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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
