Whence and how hope hath its supporting influence in affliction 2/3

  You know what God said to Moses when he was sick of his employment, and made so many mannerly or rather unmannerly excuses from his own inability —and all that he might have leave to lay down his commission: ‘Go,’ saith God, ‘and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say,’ Ex. 4:12. And again, ‘Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother?  I know that he can speak well.  And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee,’ ver. 14.  Thus God did ani­mate him, and toll [draw] him on to like that hard province he was called to.  Methinks I hear hope, as God’s messenger, speaking after the same sort to the drooping soul oppressed with the thoughts of some great affliction, and ready to conclude he shall be able to stem so rough a tide—bear up cheerfully and lift up his head above such surging waves.  ‘Go, O my soul,’ saith hope, ‘for thy God will be with thee, and thou shalt suffer at his charge.  Is not Christ thy brother? yea, is he not thy husband?  He, thou thinkest, can tell how to suffer, who was brought up to the trade from the cradle to the cross.  Behold, even he comes forth to meet thee, glad to see thy face, and willing to impart some of his suffering skill unto thee.’  That man indeed must needs carry a heavy heart to prison with him, who knows neither how he can be maintained there nor delivered thence.  But hope easeth the heart of both these, which taken away, suffering is a harmless thing and not to be dreaded.

           Second Answer.  Hope assures the Christian not only of the certainty of salvation coming, but also of the transcendency of this salvation to be such, as the sorrow of his present sufferings bears no proportion to the joy of that.  This kept the primitive Christians from swooning while their enemies let out their blood.  They had the scent of this hope to exhilarate their spirits: ‘For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,’ II Cor. 4:16.  Is not this strange, that their spirit and courage should increase with the losing of their blood?  What rare unheard‑of cordial was this?  ‘For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,’ ver. 17.  Behold here the dif­ference betwixt hopes of heaven and hopes of the world. These latter, they are fanciful and slighty, seem great in hope but prove nothing in hand; like Eve’s apple, fair to look on as they hang on the tree, but sour in the juice, and of bad nourishment in the eating.  They are, as one calls them wittily, ‘nothing between two dishes.’  It were well if men could in their worldly hopes come but to the unjust steward’s reckoning, and for a hundred felicities they promise themselves from the enjoyments they pursue, find but fifty at last paid them.  No, alas! they must not look to come to so good a market, or have such fair deal­ings, that have to do with the creature, which will certainly put them to greater disappointments than so.  They may bless themselves if they please for a while in their hopes, as the husbandman sometimes doth in the goodly show he hath of corn standing upon his ground; but by that time they have reaped their crop and thrashed out their hopes, they will find little besides straw and chaff—emptiness and vanity —to be left them.  A poor return, God knows, to pay them for the expense of their time and strength which they have laid out upon them!  Much less suitable to recompense the loss he is put to in his conscience; for there are few who are greedy hunters after the world’s enjoyments, that do drive this worldly trade without running in debt to their consciences.  And I am sure he buys gold too dear, that pays the peace of his conscience for the purchase.  But heaven is had cheap, though it be with the loss of all our carnal interests, even life itself.  Who will grudge with a sorry lease of a low-rented farm, in which he also hath but a few days left before it expires (and such our temporal life is), for the perpetuity of such an inherit­ance as is to be had with the saints in light? This hath ever made the faithful servants of God carry their lives in their hands, willing to lay them down, ‘while they look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal,’ II Cor. 4:18.