all endeavour and attendance on the means of salvation; yea, desperately say, To what purpose is it to think of praying, hearing, and meditating when there is no hope? What! should we send for the ])hysician when our friend is dead? What good will the chafing and rubbing the body do, when the head is severed from it? The army broke up, and ev:ry one was sent to his city, as soon as it was known that Ahab was dead. And so wilt thou cast off all thought of making any head against sin and Satan, when thy hope is gone, but fall either into Judas' horror of conscience, or with Cain, turn atheist, and bury the thoughts of thy desperate condition in a heap of worldly projects.
CHAPTER XII.
WHEREIN IS CONTAINED SIX DIRECTIONS, MOW THE CHRISTIAN MAY GET HOPE STRENGTHENED.
Section I. — If thou meanest thy hope of salvation should rise to any strength and solidity, sludy the word of God diligently. The Christian is bred by the word, and he must be fed by it, or his grace will die. .That is the growing child that lies oftenest at the breast. Now, as God hath provided food in his word to nourish every grace, so he had a particular respect to the welfare and growth of the saint's hope, as one principal end of their writing ; Rom. xv. 4 : 'That we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope.' The devil knows this so well, that his great labour is spent to deprive the Christian of the help which the word is stored with; and, indeed, therein he is not mistaken ; for so long as this river is unblocked up, which makes glad the city of God, and the Christian receives the succours which are brought on the stream of its precious promises, the devil can never besiege him round, nor put him to any great straits. Some, therefore, he deprives of their relief, by mere sloth and laziness ; they make a few fruitless complaints of their doubts and fears, like sluggards complaining of their wants and poverty as they lie in bed, but are loth to rise, and take any pains to be relieved from them, by search- ing in the word for their satisfaction; and these sell their comfort the cheapest. Who will pity him though he should starve to death, who hath bread before him, but is loth to put his hand out of his bosom to carry it to his mouth ? Others he abuseth by false applications of the word to their souls, partly through their weak understandings and troubled spirits, which discolour the truths of God, and misrepresent them to their judgments, whereby they come to be beaten with their own staff, even those promises which a skilful hand would knock down Satan's temptations with. The devil is a great student in divinity, and makes no other use of his Scripture knowledge than may serve his turn by sophistiy to do the Christian a mischief, either by drawing him into sin, or into despair for sinning : like some wrangling barrister, who gets what skill he can in the law, merely to make him the more able to put honest men to trouble by his vexatious suit. Well, if Satan be so conversant in the word, as to weaken thy hope, what reason hast thou then to furnish thyself with a holy skill to main- tain and defend it !
Now, in thy study of the word, propound these two ends, and closely pursue them. First, Labour to clear up to thy understanding from the word, what must be experienced by every soul that liath the grant and warrant from God to hope assuredly for life and salvation. Something is necessary to be found in all such, or else it were free for all, (be they what they will, and live how they list,) actually to lay claim to a right in heaven and salvation. If God had set no bounds to Sinai, and said nothing who should come up the mount, and who not, it had been no more presumption in any of the company to have gone up than in Moses ; and if God requires nothing in the person who is to hope, then beaven is a conmion for one as well as another to crowd into ; then the beastly sinner may touch God's holy mount as well as the saint, and fear no stoning for his bold adventure. But this surely is too fulsome a doctrine for any judi- cious conscience to digest. Well, having satisfied thyself, that if ever thou hast true hope, thou must also have the requisites, inquire what they are. Now the word holds forth two sorts, according to the two different covenants. First, There is a covenant of nature, or law covenant, which God made with innocent
KAQ AND TAKE THE HELMET OF SALVATION.