A Treatise of Conversion, Chapter 1 · Section 20
SECT. XX.
4. THe next pair of Affections that shew their Change, are, Hope and Despair. Before Conversion, the soul of sinners is either born up on false ungrounded hopes, which is the common case; or else they drop into Desperation. The hopes of an Unconverted man, are foolish and contrary to the word of God, and do but shew the Delusion of his soul, and tend to his destruction: they are like the hopes of a man that thinketh he is traveling to London, when he is in the way to York, and yet goes on, and hopes he shall come to London for all that, as well as they that go the right way: So do these men commonly hope to come to heaven, while they go in the way to Hell. And though God have told them, and passed his word on it, that he that goes in these wayes shall not see peace, Isa. 59. 8. and hath assured the world, that there is no peace to the wicked, Isa. 57. 21. & 48. 22. yet still they will hope to find peace in evil wayes: These deceiving hopes are the common cause of the damnation of the world; as the Scripture frequently acquainteth us. But when converting Grace comes, Oh what work it maketh on the soul in this particular! How it battereth down all the false hopes of sinners; and maketh them see that they were all this while deceived! Oh, it maketh the poor soul even undone in its own apprehension, and shews then that all his hopes were vain that before he trusted in. Then he cryes out, I had hoped to come to Heaven without conversion, but now I see it will not be: I had hoped I was well enough before, and that God would have mercy on me in that condition without any more ado, but now I see I did but deceive my self. I had hoped that I had a saving part in Christ, though I loved the world, and followed my sins, but now I see it is not so. I had hoped I might have been saved if I had died in that condition, but now I see that I had certainly been damned. Now the soul is brought to a kind of Despair; not an absolute despair that God will have no mercy on him; no, he never escaped that till now; but a conditional despair, that ever he should come to Heaven without conversion; he despaireth of ever being saved in the old condition that he was in: and then comes in another kind of hope then ever he knew before: Then the Spirit of Grace doth bring him to hope upon grounds that will not deceive him: Now he hath a hope that quickneth him, and that comforteth him: before he had a dull and dead hope to escape damantion; but now he hath a living hope of seeing the face of God for ever. He hath now that hope toward God by which we are saved, even the Hope of the Resurrection of the dead, and the hope of things not seen, Act. 24. 15. & 23. 6. And Rom. 8. 24. Now he hath a hope which is built on the Scripture, and bred by experience, and which will not make him ashamed, Rom. 15. 4. & 5. 4, 5. Before, as he was without God, so was he without hope, Ephes. 2. 12. But now he hath that hope which is an Anchor of the soul, Heb. 6. 19. A Hope that he can give a reason of, 1 Pet. 3. 15. A Hope that purifieth him, 1 Joh. 3. 3. Even the Hope of eternal life, which none have but those that are Heirs by faith, and are brought to it by this Regeneration, Tit. 3. 5, 6, 7. And for this blessed hope at the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour, doth his Faith and Patience expect and wait, Tit. 2. 13. So that now he hath some reason for his hopes, for he hath the promise of the faithful God to support them. The least hope that a poor troubled soul hath after conversion in the midst of all his fears and doubts, is of more value then all the most confident boastings of the unconverted: For there can be no hope of being saved out of the way that God hath appointed to Salvation: And the bolder men are, and the more they hope and boast in a wrong way, the blinder they shew themselves, and the more is their misery: but the godly are safe in an Objective hope, even when they want much of the Subjective. There is hope, yea and assurance in it self, when they know it not; and they are safe in that which they do not perceive.