a little. 1. Faith comes by hearing (Rom 10:17), hope by experience
(Rom 5:3,4). 2. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, hope by the
credit that faith hath given to it (Rom 4:18). 3. Faith believeth the
truth of the Word, hope waits for the fulfilling of it. 4. Faith lays
hold of that end of the promise that is next to us, to wit, as it is in
the Bible; hope lays hold of that end of the promise that is fastened
to the mercy-seat; for the promise is like a mighty cable, that is
fastened by one end to a ship, and by the other to the anchor: the soul
is the ship where faith is, and to which the hither[2] end of this
cable is fastened; but hope is the anchor that is at the other end of
this cable, and which entereth into that within the vail. Thus faith
and hope getting hold of both ends of the promise, they carry it safely
all away. 5. Faith looketh to Christ, as dead, buried, and ascended;
and hope to his second coming (1 Cor 15:1-4). Faith looks to him for
justification, hope for glory (Rom 4:1-8). 6. Faith fights for
doctrine, hope for a reward (Acts 26:6,7). Faith for what is in the
bible, hope for what is in heaven (Col 1:3-5). 7. Faith purifies the
heart from bad principles (1 John 5:4,5). Hope from bad manners (2
Peter 3:11,14; Eph 5:8; 1 John 3:3). 8. Faith sets hope on work, hope
sets patience on work (Acts 28:20, 9:9). Faith says to hope, look for
what is promised; hope says to faith, So I do, and will wait for it
too. 9. Faith looks through the word to God in Christ; hope looks
through faith beyond the world to glory (Gal 5:5).
Thus faith saves, and thus hope saves. Faith saves by laying hold of
God by Christ (1 Peter 1:5). Hope saves by prevailing with the soul to
suffer all troubles, afflictions, and adversities that it meets with
betwixt this and the world to come, for the sake thereof (Rom 8:24).
Take the matter in this plain similitude. There was a king that adopted
such a one to be his child, and clothed him with the attire of the
children of the king, and promised him, that if he would fight his
father’s battles, and walk in his father’s ways, he should at last
share in his father’s kingdoms. He has received the adoption, and the
king’s robe, but not yet his part in the kingdom; but now, hope of a
share in that will make him fight the king’s battles, and also tread
the king’s paths. Yea, and though he should meet with many things that
have a tendency to deter him from so doing, yet thoughts of the
interest promised in the kingdom, and hopes to enjoy it, will make him
out his way through those difficulties, and so save him from the ruin
that those destructions would bring upon him, and will, in conclusion,
usher him into a personal possession and enjoyment of that inheritance.
Hope has a thick skin, and will endure many a blow; it will put on
patience as a vestment, it will wade through a sea of blood, it will
endure all things, if it be of the right kind, for the joy that is set
before it. Hence patience is called, ‘Patience of hope,’ because it is
hope that makes the soul exercise patience and long-suffering under the
cross, until the time comes to enjoy the crown (1 Thess 1:3). The
Psalmist, therefore, by this exhortation, persuadeth them that have
believed the truth, to wait for the accomplishment of it, as by his own
example he did himself—‘I wait for the Lord,’ ‘my soul waiteth,’ ‘and
in his word do I hope.’ It is for want of hope that so many brisk
professors that have so boasted and made brags of their faith, have not
been able to endure the drum[3] in the day of alarm and affliction.
Their hope in Christ has been such as has extended itself no further
than to this life, and therefore they are of all men the most
miserable.
The Psalmist therefore, by exhorting us unto this duty, doth put us in
mind of four things. I. That the best things are yet behind, and in
reversion for the saints. II. That those that have believed, will yet
meet with difficulties before they come at them. III. The grace of hope
well exercised, is the only way to overcome these difficulties. IV.
They therefore that have hope, and do exercise it as they should, shall
assuredly at last enjoy that hope that is laid up for them in heaven.
I. For the first of these, that the best things are yet behind, and in
reversion for believers; this is manifest by the natural exercise of
this grace. For ‘hope that is seen, is not hope; for what a man seeth,
why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we with patience wait for it’ (Rom 8:24,25). Hope lives not by sight,
as faith doth; but hope trusteth faith, as faith trusts the Word, and
so bears up the soul in a patient expectation at last to enjoy what God
has promised. But I say, the very natural work of this grace proveth,
that the believer’s best things are behind in reversion.
