yea and nay, but ‘yea and amen’ in him.

           (2.) He is wisdom as well as truth.  As he is truth, he cannot wrong or deceive us in breaking his word; and being wisdom, it is impossible he should promise that which should prejudice himself.  And therefore, he makes no blots in his purposes or promises, but what he doth in either is immutable. Repentance is indeed an act of wisdom in the crea­ture, but it presupposeth folly, which is incompatible to God.  In a word, men too oft are rash in promising; and therefore what they in haste promise they per­form at leisure.  They consider not before they vow, and therefore inquire afterward whether they had best stand to it.  But the all‑wise God needs not this after-game.  As in the creation he looked back upon the several pieces of that goodly frame, and saw them so exact that he took not up his pencil the second time to mend anything of the first draft; so in his promises, they are made with such infinite judgment and wis­dom, that what he hath writ he will stand to for ever. ‘I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judg­ment,’ Hosea 2:19. Therefore for ever, because in righ­teousness and in mercy.

3. Cause.  Impotency.  Men’s promises, alas! de­pend upon many contingencies.  The man haply is rich when he seals the bond, and poor before the day of payment comes about.  A wreck at sea, a fire by land, or some other sad accident, intervenes, either quite impoverisheth him, or necessitates him to beg further time, with him in the gospel, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all,’ Matt. 18:26.  But the great God cannot be put to such straits.  ‘The Strength of Israel will not lie,’ I Sam. 15:29.  As there is a lie of wickedness, when one promiseth what he will not perform; so there is a lie that proceeds from weakness, when a person or thing cannot perform what they promise.  Thus indeed all men, yea, all creatures, will be found liars to all that lean on them, called therefore ‘lying vanities.’  ‘Vanities,’ as empty and insufficient; ‘lying vanities,’ because they promise what they have not to give.  But God, he is propound­ed as a sure bottom for our faith to rest on in this respect.  ‘Trust ye in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is strength, or everlasting strength,’ Isa. 26:4.  Such strength his is that needs not another’s strength to uphold it.  One man's ability to perform his promises leans on others’ ability to pay theirs to him.  If they him, he is forced to fail them.  Thus we see, the breaking of one merchant proves the breaking of many others whose estates were in his hands.  But God’s power is independent.  Let the whole creation break, yet God is the same as he was, as able to help as ever.  ‘Though the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines.’  And, ‘yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva­tion.  The Lord God is my strength,’ Hab. 3:17-19.  O how happy are the saints! a people that can never be undone, no, not when the whole world turns bank­rupt, because they have his promise whose power fails not when that doth.  The Christian cannot come to God when he hath not by him what he wants.  ‘How great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee,’ Ps. 31:19.  It is laid up, as a father hath his child's portion, in bags, ready to be paid him when the time comes.  The saint shall not stay a moment beyond the date of the promise.  ‘There is forgiveness with thee,’ saith the psalmist.  It stands ready for thee against thou comest to claim the promise.

THREEFOLD ASSURANCE which hope gives the Christian when God delays to perform his promise 1/7

