To exhort those that love God to look earnestly for the coming of Christ. To this end : —
1. Consider our relations to him ; he is our master, we are his servants, and good servants will wait for their master's coming, Mat. xxiv. 45. Here we have our meals, but then our wages. It is but
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present maintenance which we have now; but 'Behold, I come, and my reward is with me.' Christ will not come empty-handed. Again, he is our husband, we his spouse : ' The bride saith, Come,' Kev. xxii. 17. We are now but contracted to Christ ; then is the day of solemn espousals. The judge is the wicked man's enemy, but your redeemer.
2. Consider the privileges we shall then enjoy. The day of Christ's coming is : —
[1.] A day of manifestation, Kom. xiii. 19. All is now hidden. Christ is hidden, the saints are hidden, their life is hidden, Col. iii. 3, tlieir glory is hidden, 1 John iii. 2; but then Christ shall appear, and we shall appear with him in glory ; as Moses told the rebels, Num. xvi., ' To-morrow the Lord will show who are his.' Christ, as the natural Son, shall then appear in all his royalty and glory, as the great God and Saviour of the world ; so shall the saints put on their best robes. In winter the tree appeareth not what it is, the sap and life is hidden in the root ; but when summer cometh, all is discovered.
[2.] It is a day of perfection. Everything tendeth to its perfect estate : the little seed that is sown in the ground breaketh through the clods that it may be in flower and perfection ; so a Christian is working through, that he may come to an estate of perfect holiness and perfect freedom. Here we are very weak ; yea, even to glorified spirits he is but a saviour in part ; there is some fruit of sin continued upon the body ; but then body and soul are united, and perfectly glorified to praise God in heaven. Christ cometh to make an end of what he hath begun ; he came first to redeem our souls from sin, but then our ' bodies from corruption ;' then all privileges are perfect regenevation, Mat. xix. 28. When heaven is new, earth new, bodies new, souls new, that is a regeneration indeed. So adoption: we are sons, but handled as servants, ' looking for the adoption,' Rom. viii. 23. '60 justification : our pardon shall be proclaimed at the market-cross, published before all the world, Acts iii. 19. So for redemption, Luke xxi. 28: the body is a captive when the soul is set at liberty ; the body is held under death till that day.
[3.] It is a day of congregation, or gathering together. The saints are now scattered, they live in divers countries and in divers ages, but then all meet in one assembly and congregation, Ps. i. 6 ; but of these things more largely, ver. 6, on these words, the great day.
Ohs. 5. From that looking for the mercy, &c., observe, that looking earnestly for eternal life is a good means of perseverance ; for to that end it is urged by the apostle here. I shall inquire — (1.) What this is ; looking (2.) What influence it hath upon our perseverance.
1. What this looking is. It implieth patience, but chiefly hope.
[1.] Patience, in waiting God's leisure in the midst of present diffi- culties, Heb. X. 36, Luke viii. 15, 1 Thes. i. 3, Rom. viii. 25.
[2.] Hope. Now, because there is a blind hope and a good hope, a bastard hope and a genuine hope — ' good hope through grace,' saith the apostle, 2 Thes. ii. 16 — let me tell you that this looking or ex- pectation is not that blind hope that is found in men ignorant and presumptuous, that regard not what they do. Presumption is a child of darkness, the fruit of ignorance and inconsideration. When men
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are once serious they find it a hard matter to fix an advised hope on things to come, for guilty nature is more inclinable to fear than to hope. This blind hope will certainly fail us; it is compared to a ' spider's web,' Job viii. 14. The spider spinneth a web out of his own bowels, which is swept away as soon as the besom cometh ; so do carnal men conceive a few rash and ungrounded hopes ; but when death cometh, or a little trouble of conscience, these vain conceits are swept away. This hope which I press you to is a serious act, arising fi'om grace aiming at its own perfection. Again, this looking is not some glances upon heaven, such as are found in worldly and sensual persons, who now and then have their lucida intervalla, their good moods and sober thoughts, as Balaam, Num. xxiii. 10 ; a taste they may have, Heb. vi. 4, a smatch of the sweetness of heaven and spiritual comforts ; the most wretched worldlings have their wishes and sudden rapts of soul ; but alas ! these sudden motions are not operative, they come but seldom, and leave no warmth upon the soul, as fruit is not ripened that hath but a glance of the sun, and a sudden light rather blindeth a man than showeth him the way. So these sudden indeliberate thoughts vanish, and leave men never the better. Again, it is not a loose hope or a probable conjecture ; this hath no efficacy upon the soul. Men that are under an anxious, doubtful posture of spirit will be very un- even in their walkings, James i. 8. When men are discouraged in a race they begin to slacken their pace, to which the apostle alludeth when he saith, ' I run not as one that is uncertain,' 1 Cor. ix. 26 ; but when they begin sensibly to get ground, they hold on their course the more cheerfully.