are promised, that is, fo far as they are made neceffary and useful to us in Order to God's Glory and the great End of Souls. Hope and Fafting are faid to be the two Wings of Prayer. Fasting is but as the Wing of a Bird; but Hope is like the Wing of an Angel foaring up to Heaven, and bears our Prayers to the Throne of Grace. Without Hope it is impoffible to pray; but Hope makes our Prayers reafonable paffi onate and religious; for it relies upon God's Promife, or Experience, or Providence, and Story. Prayer is al ways in proportion to our Hope, zealous and affectionate. 5. Perfeverance is the Perfection of the Duty of Hope, and its last Act; and fo long as our Hope continues, fo long we go on in Duty and Diligence; but he that is to raise a Castle in an Hour, fits down and does nothing towards it: And Herod the Sophister left off to teach his Son, when he faw that 24 Pages appointed to wait on him, and called by the feveral Letters of the Alphabet, could never make him to understand his Letters perfectly. Rules to govern our Hope. 1. Let your Hope be moderate, proportioned to your State,Perfon and Condition, whether it be for Gifts or Graces, or temporal Favours. It is an ambitious Hope for Perfons whofe Diligence is like them that are leaft in the Kingdom of Heaven, to believe themselves endeared to God as the greatest Saints, or that they fhall have a Throne equal to S. Paul, or the Bleffed Virgin Mary. A Stammerer cannot without Moderation hope for the Gift of Tongues, or a Peafant to become learned as Origen: Or if a Beggar defires or hopes to become a King, or ask for a Thoufand Pound a Year, we call him impudent, not paffionate, much less reafonable. Hope that God will crown your Endeavour with equal Measures of thatReward which he indeed freely gives, but yet gives according to our Proportions. Hope for good Succefs according to, or not much beyond, the efficacy of the caufes and the inftrument: and ecauses let let the Husbandman hope for a good Harvest, not for a rich Kingdom, or a victorious Army. 2. 2. Let your Hope be well founded, relying upon juft Confidences, that is, upon God according to his Revelations and Promifes. For it is poffible for a Man to have a vain Hope upon God: And in Matters of Religion it is Prefumption to hope that God's Mercies will be pour'd forth upon lazy Perfons that do nothing towards holy and ftrict Walking, nothing (I fay) but truft and long for an Event befides and against all Difpofition of the Means. Every falfe Principle in Religion is a Reed of Egypt, falfe and dangerous. * Rely not in temporal things upon uncertain Prophecies and Aftrology, not upon our own Wit or luduftry, nor upon Gold or Friends, not upon Armies and Princes; expect not Health from Phyficians that cannot cure their own Breath, much lefs their Mortality: Ufe all lawful Inftruments, but expect nothing from them above their natural or ordinary Efficacy, and in the Ufe of them from God expect a Bleffing, A Jer. 17. s. Hope that is eafie and credulous is an Arm of Flesh, an ill Supporter without a Bone. 3. Let your Hope be without Vanity or Garishnefs of Spirit, but fober, grave and filent, fixed in the Heart, not born upon the Lip, apt to fupport our Spirits within, but not to provoke Envy abroad. 4. Let your Hope be of things poffible, safe and Di cofi fuori ufeful. He that hopes for an Opportunity of acting his di credenza Revenge, or Luft, or Rapine, watches to do himself a far speranza, Mifchief. All Evils of ourfelves or Brethren are Objects non vuoler of our Fear, not Hope: And when it is truly underflood, things ufelefs and unfafe can no more be wished for, than things impoffible can be obtained. 5. Let your Hope be patient, without tedioufness of Spirit, or haftine fs of prefixing Time.Make no limits or prescriptions to God, but let your Prayers and Endeavours go on ftill with a conftant Attendance on the Periods of God's Providence.The Men of Bethulia refolved to wait upon God but 5 Days longer: But De liverance ftayed 7 Days, and yet came at laft. And take not every Accident for an Argument of Despair: But but go on ftill in hoping, and begin again to work if any ill Accident have interrupted you. Means of Hope, and Remedies against Despair. The Means to cure Defpair, and to continue or increafe Hope, are partly by Confideration, partly by Exercife. 1. Apply your Mind to the Cure of all the proper Caufes of Defpair: And they are Weaknefs of Spirit, or Violence of Paffion. He that greedily covets is impatient of Delay, and defperate in contrary Acci-p dents; and he that is little of Heart, is alfo little of gó Hope, and apt to Sorrow and Sufpicion. 2. Defpife the things of the World, and be indifferent to all Changes and Events of Providence: And for the things of God the Promifes are certain to be performed, in Kind; and where there is lefs Variety of Chance, there is lefs Poffibility of being (a) mocked: But he that creates to himself Thousands of little Hopes, uncertain in the Promife, fallible in the Event, and depending upon Ten Thousand Circumftances (as are all the things of this World,) fhall often fail in his Expectations, and be used to Arguments of Diftruft in fuch Hopes. : (α) Ελπὶς καὶ σὺ τύχη, μέγα χαίρετε, τὴν ὁδὸν εὗρον. Homer. 