and the performance, and is the main end why he forbears the paying it hastily. Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and God surely may make us wait be- fore the promise is given to our embraces by its full accomplishment : ' Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise,' Heb. x. ,36. It is very fit the master should dine before the man ; and if we like not a servant who thinks much of staying so long from his meal as is required, how much more must God dislike the rudeness of oiu- impatient spirits, that would have our turn served in the comfort of the promise before he hath the honour of our waiting on him ! Secondly, It proceeds from deep ingra- titude, and this is a sin odious to God and man ' They soon forgot his works, and waited not for his counsel,' Psa. cvi. 13. God was not behindhand with this people : it was not so long since he had given them an experiment of his power and truth ; he had but newly lent them his hand, and led them dry-shod through a sea, with which they seemed to be much confirmed in their faith, and enlarged in their acknowledgments, ver. 12 : ' Then believed they his words; they sang his praises.' One would have thought God's credit now would have gone for a great sum with them ever after ; but it proved nothing so ; they dare not trust God with so much as their bill of fare, what they shall eat and drink ; and, therefore, it is said, they ' waited not for his counsel,' but lusted ex- ceedingly in the wilderness ; that is, they prevented the wisdom and providence of God, which would have provided well for them, if they could but have stayed. And why all this haste ? 'They forgot his works.' They had lost the thankful sense of what was past, and therefore could not wait for what was to come.
Section III. — Hope will enable the soul to wait when the promise stays longest: it is the very nature of hope so to do. Lament, iii. 26 : 'It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.' Hope groans when the mercy promised comes not, but does not grumble. Hope's groans are from the spirit, sighed out to God in prayer, Rom. viii. 26, and these lighten the soul of its burden of fear and solicitous care ; whereas the groans of a hopeless soid are vented in discontented passions against God, and these are like a loud wind to a fire, that makes it rage more, Jer. xxv. 16 : 'They shall drink and be moved, and be mad because of the sword that I shall send among them.' It is spoken of the enemies of God and his people. God had prepared them a draught, which should have strange effects, ' they should be moved.' As a man, whose brains are disturbed with strong drink, is restless, yea, is mad ; as some when they are drunk quarrel with every one they meet ; so should their hearts be filled with rage even against God himself, who runs his sv/ord into their sides, because they had no hope to look for any healing of their wounds at his hand. But now where there is hope, the heart is soon pacified. Hope is the handkerchief that God puts into his people's hands, to wipe the tears from their eyes, which their present troubles, and long stay of expected mercies, draw from them, Jer. xxxi. 16, 17: 'Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears ; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy, and there is hope in the end.' This, with some other comfortable promises which God gave to this prophet in a vision, filled his heai-t with joy, that he was as much recruited and comforted, as a sick or weary man is after a night of sweet sleep, ver. 26 : ' Upon this I awaked, and my sleep was sweet unto me.'
CHAPTER VII.
SHEWETH A THREEFOLD ASSURANCE WHICH HOPE GIVES THE CHRISTIAN, AND THEREBY QUIETS HIM IN WAITING FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF PROMISES, WHEN GOD STAYS LONG.
Hope pacifies the Christian with a threefold assurance, when the promise seems to stay long. First. Hope assures the soul, that though God stays awhile before he performs the promise, yet he doth not delay. Secondly, That when he comes he will abundantly recompense his long stay. Thirdly, That while he stays to perform one promise, he will leave the comfort of another, to bear the Christian company in the absence of that.
AND TAKK TlIK HELMI"!' OF SALVATION. 531