3. From the use for which it serveth.
[1.] It is necessary to quicken our duties. Hope sets the whole world a-work ; the hu.sbandman plougheth in hope, and the soldier fighteth in hope, and the merchant tradeth in hope ; so doth the christian labour and serve God in hope : Acts xxvi. 7, ' Unto which promise, our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.' Certainly
VeB. 24.] SEKMONS UPON ROSIANS VIII. 201
a man that hopetli for anything will be engaged in the earnest pursuit of it, and follow his work close da}' and night ; but where they hope for no great matter they are sluggish and indisposed. The principle of obedience is love, but the life of it is hope : Acts xxiv. 1.5, 16, ' I have hope towards God, that there shall be a resurrection of the just and luijust ; ' 'Ev TovTU) daKoj, ' and herein,' or thereupon, or in the meantime, ' do I exercise myself to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men.'
[2.] To vanquish temptations, which are either on the right hand or on the left, but both are defeated by hope. On the right hand when some present delight is ready to invite us to sin ; on the left hand when some present bitterness is likely to draw us from the ways of God ; in both cases the hopes of future joys outweigh that pleasure and allay that bitterness. If the temptation be the comforts of the world, or the delights of sin, he that sincerely hopeth for heaven, dareth not think so slightly of it as to lose it, or put it to hazard for a little carnal satisfaction ; it is noted high profaneness in Esau to sell the birthright for a morsel of meat, Heb. xii. IG. Sin cannot offer him things so good, but he must forego better, and so the heart riseth in indignation against the temptation : ' Shall . I leave my fatness, my sweetness, to rule over the trees ? ' If the temptation be some grievous inconvenience or affiiction : Eom. viii. 18, ' For I reckon that the suffer- ings of this present time are not wortl)y to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us ; ' and 2 Cor. iv. 17, ' For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' This is the language of one that hopes for salvation ; all is but a flea-biting to him that hath his heart in heaven.
[3.] To comfort us in all our tribulations. There are many difficul- ties that intervene and fall out between hope and having ; between our first right to eternal life and our full possession of it. In our journey to heaven, we meet with trials and sufferings by the way ; now it is hope carrieth us through, and therefore it is compared to an anchor, Heb. vi. 19 ; to an helmet, 1 Thes. v. 8. As we would not go to sea without an anchor, nor to war withoiit an helmet ; so neither must we think of carrying on the spiritual life without hope. Nothing else will compose the mind or keep it stable in the floods of temptation ; there- fore it is an anchor. Nothing else will cause us to hold up head in our daily conflicts and encounters with afflictions but this helmet. Without this anchor we are in danger of spiritual shipwreck ; without this helmet our heads are exposed to deadly blows from sin, Satan, and worldly discouragements.
[4.] Tliat we may die peaceably, and with comfort. We need hope while we live, but we most need it when we come to die, and shoot the gulf of death. They that are destitute of the hope of salvation are then in a dangerous, woful, and most lamentable case : Job xxvii. 8, 'What is the hope of the hypocrite, if he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul ? ' They may be full of presumption and blind confidence while they live, but what hope have they when they come to die ? All their worldly advantages will then yield them no solid com- fort. We live in a presumptuous dream that all shall be well ; but then they die stupid and senseless, or else despairing ; and their hopes
202 SERMONS UPON EOMANS VIII. [SeR. XXXI.
fail when they have most need of them. But then a lively hope of eternal life sustaineth the hearts of the faithful ; they are going to possess what they expected ; and when they resign their souls to Christ they can commit their bodies to the grave in hope : Ps. xvi. 9, 10, ' My flesh shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption ; ' God will not utterly forsake that dust that is in covenant with him, nor suffer his servants totally to be extinguished, or finally to perish. Use 1 is Information.
1. That the great reward of a christian lieth not in things seen, but unseen ; not in the good of this world, but of another ; because hope is one of the graces requisite to his constitution, and hope is about future things. Much to blame then are they who place all their happiness in present things which are so transitory. God hath reserved us to a future estate, because he bestoweth graces that suit with it, and nothing so ojiposite to it as the spirit of the world : 1 Cor. ii. 12, ' For we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God.'