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

Third Answer.  As hope assures the soul of the certainty and transcendency of heaven's salvation, so also of the necessary subserviency that his afflictions have towards his obtaining this salvation.  ‘Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ Luke 24:26.  As if Christ had said, ‘What reason have you so to mourn, and take on for your Master’s death, as if all your hopes were now split and split?  Ought he not to suffer?  Was there any other way he could get home, and take possession of his glory that waited for him in heaven?  And if you do not grudge him his preferment, never be so inordi­nately troubled to see him onwards to it, though through the deep and miry land of suffering.’  And truly the saint’s way to salvation lies in the same road that Christ went in: ‘If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,’ Rom. 8:17; only with this advantage, that his going before hath beaten it plain, so that now it may be forded, which but for him had been utterly impassable to us.  Afflictions understood with this notion upon them—that they are as necessary for our waftage to glory as water is to carry the ship to her port, which may as soon sail without water, as a saint land in heaven without the subserviency of afflictions—this notion, I say, well understood, would reconcile the greatest afflictions to our thoughts, and make us delight to walk in their company.  This knowledge Parisiensis calls unus de septem radiis divini scientiæ—one of the seven beams of divine knowledge; for the want of which we call good evil, and evil good—think God blesseth us when we are in the sunshine of prosperity, and curs­eth when our condition is overcast with a few clouds of adversity.  But hope hath an eye that can see heav­en in a cloudy day, and an anchor that can find firm land under a weight of waters to hold by; it can expect good out of evil.  The Jews open their windows when it thunders and lightens, expecting, they say, their Messiah to come at such a time to them.  I am sure hope opens her window widest in a day of storm and tempest: ‘I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord,’ Zeph. 3:12, and, Micah 7:7, ‘There­fore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.’  See what strong hold hope’s anchor takes.  And it is a remark­able ‘therefore,’ if you observe the place.  Because all things were at so desperate a pass in the church’s affairs—as there you will find them to be in man’s thinking—‘therefore,’ saith the saint, ‘I will look, I will wait.’  Indeed, God doth not take the axe into his hand to make chips.  His people, when he is hewing them, and the axe goes deepest, they may expect some beautiful piece at the end of the work.

           It is a sweet meditation Parisiensis hath upon ‘We know that all things work together for good to them that love God,’ Rom. 8:28.  Ubi magis intrepida magis pensata esse debes, quàm inter cooperarios meos, et coadjutores meos?—Where, O my soul, shouldst thou be more satisfied, free of care and fear, then when thou art among thy fellow‑labourers, and those that come to help thee to attain thy so‑much desired salvation, which thy afflictions do?  They work together with ordinances and other providential dealings of God for good; yea, thy chief good, and thou couldst ill spare their help as any other means which God appoints thee.  Should one find, as soon as he riseth in the morning, some on his house‑top tearing off the tiles, and with axes and hammers taking down the roof thereof, he might at first be amazed and troubled at the sight, yea, think they are a company of thieves and enemies come to do him some mischief; but when he understands they are workmen sent by his father to mend his house, and make it better than it is—which cannot be done without taking some of it down he is satisfied and content to endure the present noise and trouble, yea thankful to his father for the care and cost he bestows on him.  The very hope of what advantage will come of their work makes him very willing to dwell a while amidst the ruins and rubbish of his old house.  I do not wonder to see hopeless souls so impatient in their sufferings—sometimes even to distraction of mind. Alas! they fear presently—and have reason so to do —that they come to pull all their worldly joys and comforts down about their ears; which gone, what, alas! have they left to comfort them, who can look for nothing but hell in another world?  But the believer’s heart is eased of all this, because assured from the promise that they are sent on a better errand to him from his heavenly Father, who intends him no hurt, but rather good—even to build the ruinous frame of a his soul into a glorious temple at last; and these af­flictions come, among other means, to have a hand in the work; and this satisfies him, that can say, ‘Lord, cut and hew me how thou wilt, that at last I may be polished and framed according to the platform [pat­tern] which love hath drawn in thy heart for me.’ Though some ignorant man would think his clothes spoiled when besmeared with fuller’s earth or soap, yet one that knows the cleansing nature of them will not be afraid to have them so used

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.

           

Whence and how hope hath its supporting influence in affliction 1/3

           Second.  Whence and how hope hath its virtue; or what are the ingredients in hope's cordial that thus exhilarates the saint's spirit in affliction.

           First Answer.  Hope brings certain news of a happy issue, that shall shortly close up all the wounds made by his present sufferings.  When God comes to save his afflicted servants, though he may antedate their hopes, and surprise them before they looked for him, yet he doth not come unlooked for.  Salvation is that they lot upon: ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end,’ Jer. 29:11—that is, an end suitable to the hopes and expec­tations taken up by you.  Hope is a prying grace; it is able to look beyond the exterior transactions of provi­dence.  It can, by the help of the promise, peep into the very bosom of God, and read what thoughts and purposes are written there concerning the Christian’s particular estate, and this it imparts to him, bidding him not to be at all troubled to hear God speaking roughly to him in the language of his providence. ‘For,’ saith hope, ‘I can assure thee he means thee well, whatever he saith that sounds otherwise.  For as the law, which came hundreds of years after the promise made to Abraham, could not disannul it, so neither can any intervening afflictions make void those thoughts and counsels of love which so long before have been set upon his heart for thy deliver­ance and salvation.’  Now, such a one must needs have a great advantage above others for the pacifying and satisfying his spirit concerning the present pro­ceedings of God towards him; because, though the actings of God on the outward stage of providence be now sad and grievous, yet he is acquainted with heaven's plot therein, and is admitted as it were into the attiring room of his secret counsel, where he sees garments of salvation preparing, in which he shall at last be clad, and come forth with joy.  The traveller, when taken in a storm, can stand patiently under a tree while it rains, because he hopes it is but a show­er, and sees it clear up in one part of the heavens, while it is dark in another.  Providence, I am sure, is never so dark and cloudy but hope can see fair weather a‑coming from the promise.  ‘When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh,’ Luke 21:28.  And this is as black a day as can come.

           When the Christian’s affairs are most disconso­late, he may soon meet with a happy change.  The joy of that blessed day, I Cor. 15:52, comes ¦< •J@µå ¦< Õ4B­ ÏN2V8µ@Ø—‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,’ we shall be ‘changed.’  In one moment sick and sad, in the next well and glad, never to know more what groans and tears mean.  Now clad with the rags of mortal flesh, made miserable with the thou­sand troubles that attend it; ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ arrayed with robes of immortality, embossed and enriched with a thousand times more glory than the sun itself wears in the garment of light which now dazzleth our eyes to look on.  ‘It is but winking,’ said a holy martyr to his fellow‑sufferer in the fire with him, ‘and our pain and sorrow is all over with.’  Who can wonder to see a saint cheerful in his afflictions that knows what good news he looks to hear from heaven, and how soon he knows not?  You have heard of the weapon‑salve, that cures wounds at a distance. Such a kind of salve is hope.  The saints’ hope is laid up in heaven, and yet it heals all their wounds they receive on earth.  But this is not all.  For, as hope prophesies well concerning the happy end of the Christian’s afflictions, so it assures him he will be well tended and looked to while he lies under them.  If Christ sends his disciples to sea, he means to be with them when they most need his company.  The well child may be left a while by the mother, but the sick one she will by no means stir from.  ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee,’ Isa. 43:2.