A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolvedA Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved

Three things only in the words call for a little Explication.

1. What is meant by Hope? Either hope here is the same that Faith is, (and so it is in divers other places) and then to give a reason of their Hope,¹ is to make a Confession of their Faith; so some take it. Or it may be taken Synecdochically, for the whole of their Religion, as others; And indeed the hope of a Christian being one of the most eminent Acts of Religion, and seeming withal to the profane and ignorant World, one of the most strange things in it, and which was most cavilled against, and laughed at^†, (for men to expect a Life after death, a glorious Resurrection after a dishonourable lying in the grave, and to renounce all Worldly enjoyments, and expose themselves to the bitterest sufferings merely in hope of something they did not see, nor expected to enjoy till after they were dead,) it might well be put for the whole of Religion, as being so remarkable in it.

1. What is meant by Hope? Either hope here is the same that Faith is, (and so it is in divers other places) and then to give a reason of their Hope,¹ is to make a Confession of their Faith; so some take it. Or it may be taken Synechdochically, for the whole of their Religion, as others; And indeed the hope of a Christian being one of the most eminent Acts of Religion, and seeming withall to the profane and ignorant World, one of the most strange things in it, and which was most cavil'd against, and laugh'd at^†, (for men to expect a Life after death, a glorious Resurrection after a dishonourable lying in the grave, and to renounce all Worldly enjoyments, and expose themselves to the bitterest sufferings meerly in hope of something they did not see, nor expected to enjoy till after they were dead,) it might well be put for the whole of Religion, as being so remarkable in it.