You may ask me, what those things are? and I may tell you, first, in
general, they are heavenly things, they are eternal things, they are
the things that are where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God (John
3:12; 2 Cor 4:18; Col 3:1). Do you know them now? They are things that
‘eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor that have entered into the heart
of man to conceive of’ (Isa 64:4; 1 Cor 2:9). Do you know them now?
They are things that are referred to the next world, for the saints
when they come into the next world; talked of they may be now, the real
being of them may be believed now, and by hope we may, and it will be
our wisdom to wait for them now; but to know what they are in the
nature of them, or in the enjoyment of them, otherwise than by faith,
he is deceived that saith it. They are things too big as yet to enter
into our hearts, and things too big, if they were there to come out, or
to be expressed by our mouths.
There is heaven itself, the imperial heaven; does any body know what
that is? There is the mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the
innumerable company of angels; doth any body know what all they are?
There is immortality and eternal life: and who knows what they are?
There are rewards for services, and labour of love showed to God’s name
here; and who knows what they will be? There are mansion-houses, beds
of glory, and places to walk in among the angels; and who knows what
they are? There will be badges of honour, harps to make merry with, and
heavenly songs of triumph; doth any here know what they are? There will
be then a knowing, an enjoying and a solacing of ourselves with
prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and all saints; but in what glorious
manner we all are ignorant of. There we shall see and know, and be with
for ever, all our relations, as wife, husband, child, father, mother,
brother, or sister that have died in the faith; but how gloriously they
will look when we shall see them, and how gloriously we shall love when
we are with them, it is not for us in this world to know (1 Thess
4:16,17). There are thoughts, and words, and ways for us, which we
never dreamed on in this world. The law was but the shadow, the gospel
the image; but what will be the substance that comes to us next, or
that rather we shall go unto, who can understand? (Heb 10:1). If we
never saw God nor Christ as glorified, nor the Spirit of the Lord, nor
the bottom of the Bible, nor yet so much as one of the days of
eternity,, and yet all these things we shall see and have them, how can
it be that the things laid up for us, that should be the object of our
hope, should by us be understood in this world? Yet there are
intimations given us of the goodness and greatness of them.[4]
1. Of their goodness, and that, (1.) In that the Holy Ghost scorns that
things that are here should once be compared with them; hence all
things here are called vanities, nothings, less than nothings (Isa
40:15-17). Now, if the things, all the things that are here, are so
contemptuously considered, when compared with the things that are to be
hereafter, and yet these things so great in the carnal man’s esteem, as
that he is willing to venture life and soul, and all to have them, what
are the things that God has prepared for them that wait, that is, that
hope for him? (2.) Their goodness also appears in this, that whoever
has had that understanding of them, as is revealed in the Word, whether
king or beggar, wise mean or fool, he has willingly cast this world
behind him in contempt and scorn, for the hope of that (Psa 73:25; Heb
11:24-26, 37-40). (3.) The goodness of them has even testimony in the
very consciences of them that hate them. Take the vilest man in the
country, the man who is so wedded to his lusts, that he will rather run
the hazard of a thousand hells than leave them; and ask this man his
judgment of the things of the next world, and he will shake his head,
and say, They are good, they are best of all. (4.) But the saints have
the best apprehension of their goodness, for that the Lord doth
sometimes drop some of the juice of them out of the Word, into their
hungry souls.
2. But as they are good, so they are great: ‘O how great is thy
goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou
hast wrought for them that trust,’ that hope, ‘in thee before the sons
of men!’ (Psa 31:19). (1.) Their greatness appears, in that they go
beyond the Word; yea, beyond the word of the Holy Ghost; it doth not
yet appear to us by the Word of God to the full, the greatness of what
is prepared for God’s people. ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and
it doth not yet appear what we shall be’ (1 John 3:2). It doth not
appear in the Word; there is a greatness in the things that we are to
hope for, that could never be expressed: they are beyond word, beyond
thought, beyond conceiving of! Paul, when he was come down again from
out of paradise, into which he was caught up, could not speak a word
about the words he heard, and the things that there he saw. They were
things and words which he saw and heard, ‘which it is not possible[5]
for a man to utter.’ (2.) Their greatness is intimated by the word
Eternal; he that knows the bottom of that word, shall know what things
they are. ‘The things which are not seen are eternal’ (2 Cor 4:18).