First Assurance.  Hope assures the soul that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay.  ‘The vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will sure­ly come, it will not tarry,’ Hab. 2:3.  How is this? ‘Though it tarry it will not tarry!’  How shall we rec­oncile this tarrying and not tarrying?  Very well. Though the promise tarries till the appointed time, yet it will not tarry beyond it.  ‘When the time of the promise drew nigh,’ it is said, ‘which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,’ Acts 7:17.  As the herbs and flowers which sleep all winter in their roots underground without any mention of them, when the time of spring ap­proacheth, presently they start forth of their beds, where they had lain so long unperceived.  Thus will the promise in its season do.  He delays who passeth the time appointed, but he only stays that waits for the appointed time, and then comes.  Every promise is dated, but with a mysterious character; and for want of skill in God's chronology, we are prone to think God forgets us, when, indeed, we forget our­selves, in being so bold to set God a time of our own, and in being angry that he comes not just then to us. As if a man should set his watch by his own hungry stomach rather than by the sun, and then say it is noon, and chide because his dinner is not ready.  We are over greedy of comfort, and expect the promise should keep time with our hasty desires, which be­cause it doth not we are discontented.  A high piece of folly! The sun will not go the faster for setting our watch forward, nor the promise come the sooner for our antedating it.  It is most true what one saith, ‘Though God seldom comes at our day, because we seldom reckon right, yet he never fails his own day.’ That of the apostle is observable.  He exhorts the Thessalonian church there, ‘that they would not be shaken in mind, or be troubled, as that the day of Christ were at hand,’ II Thes. 2:2, 3.  But what need of this exhortation to saints, that look for their greatest joy to come with the approach of that day? Can their hearts be troubled to hear the day of their redemption draws nigh, the day of refreshing is at hand?  It was not therefore, I conceive, the coming of that day which was so unpleasing and affrighting, but the time in which some seducers would have persuaded them to expect it, as if it had been at the very doors, and presently would have surprised them in their genera­tion, which had been very sad indeed, because then it should have come before many prophecies and prom­ises had received their accomplishment, and by that means the truth of God would have gone off the stage with a slur, which must not, shall not be, as he tells them, ‘For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition,’ II Thes. 2:3.  And as that promise stays but till those intermediate truths, which have a shorter period, be fulfilled, and then comes without any possible stay or stop; so do all the rest but wait till their reckoning be out, and what God hath ap­pointed to intervene be despatched, and they punctu­ally shall have their delivery in their set time.

           

Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.

           Third.  Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest.  It is the very nature of hope so to do. ‘It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord,’ Lam. 3:26.  Hope groans when the mercy promised comes not, but does not grumble.  Hope's groans are from the spirit sighed out to God in prayer, Rom. 8:26, and these lighten the soul of its burden of fear and solicitous care; whereas the groans of a hopeless soul are vented in discontented passions against God, and these are like a loud wind to a fire, that makes it rage more.  ‘They shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them,’ Jer. 25:16.  It is spoken of the enemies of God and his people.  God had prepared them a draught which should have strange effects—‘they should be moved;’ as a man, whose brain is disturbed with strong drink, is restless and unquiet: yea, ‘be mad.’  As some, when they are drunk, quarrel with every one they meet, so should their hearts be filled with rage even at God himself, who runs his sword into their sides, because they had no hope to look for any healing of their wounds at his hand.  But now where there is hope, the heart is soon quieted and pacified.  Hope is the handkerchief that God puts into his people’s hands to wipe the tears from their eyes, which their present troubles, and long stay of expected mercies, draw from them.  ‘Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy, and there is hope in thine end,’ Jer. 31:16, 17.  This, with some other comfortable promises which God gave his prophet Jeremiah in a vision, did so overrun and fill his heart with joy, that, he was as much recruited and comforted as a sick or weary man is after a night of sweet sleep: ‘Upon this I awaked,...and my sleep was sweet unto me,’ ver. 26.  When, however, the promise seems to stay long, hope pacifies the Christian with a threefold assurance.  First. Hope assures the soul, that though God stays a while before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay.  Second. That when he comes he will abun­dantly recompense his longest stay.  Third. That while he stays to perform one promise, he will leave the comfort of another promise, to bear the Christian company in the absence of that.

