HOPEFUL

"We are saved by hope."--_Paul_

Up till the time when Christian and Faithful passed through Vanity Fair

on their way to the Celestial City, Hopeful was one of the most light-

minded men in all that light-minded town. By his birth, and both on his

father's and his mother's side, Hopeful was, to begin with, a youth of an

unusually shallow and silly mind. In the jargon of our day he was a man

of a peculiarly optimistic temperament. No one ever blamed him for being

too subjective and introspective. It took many sharp trials and many

bitter disappointments to take the inborn frivolity and superficiality

out of this young man's heart. He was far on in his life, he was far on

even in his religious life, before you would have ever thought of calling

him a serious-minded man. Hopeful had been born and brought up to early

manhood in the town of Vanity, and he knew nothing better and desired

nothing better than to lay out his whole life and to rest all his hopes

on the things of the fair; on such things, that is, as houses, lands,

places, honours, preferments, titles, pleasures, and delights of all

sorts. And that vain and empty life went on with him, till, as he told

his companion afterwards, it had all ended with him in revelling, and

drinking, and uncleanness, and Sabbath-breaking, and all such things as

destroyed his soul. But in Hopeful's happy case also the blood of the

martyrs became the seed of the church. Hopeful, as he was afterwards

called, had suffered so many bitter disappointments and shipwrecks of

expectation from the things of the fair, that is to say, from the houses,

the places, the preferments, the pleasures and what not, of the fair,

that even his heart was ripe for something better than any of those

things, when, as God would have it, Christian and Faithful came to the

town. Hopeful was still hanging about the booths of the fair; he was

just fingering his last sixpence over a commodity that he knew quite well

would be like gall in his belly as soon as he had bought it; when,--what

is that hubbub that rolls down the street? Hopeful was always the first

to see and to hear every new thing that came to the town, and thus it was

that he was soon in the thick of the tumult that rose around Christian

and Faithful. Had those two pilgrims come to the town at any former

time, Hopeful would have been among the foremost to mock at and smite the

two men; but, to-day, Hopeful's heart is so empty, and his purse also,

that he is already won to their side by the loving looks and the wise and

sweet words of the two ill-used men. Some of the men of the town said

that the two pilgrims were outlandish and bedlamite men, but Hopeful took

courage to reprove some of the foremost of the mob. Till, at last, when

Faithful was at the stake, it was all that his companions could do to

keep back Hopeful from leaping up on the burning pile and embracing the

expiring man. And then, when He who overrules all things so brought it

about that Christian escaped out of their hands, who should come forth

and join him at the upward gate of the city but just Hopeful, who not

only joined himself to the lonely pilgrim, but told him also that there

were many more of the men of the city who would take their time and

follow after. And thus, adds his biographer, when one died to make his

testimony to the truth, another rose up out of his ashes to be a

companion to Christian.

When Madame Krudener was getting her foot measured by a pietist

shoemaker, she was so struck with the repose and the sweetness and the

heavenly joy of the poor man's look and manner that she could not help

but ask him what had happened to him that he had such a look on his

countenance and such a light in his eye. She was miserable, though she

had all that heart could wish. She had all that made her one of the most

envied women in Europe; she had birth, talents, riches, rank, and the

friendship of princes and princesses, and yet she was of all women the

most miserable. And here was a poor chance shoemaker whose whole heart

was running over with a joy such that all her wealth could not purchase

to her heart one single drop of it. The simple soul soon told her his

secret; it was no secret: it was just Jesus Christ who had done it all.

And thus her poor shoemaker's happy face was the means of this great

lady's conversion. And, in like manner, it was the beholding of

Christian and Faithful in their words and in their behaviour at the fair

that decided Hopeful to join himself to Christian and henceforth to be

his companion.

What were the things, asked Christian of his young companion, that first

led you to leave off the vanities of the fair and to think to be a

pilgrim? Many things, replied Hopeful. Sometimes if I did but meet a

good man in the street. Or if mine head began unaccountably, or mine

heart, to ache. Or if some one of my companions became suddenly sick. Or

if I heard the bell toll that some one was dead. But, especially, when I

thought of myself that I must quickly come to judgment. And then it is

told in the best style of the book how peace and rest and the beginning

of true satisfaction came to poor Hopeful's heart at last. But you must

promise me to read the passage for yourselves before you sleep to-night;

and to read it again and again till, like Hopeful's, your heart also is

full of joy, and your eyes full of tears, and your affections running

over with love to the name and to the people and to all the ways of Jesus

Christ.