They are ‘incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,’
reserved in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:4). (3.) Their greatness is showed
in that one right thought of them will fill the heart so full, that
both it and the eyes will run over together; yea, so full, that the
creature shall not be able to stand up under the weight of glory that
by it is laid upon the soul. Alas! all the things in this world will
not fill one heart; and yet one thought that is right, of the things
that God has prepared, and laid up in heaven for us, will, yea, and
over fill it too. (4.) The greatness of the things of the next world
appears, in that when one of the least of them are showed to us, we are
not able, without support from thence, to abide the sight thereof. I
count that the angels are of those things that are least in that world;
and yet the sight of one of them, when the sight of them was in use,
what work would it make in the hearts and minds of mortal men, the
scripture plainly enough declares (John 13:22).[6] (5.) Their greatness
is intimated, in that we must be as it were new made again, before we
can be capable of enjoying them, as we must enjoy them with comfort
(Luke 20:36). And herein will be a great part of our happiness, that we
shall not only see them, but be made like unto them, like unto their
King. For ‘when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see
him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). We shall see him, and therefore must be
like him, for else the sight of him would overcome us and destroy us;
but because we are to see him with comfort and everlasting joy,
therefore we must be like him in body and mind (Rev 1:17; Phil
3:20,21).
II. But to come to the second thing, namely, That those that have
believed, there are such things as these, will meet with difficulties
before they come at them. This is so grand a truth, that nothing can be
said against it. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; and we must
through many tribulations enter into the kingdom of heaven (Acts
14:22). The cause from whence these afflictions arise is known to be,
1. From ourselves; for sin having got such hold in our flesh, makes
that opposition against our soul and the welfare of that, that puts us
continually to trouble. Fleshly lusts work against the soul, and so do
worldly lusts too (1 Peter 2:11); yea, they quench our graces, and make
them that would live, ‘ready to die’ (Rev 3:2). Yea, by reason of
these, such darkness, such guilt, such fear, such mistrust, ariseth in
us, that it is common for us, if we live any while, to make a thousand
conclusions, twice told, that we shall never arrive with comfort at the
gates of the kingdom of heaven. The natural tendency of every struggle
of the least lust against grace is, if we judge according to carnal
reason, to make us question the truth of a work of grace in us, and our
right to the world to come. This it was that made Paul cry out, ‘O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me!’ (Rom 7:24). Only he had
more wisdom than to follow the natural conclusions that carnal reason
was apt to make thereupon, and so hoisted up his soul to hope.
2. Sin, by its working in us, doth not only bring darkness, guilt,
fear, mistrust, and the like; but it doth oft-times as it were
hamstring us, and disable us from going to God by faith and prayer for
pardon. It makes the heart hard, senseless, careless, lifeless,
spiritless as to feeling, in all Christian duty; and this is a grievous
thing to a gracious soul. The other things will create a doubt, and
drive it up to the head into the soul; but these will go on the other
side and clench it.[7] Now all these things make hoping difficult.
3. For by these things the judgment is not only clouded, and the
understanding greatly darkened, but all the powers of the soul made to
fight against itself, conceiving, imagining, apprehending, and
concluding things that have a direct tendency to extirpate and
extinguish, if possible, the graces of God that are planted in the
soul; yea, to the making of it cry out, ‘I am cut off from before thine
eyes!’ (Psa 31:22).
4. Add to these, the hidings of the face of God from the soul; a thing
to it more bitter than death; yet nothing more common among them that
hope in the Lord. He ‘hideth his face from the house of Jacob!’ (Isa
8:17). Nor is this done only in fatherly displeasure, but by this means
some graces are kept alive; faith is kept alive by the word, patience
by hope, and hope by faith; but oft-times a spirit of prayer, by the
rod, chastisement, and the hiding of God’s face (Hosea 5:14,15; Isa
26:16; Cant 5:6). But I say, this hiding of this sweet face is bitter
to the soul, and oft-times puts both faith and hope to a sad and most
fearful plunge. For at such a day, it is with the soul as with the ship
at sea, that is benighted and without light; to wit, like a man
bewildered upon the land; only the text saith, for the help and succour
of such, ‘Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the
voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? Let
him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God’ (Isa 50:10).
