April 19

And good hope through grace.—2 Thess. ll. 16.

It is good for a man to hope, since we hope for that which is good, so good that it exceeds all that eye hath seen: for as yet we see not God but in his creatures. Nor ear heard it, that is, in its full, unutterable excellency, which the words of Holy

Scripture can not express to our imperfect reason. Then "neither can it enter into the heart of man:" for things can seem no greater than words can utter. "We know as yet but in part, hereafter we shall know as we are known." If we have boasted to the heathen, that we look for a kingdom and a crown of glory, we are sure we shall not be ashamed of that hope. We may be ashamed that we have doted upon petty things out of which we have devised felicity, and they have failed and deceived us; but our treasure laid up in the heaven is so sure, that in the end, and in the day of trial, none shall insult over our hope and say, "Where is now the Lord your God?" If a mortal man detain the wages of the laborer, it is a sin: therefore, it can not be incident to God, "who is not unrighteous to forget our work and labor of love." "We shall not always be forgotten: our expectation shall not perish for ever." The judgment of a good eyesight is to see afar off; so, in the judgment of a good hope, to remark the unspeakable reward of a better age to come. Whereupon it hath sufficient satisfaction and content to leave or to lose all it hath, things "not worthy to be compared to the glory which is to be revealed in us." The rich mines and golden trade of both the Indies are on the other side the line: so the rich trade of hope is in the other world. Change your poor freight, which is your lading in this vessel of clay, and barter it for an immortal possession.

Hope that is not under the embers, but mounts up into a trembling flame, reckons not what is worth by a very little which it hath in hand, but by its share which is reserved in the storehouse of God's eternal recompense. Now I am abased; but there is mine honor, a far more abundant exceeding weight of glory. Now I carry about a crazy, sickly body; there it shall be immortal, and incident to no distemper. Now my neighbors and acquaintance despise me, and run far from me; there I shall be enrolled with angels and saints, and "with the church of the first-born, and with the spirits of just men made perfect." Now I live in all disorder of church ordinances, in distraction of schisms, in the filthy stench of old and new heresies: but there is the New Jerusalem, where all things set forth the glory of the Lamb, in beauty, and holiness, and truth. Now I must die, and deliver up my body unto the dust; but Christ died and rose again the third day, and will bring again with him, in due time, all those that sleep: and "comfort one another with these words," says St. Paul. And as when Christ ascended into heaven, "he went up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of a trumpet;" so let every heart break forth into praise and gladness, whose hope flies up unto the Lord in his holy places; "holding fast the confidence and the rejoicing of hope firm unto the end."