Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/d_500.lzh/D_552.TXT

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55~o                                            OF THE GRACE OF HOPE.                                                         BOOK

V. The properties and epithets of the grace of hope;
which will more fully show the nature, excellency, and
usefulness of it.
First, It is called a good hope; and hath given us
--good hope through grace, 2 Thess. ii. 16.                 1. In
distinction from, and in opposition to, a bad one. A
bad one is that which is the hope of the moralist and
legalist, which is rounded on their own works of righte-
ousness and deeds, done in obedience to the law; and
is but a sandy foundation to build an hope of eternal
salvation upon; and such is the hope of a carnal and
external professor of religion, which is laid on birth
privileges, education principles, a bare profession of
religion, subjection to external ordinances, and a per-
formance of a round of duties; and the hope of a pro-
fane sinner, formed upon the absolute mercy of God,
without any regard to the merits, blood, and righte-
ousness of Christ.----2. A good hope is that which has
God, his grace and promises, for its object, Christ and
his righteousness for its foundation, the Spirit of grace
for its author, and is a part of the good work of grace
begun upon the soul, and is an hope of good things to
come, of which Christ is the high-priest: in this, hope
differs from expectation; hope is an expectation of
good things; and he that fears expects, but he does not
expect good things, for fear is an expectation of evil
things; but hope is of good things; wicked men ex-
pect things which have no substance and solidity in
them, and their hope perishes {2}.          3. A good hope is
that which is of great use both in life and death; it is
the Christian sailor's anchor, and the Christian soldier's
helmet; it carries through all the troubles iu life, as
before observed, and supports in the hour of death;
whilst the hope of the hypocrite is like the giving up
of the ghost, and expires with him; this continues,
and the man that has it is saved eternally; for we are
saved by hope, Rom. viii. 24.
&condly, It is also a lively or living one, 1 Pet. i. 3
So called,       .1. Because the subject of it is a living
man, one spiritually alive: a man dead in trespasses
and sins is without hope; but a man regenerated and
quickened by the Soirit of God is begotten again to a
lively hope.        2. Because it has for its object eternal
life: one that is justified by the grace of God, is made
an heir according to the hope of eternal lye, Tit. iii. 7.
3. Has for its ground and foundation a living
Christ, aud not dead works; as hith lives upon a cru-
cified Christ, hope receives its virtue and rigour from
the resnrrection of Christ; Christ, as risen, and at the
right-hand of God, greatly encourages to seek and
hope for things above, where he is.    -4. It is of a
cheering and enliven;rig nature; hope deferred maketh
the heart sick; but when the desire cometh it is a tree of
life, Prov. xiii. 12. it causes gladness and joy; hence
we read of the rejoicing of the hope, and of rejoicing in
hope, Heb. iii. 6. Rom. v. 2, see Prov. x. 28.----5. It
is an abiding, ever-living grace, and is always more or
less in exercise; as water that is always flowing and
running is called living water; this grace is lively or
living when others seem to be ready to die; and though
it is sometimes in a low state itself, and a man puts his

mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope, yet still
there is hope; and when he is in the worst case, a saint
cannot give up his. hope; nor will he part with it for
all the world; it is one of the abiding graces, I Cor.
xiii. 13.
Thirdly, It is represented as of a purifying nature;
every man that hath this hope in him, of appearing with
Christ, and being like him, aud seeing him as he is,
purifieth himself even as he is pure, I John iii. 3. that
is, as Christ is pure: all men are by nature and through
sin impure: no man can purify himself by any thing
that he can do; it is peculiar to the blood of Jesus to
cleanse from sin. Neither faith, nor hope, nor any
other grace, have such virtue in them as to make a
man pure from his sin; no otherwise can they purify
from it, but as they deal with the blood of Christ; and
he that has hope in the blood and righteousness of
Christ for justification and salvation, and expresses it,
does thereby declare that he is righteous, as Christ is
righteous, v 7. being made the righteousness of God
in him.
Fourthly, Hope is sometimes compared to an an-
chor, because of its great usefulness to the Christian
in this life; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul
both sure and steadfast, Heb. vi. 19. this world is a sea;
the church, and so every believer, is like a ship sailing
on it; Christ is the pilot that guides it; hope is the
anchor of it; and a good hope is like an anchor cast
on a good foundation, where remaining fixed, it is
sure and steadfast; and as the ground on which an
anchor is cast is out of sight; so Christ, on which hope
is fixed, is unseen; as are also the glories of a future
state, it is concerned wkh; arid as an anchor is of no
service without a cable; so not hope without faith;
which is the substance and support of it: a ship when
at anchor is kept steady by it; so a soul by hope: none
of the things it meets with, afflictions, troubles, and
temptations, can move it from the hope of the gospel,
from the service and cause of Christ; but it remains
steadfast and immoveable, always abounding in the
work of the Lord. In some things hope and an an-
chor disagree; an anchor is not of so much use ht
storms and tempests at sea as when hin a calm, or in
danger near rocks and shores; but hope is of use
when the soul is in a storm sadly ruffled, disco!nposed,
disquieted, and tossed about with sin, temptation, and
trouble; hence David, in such a spiritual storm, cast
out the anchor of hope; Why art thou cast down, 0
my soul ? and why art thou disquieted within me ?
Itope thou in God ! Psalm xlii. 11. and says the pro-
phet Jeremy, chap. xvii. 17. Thou art my hope in the
day of evil. A cah!e may be cut or broke, and so the
anchor useless; but faith, which is that to hope as the
cable is to the anchor, will never fail, can never be
destroyed; an anchor is cast on what is below, on
ground underneath; but hope has for its objects things
above where Jesus is; when a vessel is at anchor it
continues where it is, it moves uot forward; but a soul,
when it abounds in the exercise of the grace. of hope,
through the power of the Holy Ghost, it is moving
upwards, rejoiciug in hope of the glory of God, and

{2} $uidas in voce, \~elpiv\~.