Yet as it is with children, so it is with saints; we are a great deal
more subject to fears in the night than in the day. That, therefore,
that tendeth to the help of some graces, if there be not great care
taken, will prove an hindrance to others.
5. Nor is the ruler of the darkness of this world wanting to apply
himself and his engines, so as, if possible, to make use of all these
things for the overthrowing of faith, and for the removing of our hope
from the Lord, as a tree is removed from rooting in the ground (Job
19:10). Behold! he can expound all things, so as that they shall fall
directly in the way of our believing. As thus, we have sin, therefore
we have no grace; sin struggleth in us, therefore we fear not God;
something in us sideth with sin, therefore we are wholly unregenerate;
sin is in our best performances, therefore wherefore should I hope?
Thus I say, he can afflict us in our pilgrimage, and make hope
difficult to us. Besides the hiding of God’s face, he can make not only
a cause of sorrow, for that indeed it should, but a ground of despair,
and as desperately concluding he will never come again. How many good
souls has he driven to these conclusions, who afterwards have been made
to unsay all again?
6. And though spiritual desertions, darkness of soul, and guilt of sin,
are the burdens most intolerable, yet they are not all; for there is to
be added to all these, that common evil of persecution, another device
invented to make void our hope. In this, I say, we are sure to be
concerned; that is, if we be godly. For though the apostle doth not
say, ‘All that will live in Christ,’ that is, in the common profession
of him, shall suffer persecution; yet he saith, ‘All that will live
godly in him shall’ (2 Tim 3:12). Now this in itself is a terror to
flesh and blood, and hath a direct tendency in it to make hope
difficult (1 Peter 3:6,14). Hence men of a persecuting spirit, because
of their greatness, and of their teeth (the laws), are said to be a
terror, and to carry amazement in their doings; and God’s people are
apt to be afraid of them though they should die, and to forget God
their Maker; and this makes hoping hard work (Isa 51:12,13).[8]
7. For besides that grimness that appears in the face of persecutors,
Satan can tell how to lessen, and make to dwindle in our apprehensions,
those truths unto which our hearts have joined themselves afore, and to
which Christ our Lord has commanded us to stand. So that they shall now
appear but little, small, inconsiderable things; things not worth
engaging for; things not worth running those hazards for, that in the
hour of trial may lie staring us in the face. Moreover, we shall not
want false friends in every hole, such as will continually be boring
our ears with that saying, Master, do good to thyself. At such times
also, ‘stars’ do use to ‘fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken’; and so every thing tends to weaken, or at
least to lay stumbling-blocks in their way, who are commanded to hope
in the Lord (Matt 24).
8. Again, as Satan can make use of his subtilty, thus to afflict and
weaken the hands and hearts of those that hope in God, so he can add to
these the dismalness of a suffering state. He can make the loss of
goods, in our imagination, ten times bigger than it is in itself; he
can make an informer a frightful creature, and a jail look like hell
itself; he can make banishment and death utterly intolerable, and
things that must be shunned with the hazard of our salvation. Thus he
can greaten and lessen, lessen and greaten, for the troubling of our
hearts, for the hindering of our hope.[9]
9. Add to all these, that the things that we suffer for were never seen
by us, but are quite beyond our sight: things that indeed are said to
be great and good; but we have only the word and the Bible for it. And
be sure if he that laboureth night and day to devour us, can help it,
our faith shall be molested and perplexed at such a time, that it may,
if possible, be hard to do the commandment that here the text enjoins
us to the practice of; that is, to hope in the Lord. And this brings me
to the third particular.
III. That the grace of hope well exercised, is the only way to overcome
those difficulties.—Abraham had never laughed for joy, had he not hoped
when the angel brought him tidings of a son; yea, had he not hoped
against all things that could have been said to discourage (Gen 17:17).
