3. The next necessary grace is hope, which is a certain and desirous expectation of the promised blessedness. Therefore our hearts should so fix upon this blessedness, that we may not be diverted from it, either by the comfortable or troublesome things we meet with in the world. Either these things are greater than those we expect, or they are not: if they are greater, why do we so desiringly expect other things as our happiness ? Let us sit down with these things ; if they be not, surely in reason we should be at some cost for our supreme happiness ; if you take the joys of heaven for your whole portion, all your worldly prosperity must give way to it. Can you desirously expect this as your treasure, wlien you will not venture anything for it ? Therefore if we had hopes of living with God, this would set us a-work for heaven, whatever we endured, and whatever it cost us here in the way. But when there is a secret reserve to save the world or spare the flesh, your hopes are not placed in heaven ; the expectation is neither certain nor desirous. Not certain enough, for you find the calamity or trouble in the flesh certain, but you are not persuaded that the felicity you expect is so certain, and therefore it is so irksome to let go your hold of present things for what is future, and in your opinion uncertain. Nor is it desirous enough, for if you had such an earnest desire of glory to come, you would look after your bodily welfare no farther than would stand with your great hopes. And so, though you have some sentiments of future happiness, you are not very earnest to enjoy it, for you would not have it cost too dear a rate. No ; if you did trust in the living God, you would both labour, and suffer reproach : 1 Tim. iv. 10, ' For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God.' Divine hope sets men at work for heaven, and their souls, and Jesus Christ ; but carnal hope for the devil, the world, and the flesh ; to reconcile both is lost labour.
Second argument. We cannot manifest our fidelity to Christ unless we be of this disposition ; much of his service is painful, and cross to the inclinations of the flesh, and the world dislikes many of his ways so that our fidelity to Christ will lay us open to the disgrace
VeR. 28.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 4J3
and reproach of the workl. Now then, unless we mean to be false and partial hypocrites, and to cull out the easy, cheap, and safe part of Christianity, and neglect the rest, we must not only submit to and be content with what befalls us in his ways, but be glad and re- joice that we have occasion of evidencing our sincerity : Mat. v. 11, 12, ' Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad ; for great is your reward in heaven.' We lie more fair for the promise when it is thus with us ; for it is said that the very reproach and affliction helpeth it on : 2 Cor. iv. 17, ' For this light affliction, that is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;' as it mortifieth us to the false happiness, and increaseth the evidence of our right to the true happiness : 2 Tim. ii. 11, 12, ' It is a faithful saying, for if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.'
Third argument. This is of good use to us, to abate our eagerness after worldly prosperity, which is a weight at our heels, and the great impediment of our obedience: 1 John v. 4, 'This is the victory whereby we overcome the world, even our faith.' When we are not only indifferent to worldly things, but count that we have felicity enough if we may approve ourselves to Christ in the meanest con- dition.
Well then, from the whole learn —
1. Whatever is a means to our great end should be made lovely to us upon that account, if it conduceth to the great recompense of re- ward.
2. That whatever relateth to Christ should be prized by us, the cross as well as the crown, and our painful sufferings as well as our felicity.
SERMON LXII.
Through faith he Tcept the passover, and the sprinMing of blood, lest he that destroyed the Jirst-horn shoidd touch them. — Heb. xi. 28.
In this chapter you have a catalogue of God's worthies. Now in this great constellation of saints Moses shines forth as a star of the first magnitude, for the eminency and efficacy of his faith : and the rather is he propounded to these Hebrews, lest they should judaise, and return again from the faith of Christ to the ceremonies of the law. Moses' faith is commended for three things —
1. For the self-denial which his faith produced ; he had all kinds of temptations, honours, pleasures, treasures, the three great idols of the world. We shrink at one single temptation, and Moses went through all, though these temptations were all great in their kind. It is irksome to us to deny any of our petty interests, or to go back two or three degrees in the esteem of others, or in pomp of living ;