198 SERMONS UPON EOMANS VIII. [SeR. XXXI.
not set God a task to provide meat for our lusts, or imagine that his providence will lacquey upon our humours and vain fancies. It is the ordinary practice of his free grace and fatherly love to provide things comfortable and necessary for his children : Mat. vi. 3, ' For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.' There is a common bounty and goodness which reacheth to all his creatures, even to the preservation of the smallest worm ; how much more will he provide for us whom he hath adopted into his family, and to whom he hath made promises that he will never leave us to insupportable diffi- culties ? You would count him an unnatural father that feedeth his dogs and hawks and lets his children die of hunger. Certainly we may hope in God that he will do what is best, all things considered.
3. The great promise, and so the principal object of our hope, is salvation by Christ, or eternal life : 1 John ii. 25, ' This is the promise,' and so the principal object, which he hath promised us, eternal life.' Christ hath promised other things too, but this is the promise. It is the great end of Christ's mediation to bring us to God : 1 Pet. iii. 18, ' For Christ also hath once suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God ; ' and that is not fully done till we live with him in heaven ; this is the end of our faitli, 1 Pet. i. 9 ; this is the prime benefit offered to us in the gospel, to which all otliers tend. By justification our incapacity is removed ; by sanctification eternal life is begun ; by the mercies of daily providence we are preserved in our duty and motion towards this happy estate ; ' Kept blameless to the heavenly kingdom,' 2 Tim. iv. 8. From hence we fetch our comfort during the wliole course of our pilgrimage, this wc look upon as the recompense of all our pains and losses ; and upon the hopes of it the life of grace is carried on, and the temptations of sense defeated ; and therefore hope is described in scripture by this object more tlian any other thing. Called thence, ' The hope of salvation ; ' and all other hopes are in order to this : Eom. xv. 4, ' Whatever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope ; ' that is, by submit- ting and waiting upon him in variety of providences here in the world we might still keep up the hope of eternal life.
4. Eternal life must be expected in the way God promiselh it. "We must not take that absolutely which God promiseth conditionally ; God promiseth it to them that believe in Christ : John vi. 40, ' This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day.' Those that saw him with the eyes of the body, and were not offended at his despicable appearance, but could own him as the Messias, as Lord and Saviour : those that see him with the eyes of the mind, see such worth and excellency in him, as to be content to run all hazards with him, and count all things but dung and dross, that they may be found in him, that they may venture their souls and all their interests in his hands. Sometimes to the obedient, Heb. v. 8 ; sometimes to them that persevere notwithstanding temptations, Kom. ii. 7 ; sometimes to the mortified, Kom. viii. 13. No ; you must consider not only the grant or the benefit contained in the promise, but the precept, the condition required. The benefit or privilege offered,
VeR. 24.] SERMONS UPON ROMANS YIII. 199
expresseth God's grace ; the condition required points out your duty, and by consequence your right ; for we are not duly qualified according to promise, and the gift is suspended till we fulfil the condition. But when you have done that which the promise requireth, then your title to heaven is incomparably more sure than any man's title to his posses- sions, and the inheritance to which he was born ; and yon will find the saints, in fixing and raising their hopes, do not only look upon what is promised, but their own qualification : Ps. cxix. 166, ' Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments ;' so Ps. xxxiii. 18, ' The eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, that hope in his mercy ; ' so Ps. cxlvii. 13, ' The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, that hope in his mercy.' They so believe in God, as they fear to offend him ; and the hope of salvation goeth hand in hand with a care of keeping the commandments; we must not look to one side of the covenant only, the privileges and benefits ; but also to the duties and qualifications of those that shall be saved — the penitent believer, the mortified saint, the heavenly-minded, self-deny- ing christian. All this is shown, that it is not enough to expect eternal life, but it must be expected in God's way.