And then, it is very encouraging and reassuring to us to see how

Hopeful's true conversion so deepened and sobered and strengthened his

whole character. He remained to the end in his mental constitution and

whole temperament, as we say, the same man he had always been; but, while

remaining the same man, at the same time a most wonderful change

gradually began to come over him, till, by slow but sure degrees, he

became the Hopeful we know and look to and lean upon. To use his own

autobiographic words about himself, it was "by hearing and considering of

things that are Divine" that his natural levity was so completely whipped

out of his soul till he was made at last an indispensable companion to

Christian, strong-minded and serious-minded man as he was. "Conversion

to God," says William Law, "is often very sudden and instantaneous,

unexpectedly raised from variety of occasions. Thus, one by seeing only

a withered tree, another by reading the lives and deaths of the

antediluvian fathers, one by hearing of heaven, another of hell, one by

reading of the love or wrath of God, another of the sufferings of Christ,

may find himself, as it were, melted into penitence all of a sudden. It

may be granted also that the greatest sinner may in a moment be converted

to God, and may feel himself wounded in such a degree as perhaps those

never were who have been turning to God all their lives. But, then, it

is to be observed that this suddenness of change or flash of conviction

is by no means of the essence of true conversion. This stroke of

conversion is not to be considered as signifying our high state of a new

birth in Christ, or a proof that we are on a sudden made new creatures,

but that we are thus suddenly called upon and stirred up to look after a

newness of nature. The renewal of our first birth and state is something

entirely distinct from our first sudden conversion and call to

repentance. That is not a thing done in an instant, but is a certain

process, a gradual release from our captivity and disorder, consisting of

several stages and degrees, both of life and death, which the soul must

go through before it can have thoroughly put off the old man. It is well

worth observing that our Saviour's greatest trials were near the end of

His life. This might sufficiently show us that our first awakenings have

carried us but a little way; that we should not then begin to be self-

assured of our own salvation, but should remember that we stand at a

great distance from, and are in great ignorance of, our severest trials."

Such was the way that Christian in his experience and in his wisdom

talked to his young companion till his outward trials and the consequent

discoveries he made of his own weakness and corruption made even Hopeful

himself a sober-minded and a thoughtful man. "Where pain ends, gain ends

too."

Then, again, no one can read Hopeful's remarkable history without

discovering this about him, that he showed best in adversity and

distress, just as he showed worst in deliverance and prosperity. It is a

fine lesson in Christian hope to descend into Giant Despair's dungeon and

hear the older pilgrim groaning and the younger pilgrim consoling him,

and, again, to stand on the bank of the last river and hear Hopeful

holding up Christian's drowning head. "Be of good cheer, my brother, for

I feel the bottom, and it is good!" Bless Hopeful for that, all you

whose deathbeds are still before you. For never was more true and fit

word spoken for a dying hour than that. Read, till you have it by heart

and in the dark, Hopeful's whole history, but especially his triumphant

end. And have some one bespoken beforehand to read Hopeful in the River

to you when you have in a great measure lost your senses, and when a

great horror has taken hold of your mind. "I sink in deep waters," cried

Christian, as his sins came to his mind, even the sins which he had

committed both since and before he came to be a pilgrim. "But I see the

gate," said Hopeful, "and men standing at it ready to receive us." "Read

to me where I first cast my anchor," said John Knox to his weeping wife.

The Enchanted Ground, on the other hand, threatened to throw Hopeful back

again into his former light-minded state. And there is no saying what

shipwreck he might have made there had the older man not been with him to

steady and reprove and instruct him. As it was, a touch now and then of

his old vain temper returned to him till it took all his companion's

watchfulness and wariness to carry them both out of that second Vanity

Fair. "I acknowledge myself in a fault," said Hopeful to Christian, "and

had I been here alone I had run in danger of death. Hitherto, thy

company hath been my mercy, and thou shalt have a good reward for all thy

labour."

Now, my brethren, in my opinion we owe a great debt of gratitude to John

Bunyan for the large and the displayed place he has given to Hopeful in

the _Pilgrim's Progress_. The fulness and balance and proportion of the

_Pilgrim's Progress_ are features of that wonderful book far too much

overlooked. So far as my reading goes I do not know any other author who

has at all done the justice to the saving grace of hope that John Bunyan

has done both in his doctrinal and in his allegorical works. Bunyan

stands alone and supreme not only for the insight, and the power with

which he has constructed the character and the career of Hopeful, but

even for having given him the space at all adequate to his merits and his

services. In those eighty-seven so suggestive pages that form the index

to Dr. Thomas Goodwin's works I find some hundred and twenty-four

references to "faith," while there are only two references to "hope." And

that same oversight and neglect runs through all our religious

literature, and I suppose, as a consequence, through all our preaching

too. Now that is not the treatment the Bible gives to this so essential

Christian grace, as any one may see at a glance who takes the trouble to

turn up his Cruden. Hope has a great place alongside of faith and love

in the Holy Scriptures, and it has a correspondingly large and eloquent

place in Bunyan. Now, that being so, why is it that this so great and so

blessed grace has so fallen out of our sermons and out of our hearts? May

God grant that our reading of Hopeful's autobiography and his subsequent

history to-night may do something to restore the blessed grace of hope to

its proper place both in our pulpit and in all our hearts.