Hence it is said, that ‘against hope’ he ‘believed in hope, that he
might become the father of many nations, according to that which was
spoken, so shall thy seed be’ (Rom 4:18). There is hope against hope;
hope grounded on faith, against hope grounded on reason. Hope grounded
on reason, would have made Abraham expect that the promise should
surely have been ineffectual, because of the deadness of Abraham’s
body, and of the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. But he hoped against the
difficulty, by hope that sprang from faith, which confided in the
promise and power of God, and so overcame the difficulty, and indeed
obtained the promise. Hope, therefore, well exercised, is the only way
to overcome. Hence Peter bids those that are in a suffering condition,
‘Be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 1:13). And
therefore it is, as you heard before, that we are said to be ‘saved by
hope’ (Rom 8:24).
Hope is excellent, 1. Against those discouragements that arise up out
of our bowels. 2. It is excellent to embolden a man in the cause of
God. 3. It is excellent at helping one over the difficulties that men,
by frights and terrors may lay in our way.
1. It is excellent to help us against those discouragements that arise
out of our own bowels (Rom 4). This is clear in the instance last
mentioned about Abraham, who had nothing but discouragements arising
from himself; but he had hope, and as well he exercised it; wherefore,
after a little patient enduring, he overcame the difficulty, and
obtained the promise (Heb 6:13-18). The reason is, for that it is the
nature of true hope to turn away its ear from opposing difficulties, to
the word and mouth of faith; and perceiving that faith has got hold of
the promise, hope, notwithstanding difficulties that do or may attempt
to intercept, will expect, and so wait for the accomplishment thereof.
2. Hope is excellent at emboldening a man in the cause of God. Hence
the apostle saith, ‘Hope maketh not ashamed’; for not to be ashamed
there, is to be emboldened (Rom 5:5). So again, when Paul speaks of the
troubles he met with for the profession of the gospel, he saith, that
they should turn to his salvation. ‘According,’ saith he, ‘to my
earnest expectation, and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed,
but that with all boldness, as always, so now Christ shall be magnified
in my body, whether it be by life or by death’ (Phil 1:19,20). See
here, a man at the foot of the ladder, now ready in will and mind, to
die for his profession; but how will he carry it now? Why, with all
brave and innocent boldness! But how will he do that? O! By the hope of
the gospel that is in him; for by that he is fully persuaded that the
cause he suffereth for will bear him up in the day of God, and that he
shall then be well rewarded for it.[10]
3. It is also excellent at helping one over those difficulties that
men, by frights and terrors, may lay in our way. Hence when David was
almost killed with the reproach and oppression of his enemies, and his
soul full sorely bowed down to the ground therewith; that he might
revive and get up again, he calls to his soul to put in exercise the
grace of hope, saying, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art
thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise
him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God’ (Psa 42:11). So
again saith he in the next Psalm after, as afore he had complained of
the oppression of the enemy, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and
why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise
him, who is the health of my countenance and my God’ (Psa 43:5). Hope,
therefore, is a soul-encouraging grace, a soul-emboldening grace, and a
soul-preserving grace. Hence it is called our helmet or head-piece, the
helmet of salvation (Eph 6:17; 1 Thess 5:8). This is one piece of the
armour with which the Son of God was clothed, when he came into the
world; and it is that against which nothing can prevail (Isa 49:17).
For as long as I can hope for salvation, what can hurt me! This word
spoken in the blessed exercise of grace, I HOPE FOR SALVATION, drives
down all before it. The truth of God is that man’s ‘shield and buckler’
that hath made the Lord his hope (Psa 91:4).
[Encouragements to exercise this grace.]—And now to encourage thee,
good man, to the exercise of this blessed grace of hope as the text
bids, let me present thee with that which followeth. 1. God, to show
how well he takes hoping in him at our hands, has called himself ‘the
God of hope’ (Rom 15:13), that is, not only the author of hope, but the
God that takes pleasure in them that exercise it, ‘The Lord taketh
pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy’ (Psa
147:11). 2. He will be a shield, a defence to them that hope in him.
‘Thou art my hiding-place and my shield,’ saith David, ‘I hope in thy
word’; that is, he knew he would be so; for he hoped in his word (Psa
119:114). 3. He has promised us the life we hope for, to encourage us
still to hope, and to endure all things to enjoy it (Titus 1:2). ‘That
he that ploweth should plow in hope, and that he that thresheth in
hope, should be partaker of his hope’ (1 Cor 9:10).
Quest. But you may say, What is it to exercise this grace aright?