And again, ver. 14, 'Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well; and also, behold, he conieth forth to meet thee.' Thus God animated him to like that liard providence which 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 seme great affliction, and ready to con- clude he shall never be able to stem so rough a tide, bear up, and cheerfully 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 thjf 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, who knows neither now he can be maintained there, nor delivered thence ; but hope easeth the heart of both these.
Secondly, 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 tlieir 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,' 2 Cor. iv. 16. Is not this strange, that their spirit and courage should increase with the losing of their blood ? ' 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 between hopes of heaven, and hopes of the world. These latter are fanciful and slighty, seem great in hope, but prove nothing in hand ; like Eve's apple, fair to look on, but sour in the juice, and bad of nourishment in the eating. It were well if men could in their worldly hopes come but to the unjust steward's reckoning, and for an hundred felicities they promise themselves from the enjoyments they pursue, find but fifty at last paid them : alas ! they must not look to come to so good a market, that have to do with the creature, which will certainly put them to greater disappointments. They may bless themselves, if they please, for a while in their hopes, as the husbandman sometimes doth in the goodly show that 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, 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 their 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 to part with the 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 ; ' Vv''hile 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.'
Thirdly, As hojje assures the soid of the certainty and transcendency of heaven's salvation, so also of the necessary subserviency that his afflictions have toward his obtaining this salvation. ' Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ?' Luke xxiv. 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 lost ? Ought he not to suffer ? Was there any other way that 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 miry lane of suffering. And truly, the saint's way to salvation lies in the same road, Rom. viii. 17 : ' If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together,' 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
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