The Works of Jeremiah Burroughs 9-11, Treatise 2 · Chapter 16
CHAP. XVI.
The Second Ground why the Saints Hopes makes them purifie themselves: Because their Hopes (usually) cost them very dear.
THe Second ground is this, He that hath this Hope purifies himself, because his Hopes cost him dear; the Hopes of the Saints, they do cost them very dear usually, and therefore they are loth to lose them, they are careful to maintain them, knowing how dear they cost them; though I do not say, but somtimes God doth even sanctifie from the womb, and so by degrees raiseth the heart to hope, but even these find it cost them dear to maintain their Hopes, ordinarily it cost them dear to get them, and to maintain them; it costs them a great deal of humiliation before, it costs them many prayers, many tears; much pains taking, much searching the Word, and the Covenant of Grace, and after a long time it is that their he…rts are somwhat raised with Hope: those that for the most part have these Hopes can remember in what a sad condition they were in before they had them, when their hearts were even despairing, and what a great deal of labor, and pains, and cost that they were at, before they came to have their hearts raised with these Hopes: now when they have gotten them with much difficulty and pains, they think, shall I lose them for nothing? Any of you that are of the poorer sort, that get your dayly bread in the sweat of you… …hrows, if you have labored and toyled a long time, and it may be have gotten ten or twenty shillings together in laying by now a groat, and then sixpence, perhaps you have scraped a little money together; how careful are such in preserving that little? they will not lose what they have gotten with a great deal of pain and labor for a trifle: Now the Saints, they get what they have with labor and cost, and h…nce it is that they are so careful to preserve it; and therefore because they see that the filth and defilement of fin would hinder their Hopes, and take away the comfort of that, therefore they set themselves so much against their sin; whereas the Hopes of the greatest part of the world, are things that lightly come, and lightly go, they cost them nothing: I appeal to you, what do your Hopes cost you? what pains did you take before you attained to these Hopes? for this is certain, all men and women in the World are the children of wrath by Nature, therefore the Hopes that are Hopes of a right stamp, usually cost you dear; but you that neither know what they cost you, nor how they are to be maintained; no marvel therfore though you can lose the comforts of your Hopes, and though they purge not your hearts, though your Hopes may stand with the way of sin and wickedness; because your Hopes are so light things, you easily get them, and so you can easily part with them; you can commit sin, and still you hope the Lord will be merciful unto you, and sin again, and hope again; your Hopes come light, and go light away▪ But the Saints they get their Hopes by prayer and watchfulness, care, and examination of their hearts, and the Word, and if at any time they fall into sin, they lose the comfort, and the sence of their Hope, and then they are fain to seek again, as if they were new to begin; and when was there euer any that had true Grace that have fallen as I have done? and so they are many times in their own apprehension forced to begin all afresh: now when they see what their sins puts them to, and how it doth eclipse or obscure their Hopes, and cost them so dear, this is it that makes them take heed what they do. In Ezra, 9. we read of that holy man, making this Argument in the 8. verse, And now for a little space Grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage: Should we again break thy Commandements? For so he speaks upon the strength of what he said in verse 8. As if Ezra should have said, Oh Lord, we were in great bondage, and it was a mighty work of thine ever to deliver us so far as we are delivered, and to give us a nail in thy holy place, and a little reviving in our bondage; and Lord, shall we again forsake thee, and break thy Commandements? here's an ingenious kind of arguing: Just so is the arguing of a gracious heart about his Hope, Oh Lord God, I that was in bondage, and had the Spirit of bondage upon me, and saw my self as a bondslave to sin, and to the Devil, and now Lord hast thou by thine Almighty power, and by thine infinite Grace and mercy given me a little Hope that thou dost intend good unto me in Jesus Christ, and will save this soul of mine, and bring me to Heaven and eternal life, and should I again forsake thee, and break thy Commandements? should I again return to those former sins I lived in that cost me so dear, that made such a breach between the infinite God and my soul when the Lord hath been pleased to deliver me, and give me such Hope: was there not a time that I would have given ten thousand worlds if I had had them for the raising of my heart from the gulf of despair that I saw my self sinking into? and hath the Lord been pleased to give unto me a little reviving, and shall I again break the Commandements? Oh here's a strong Argument that an ingenious, gracious heart makes use of, from the Hope that God doth give unto him, the little reviving that God gives unto him, because the Lord hath given it with much difficulty, it was a wonderful work of God ever to raise him to these Hopes that he is raised to; and indeed one that hath this Hope doth admire at Gods infinite mercy that he hath been pleased to make such an alteration in his condition; Oh that such a one as I was can be able to look upon the face of the infinite and just God with Hope, and to smile upon Death, the King of Terrors, and to expect the great day of Judgment with Hope, Oh he doth admire at Gods Grace in it, and therefore he is loth to lose the comfort of it; and hence it is he comes to purge himself, he hath from hence a strong Argument against every kind of sin whatsoever: and that's the second thing whereby a gracious heart purifies himself from sin, upon the Hope that he hath.