• the patience of hope.' To every grace he gives a proper action ; there is ' the work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope.' Faith propounds work, love makes us to labour and sweat at it, and hope makes us wait with patience for our reward and recompense ; Eom. viii. 25, ' But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.' What we hope for we wait with patience for ; between hope and having there is an intervening time to exercise patience. There is want of the thing desired, and delays are troublesome. Now to keep looking is a work of patience.
2. It chiefly implies hope. This looking for is the formal act of hope, an actual expectation of blessedness to come. Now, because there is a bastard and blind hope, and there is a regular and good hope — 2 Thes. ii. 16, 'Who hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace ' — therefore let me tell you — (1.) What this expectation. is not ; (2.) What it is.
[1.] Negatively, what it is not.
(1.) It is not a blind hope, such a hope as is found in men Ignorant and presumptuous, that regard not what they do. Presumption is a child of darkness, as hope is a child of light ; presumption is the fruit of ignorance and inconsideration. AVhen men are once serious, they find it the hardest matter in the world to hope ; for guilty nature iu itself is more presageous of evil, more inclinable to fear and sorrow, than
174 SERMONS UPON TITUS II. 11-14. [SeR. XII.
to joy and hope. But j^et a blind confidence is very common, because men do not consider what they do, but hand-over-head make a full account that they shall go to heaven, without warrant and without evidence. And therefore you shall find it is one of the first things God works by the word, to break down our former carnal hopes, and make men see they are out of the way, lost and undone creatures. Paul in his presumptuous state thought he had as much to show for heaven as any man in the world : Rom. vii. 9, 'I was alive without the law once ; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.' The com- mandment coming in lull conviction upon his heart, he began to be serious, and then he found himself lost and obnoxious to God's judgment. The excellency of hope doth not lie in the strength of con- fidence, but in the clearness of your ground and warrant. In Mat. vii. latter end, the scripture takes notice of two Ijuilders, the foolish and the wise; there was no difterence in the building itself; both might raise a structure equally fair ; but the difference lay in the groundwork and foundation; the one built upon the sand, the other upon a rock: therefore you are not to look so much to the strength of your hope, as to the evidence, the ground, the foundation of it. Do you know what you do when you so confidently believe your salvation ? Presumption grows upon men they know not how , it is not an act of advice and consideration, and therefore will leave us to shame. A man had need have good grounds for his hope. True hope is a serious act, arising from grace, longing after its perfection ; and therefore we are said ' to be begotten to a lively hope,' 1 Peter i. 3. >Seed desireth growth ; every- thing aimeth at perfection. When grace is infused, presently there is a tendency and motion this way. Others may have strength of confi- dence, though a weak foundation whereon to build it, therefore their hope comes to nothing but shame and the greater confusion. Job viii. 14, the hope of the hypocrite is compared to a spider's web. Oh ! what a curious web doth she spin out of her own bowels ! But as soon as the besom comes, down goes the spider and the web too ; both are swept away and trodden under foot. So it is with hypocrites ; they spin a fine web out of their own bowels, conceive rash but strong hope, a hope of their own forming and making ; but when death comes, the man dies, and his hopes die with him. So Prov. xi. 7, ' When a wicked man dies, his expectation shall perish ; and the hope of the unjust man perisheth.' It is not meant only of his worldly expectations, though that is true ; he that aspired to be great, and to feather his nest, and excel in the world, when he dies, all his plots and projects die with him ; but it is meant of his heavenly hopes ; when they come to enter upon their everlasting state, then they are sensible of their mistake. We are more sensible of what is near at hand than what is at a distance. Men grow wise when they come to die. Eternity is near at hand, and men begin to awake as out of their dream, and lose all their confidence ; and when they thought they were full, they find themselves hungry. Again, the hope of the hypocrite is compared to the giving up of the ghost : Job xi. 20, ' Their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost." When the frame of nature is dissolved, it is done with bitter gripes and pain ; the soul in a moment takes an everlasting farewell of the body ; so all the hopes of the wicked vanish and are lost in an instant, and they are full