3. So long as your Hopes are regular and reafonable, though in temporal Affairs, fuch as are Deliverance from Enemies, efcaping a Storm or Shipwreck, Recovery from a Sickness, Ability to pay your Debts, c.remember that there are fome things ordinary,and fome things extraordinary to prevent Defpair. In ordinary remember, that the very hoping in God is an Endearment of him, and a Means to obtain the Blef fing.[Iwill deliver him, because he hath put his Trust in O 2 me.] λυποίο : me.] 2. There are in God all thofe glorious Attributes and Excellencies which in the Nature of things can poffibly create or confirm Hope. God is 1. Strong, 2. Wife, 3. True, 4. Loving. There cannot be added another capacity to create a confidence; for upon thefe Premiffes we cannot fail of receiving what is fit for us. 3. God hath obliged himself by Promife that we shall have the Good of every thing we defire for even Loffes and Denial fhall work for the Good of them that fear God. And if we will truft the Truth of God for Performance of the general, we may well truft his Wifdom to chufe for us the particular. * But the Extraordinaries of God are apt to fupply the Defect of all natural and humane Poffibilities. 1. God hath in many Instances given extraordinary Virtue to the active caufes and inftruments: to a JawBone to kill aMultitude; to 300 Men to deftroy a great Army; to Jonathan and his Armour-Bearer to rout a whole Garrifon. 2. He hath given excellent Sufferance and Vigoroufnefs to the Sufferers, arming them with ftrange Courage, heroical Fortitude, invincible Refolution, and glorious Patience: And thus he lays no more upon us than we are able to bear; for when he increafes our Sufferings, he leffens them by increafing our Patience. 3. His Providence is extra-regular, and produces ftrange things beyond common Rules: and he that led Ifrael thro' a Sea, and made a Rock pour forth Waters, and the Heavens to give them Bread and Flefh, and whole Armies to be deftroyed with phantaftick Noifes, and the Fortune of all France to be recovered and intirely revolved by the Arms and Conduct of a Girl against the Torrent of the English Fortune and Chivalry; can do what he pleafe, and ftill retains the fame Affections to his People, and the fame Providence over Mankind as ever. And it is impoffible for that Man to defpair who remembers Heb. 1. 18. that his helper is omnipotent, and can do what he please. Let us reft there a while; he can if he pleafe: And he is infinitely loving, willing enough: And he is infi nitely wife, chufing better for us than we can do for surfelves. This in all Ages and Chances hath fuppor. ted ted the afflicted People of God, and carried them on dry Ground through a Red-Sea. God invites and cherishes the Hopes of Men by all the Variety of his Providence, 4. If your Cafe be brought to the last Extremity, and that you are at the Pit's Brink, even the very Margin of the Grave, yet then defpair not; at least put it off a little longer, and remember that whatfoever final Accident takes away all Hope from you, if you stay a little longer, and in the mean while bear it fweetly, it will alfo take away all Despair too. For when you enter into Regions of Death, you reft from all your Labours and your Fears. 5. Let them who are tempted to defpair of their Salvation, confider how much Chrift fuffered to redeem us from Sin and its eternal Punishment: and he that confiders this must needs believe that the Defires which God had to fave us were not lefs than infinite, and therefore not eafily to be fatisfied without it. 6. Let no Man defpair of God's Mercies to forgive him, unless he be fure that his Sins be greater than God's Mercies. If they be not, we have much Reason to hope, that the ftronger Ingredient will prevail fo long as we are in the Time and State of Repentance, and within the Poffibilities and Latitude of the Covenant, and as long as any Fromife can but reflect upon him with an oblique Beam of Comfort. Poffibly the Man may err in his Judgment of Circumftances, and therefore let him fear; but because it is not certain he is mistaken, let him not defpair. 7. Confider that God, who knows all the Events of Men, and what their filial condition fhall be, who fhall be faved, and who will perish, yet he treateth them as his own, calls them to be his own, offers fair conditions as to his own, gives them Bleffings, Arguments of Mercy, and Inftances of Fear to call them off from Death, and to call them home to Life, and in all this fhews no Defpair of Happiness to them; and therefore much lefs fhould any Man defpair for himself, fince he never was able to read the Scrolls of the Eternal Predeftination. 03 8. Re |