To kindle then, to quicken, and to anchor your hope, my brethren, may I

have God's help to speak for a little longer to your hearts concerning

this neglected grace! For, what is hope? Hope is a passion of the soul,

wise or foolish, to be ashamed of or to be proud of, just according to

the thing hoped for, and just according to the grounds of the hope. Hope

is made up of these two ingredients--desire and expectation. What we

greatly desire we take no rest till we find good grounds on which to

build up our expectations of it; and when we have found good grounds for

our expectations, then a glad hope takes possession of our hearts. Now,

to begin with, how is it with your desires? You are afraid to say much

about your expectations and your hopes. Well; let us come to your

hearts' desires.--Men of God, I will enter into your hearts and I will

tell you your hearts' desires better than you know them yourselves; for

the heart is deceitful above all things. The time was, when, like this

young pilgrim before he became a pilgrim, your desires were all set on

houses, and lands, and places, and honours, and preferments, and wives,

and children, and silver, and gold, and what not. These things at one

time were the utmost limit of your desires. But that has all been

changed. For now you have begun to desire a better city, that is, an

heavenly. What is your chief desire for this New Year? {2} Is it not a

new heart? Is it not a clean heart? Is it not a holy heart? Is it not

that the Holy Ghost would write the golden rule on the tables of your

heart? Does not God know that it is the deepest desire of your heart to

be able to love your neighbour as yourself? To be able to rejoice with

him in his joy as well as to weep with him in his sorrow? What would you

not give never again to feel envy in your heart at your brother, or

straitness and pining at his prosperity? One thing do I desire, said the

Psalmist, that mine ear may be nailed to the doorpost of my God: that I

may always be His servant, and may never wander from His service. Now,

that is your desire too. I am sure it is. You would not say it of

yourself, but I defy you to deny it when it is said about you. Well,

then, such things being found among your desires, what grounds have you

for expecting the fulfilment of such desires? What grounds? The best of

grounds and every ground. For you have the sure ground of God's word.

And you have more than His word: you have His very nature, and the very

nature of things. For shall God create such desires in any man's heart

only to starve and torture that man? Impossible! It were blasphemy to

suspect it. No. Where God has made any man to be so far a partaker of

the Divine nature as to change all that man's deepest desires, and to

turn them from vanity to wisdom, from earth to heaven, and from the

creature to the Creator, doubt not, wherever He has begun such a work,

that He will hasten to finish it. Yes; lift up your heavy hearts, all ye

who desire such things, for God hath sent His Son to say to you, Blessed

are ye that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for ye shall be

filled. Only, keep desiring. Desire every day with a stronger and a

more inconsolable desire. Desire, and ground your desire on God's word,

and then heave your hope like an anchor within the veil whither the

Forerunner is for you entered. May I so hope? you say. May I venture to

hope? Yes; not only may you hope, but you must hope. You are commanded

to hope. It is as much your bounden duty to hope always, and to hope for

the greatest and best things, as it is to repent of your sins, to love

God and your neighbour, to keep yourself pure, and to set a watch on the

door of your lips. You have been destroyed, I confess and lament it, for

lack of knowledge about the nature, the grounds, and the duty of hope.

But make up now for past neglect. Hope steadfastly, hope constantly,

hope boldly; hope for the best things, the greatest things, the most

divine and the most blessed things. If you forget to-night all else you

have heard to-day, I implore you not any longer to forget and neglect

this, that hope is your immediate, constant, imperative duty. No sin, no

depth of corruption in your heart, no assault on your heart from your

conscience, can justify you in ceasing to hope. Even when trouble "comes

tumbling over the neck of all your reformations" as it came tumbling on

Hopeful, let that only drive you the more deeply down into the true

grounds of hope; even against hope rejoice in hope. Remember the

Psalmist in the hundred-and-thirtieth Psalm,--down in the deeps, if ever

a fallen sinner was. Yet hear him when you cannot see him saying: I hope

in Thy word! And--for it is worthy to stand beside even that splendid

psalm,--I beseech you to read and lay to heart what Hopeful says about

himself in his conversion despair.

And then, as if to justify that hope, there always come with it such

sanctifying influences and such sure results. The hope that you are one

day to awaken in the Divine likeness will make you lie down on your bed

every night in self-examination, repentance, prayer, and praise. The

hope that your eyes are one day to see Christ as He is will make you

purify yourself as nothing else will. The hope that you are to walk with

Christ in white will make you keep your garments clean; it will make you

wash them many times every day in the blood of the Lamb. The hope that

you are to cast your crown at His feet will make you watch that no man

takes your crown from you. The hope that you are to drink wine with Him

in His Father's kingdom will reconcile you meanwhile to water, lest with

your wine you stumble any of His little ones. The hope of hearing Him

say, Well done!--how that will make you labour and endure and not faint!

And the hope that you shall one day enter in through the gates into the

city, and have a right to the tree of life,--how scrupulous that will

make you to keep all His commandments! And this is one of His

commandments, that you gird up the loins of your mind, and hope to the

end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of

Jesus Christ.