II. VOL. we should fink and perifh. So that if I am a Christian indeed, if I am a new creature, I must live by hope all my days. And that I may shut up all, I shall only leave with you a word or two of counfel, and caution. 1. Of Counsel. Labour to establish in your hearts this hope, and maintain it; and live by, and upon it. But I cannot inlarge upon this. And then, 2. By way of caution, I add; be fure that your hope be the truly Christian hope only: that hope, whereunto you can intitle the Holy Ghoft as the author, fo as that hereupon we may fay, we are begotten by him to that hope. And also fee to it, that it be just commenfurate with Scripture grounds. That is genuine Christian hope, that measures with the Scripture, and the word of promise. Remember (says David) thy word unto thy fervant, upon which thou haft caufed me to hope. Then you will hope for nothing, but what God has promised; and in the way, and according to the tenor of his promife. And you need to hope for no more, for he hath promised to give grace and glory, and to withhold no good thing from them that love him; and what would you have more? What need your hope to range beyond that, or without the compafs of this promife? But then it must be according to the tenor of his promise; for if you hope abfolutely for that which is a Pfal. cxIx. 49. LXXXIV. 11. matter matter only of a limited promife, then your hope SEM. XVI. would be befides its ground, and so be liable to disappointment. AND you must know there are things which lie within the promise, that cannot be the matter of an abfolute hope; because Go D's promife, concerning them, is not abfolute. As to temporal good things; outward profperity to our felves, or the Church of GoD in common; there is no abfolute promise of these: therefore if we hope for them abfolutely, we deceive our felves, and it is our own fault if we be made afhamed. Who bid us hope fo? who bid us let our hopes run that way, otherwife than as GOD commands, or beyond what he has promised? We may hope abfolutely for things, that are of an immutable goodness; but fome things are not fo, and are only to be estimated according to their end. Sometimes they will ferve the end that GoD defigned them for, and fometimes not; and when they do not, they are not good, but evil. External profperity to the Church of GoD, or our felves, will not always be ferviceable to the end, for which it is defigned by GoD; to wit, to make our fpirits better, and more of the temper which he looks for, and approves: and he always knoweth whether it will be beft for that end or no. Now if we fuppofe an abfolute promise for any variable good things, which are fometimes good and fometimes not; then take the time when they are not good, and can 3 they VOL they be the matter of a promise? No fure; the II. promife, would, in that cafe, be turned into a threatning. THIS then fhews the reafon, why it is altogether impoffible that promises, concerning external good things, can ever be univerfal and abfolute. They are not always good, but only as circumstances are. But from the nature of the thing promised, we may be at a certainty how the promise is to be understood; that is, in reference to the divine wifdom. Such things as do appear good for us, to that unerring wisdom, in certain circumftances, fhall be bestowed upon us; and if we fo order our hopes, they will never fail us, for no good thing will GOD withhold from them that love him. But when there is a doubt in the cafe, whether it be good or no, there is all the reafon in the world he fhould decide the doubt, and we fhould yield a matter of dubious confequence to him. But if our hearts be so set upon any temporary good thing, as that fuch favour more with us, than those things which run into an eternal ftate; this we ought to guard ourselves againft. As fuppose it should be more confolatory to me, to be affured of present deliverance or profperity, than to be told of being at the refurrection brought within the compass of his sheep, whatever troubles I meet with here: this is certainly a great distemper of foul, that I cannot tafte the beft, the sweeteft, the most fatisfying, and fulleft good, more than prefent prefent ease; but that any thing of earth would SERM. be more tafteful, and grateful. we fhould always take heed of; And this, I fay, XVI. that we do not indulge our felves in any thing, which is in it self of so very dangerous, and dreadful a con fequence. SERM. SERMON XVII. Preached at Haberdasher's Hall, I THESS. V. 6. the former part. I CAN spend no time in giving you a view of the context, which is very suitable to the words now read. They are a caution against fecurity, and contain in them these two things. To wit, in the first place, a monitory prohibition of it; Let us not fleep. And, fecondly, a fpecification of the prohibited evil; as do others: which words plainly intimate that others fleeping is no warrant to us to do fo. Common example indeed is apt to have that pernicious influence but we are taught that it cannot justify us in fleeping, that others fo generally, and as it were induftriously, compofe themselves to it. Moreover, these words fignify, that others sleeping ought the more effectually to warn us not to do fo. Examples that carry much of terror in them ought to ftrike our hearts with dread, and to poffefs us with a cautious prudent fear, left we fall into the fame dangerous and defperate state. It is as if he had faid; "Come, let me fhew "you |