Our duty is to wait, when God stays his longest before fulfilling his promise

           Second.  When God stays long before he makes payment of the promise, then it is the believer’s duty to wait for it.  ‘Though it tarry, wait for it,’ Hab. 2:3. He is speaking there of the good of the promise, which God intended to perform in the appointed time; and because it might tarry longer than their hasty hearts would, he bids them wait for it.  As one that promiseth to come to a friend’s house sends him word to sit up for him, though he tarry later than or­dinary, for he will come at last assuredly.  This is hard work indeed!  What! wait? When we have stayed so long, and no sight of God’s coming after this prayer, and that sermon!  So many long looks given at the window of his ordinances and providences, and no tidings to be heard of his approach in mercy and comfort to my soul; and after this, still am I bid wait? This is wearisome work.  True, to flesh and blood it is; yea, weak faith is oft out of breath, and prone to sit down, or turn back, when it hath gone long to meet God in the returns of his mercy, and misseth of him; and therefore the apostle ushers in his duty with an affectionate prayer.  ‘The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ,’ II Thes. 3:5.  He had laid down a strong ground of consolation for them in the preceding chapter, in that they were ‘chosen to salvation,’ and ‘called by the gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ II Thes. 2:13, 14, and assured them that God, who is ‘faithful,’ would ‘stablish them, and keep them from evil,’ II Thes. 3:3.  He means [this] so as they should not miscarry, and at last fall short of the glory promised; but, being sensible how difficult a work it was for them amidst their own present weaknesses, the apostasies of others, and the assaults of Satan upon themselves, to hold fast the assurance of their hope unto the end, he turns himself from them to speak to God for them.  ‘The Lord direct your hearts.’  And, as if he had said, it is a way you will never find, a work you will never be able to do of yourselves—thus to wait patiently till Christ come, and bring the full reward of the promise with him; the Lord therefore direct your hearts into it.  And Moses, it seems, before he ascended the mount, had a fear and jealousy of what afterward proved too true, that the Israelites' unbelieving hearts would not have the patience to wait for his return, when he should stay some while with God there out of their sight; to prevent which, he gave express command before he went up that they should tarry there for him, Ex 14:14. Indeed, a duty more contrary than this of waiting quietly and silently on God, bear our manners, and lackey after us, before we do what he commands: but if the promise comes not galloping full speed to us, we think it will never be at us.

           Question.  But why doth God, when he hath made a promise, make his people wait so long?

           Answer.  I shall answer this question by asking another. Why doth God make any promise at all to his creature?  This may be well asked, considering how free God was from owing any such kindness to his creature; till, by the mere good pleasure of his will, he put himself into bonds, and made himself, by his promise, a debtor to his elect.  And this proves the former question to be saucy and over-bold.  As if some great rich man should make a poor beggar that is a stranger to him his heir, and when he tells him this, he should ask, ‘But why must I stay so long for it?’  Truly, any time is too soon for him to receive a mercy from God that thinks God's time in sending it too late.  This hasty spirit is as grievous to God as his stay can be to us.  And no wonder God takes it so hei­nously, if we consider the bitter root that bears it.

           First. It proceeds from a selfishness of spirit, whereby we prefer our own content and satisfaction before the glory of God, and this becomes not a gra­cious soul.  Our comfort flows in by the performance of the promise, but the revenue of God's honour is paid into him by our humble waiting on him in the interval between the promise and the performance, and is the main end why he forbears the paying it in hastily.  Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and God sure may better make us wait, before the promise is given in to our embraces by the full accomplishment of it.  ‘For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the prom­ise,’ Heb. 10:36.  It is very fit the master should dine before the man.  And if he would not like a servant that would think much to stay so long from his meal as is required at his hands for waiting at his master’s table, how much more must God dislike the rudeness of our impatient spirits, that would be set at our meal, and have our turn served in the comfort of the prom­ise, before he hath the honour of our waiting on him!

           Second.  It proceeds from deep ingratitude; and this is a sin odious to God and man.  ‘They soon for­gat his works; they waited not for his counsel,’ Ps. 106:13.  God was not behindhand with his people.  It was not so long since he had given them an experi­ment of his power and truth.  He had but newly lent them his hand, and led them dry‑shod through a sea, with which they seemed to be much confirmed in their faith, and enlarged in their acknowledgments, when they came safe to shore: ‘then believed they his words; they sang his praise,’ Ps. 106:12.  One would have thought that God's credit now would have gone for a great sum with them ever after.  But it proved nothing so.  They dare not trust God with so much as their bill of fare—what they shall eat and drink; and therefore it is said, ‘they waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness.’  That is, they prevented the wisdom and providence of God, which would have provided well for them, if they could but have stayed to see how God would have spread their table for them.  And why all this haste? ‘They forgat his works.’  They had lost the thankful sense of what was past, and therefore cannot wait for what was to come.