Moses his choice with his eye fixed upon Heaven, discovering the happy condition of…

First, where hopes are true, they are such as ⟨p. 668⟩are wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Secondly, they are purging hopes.

First, they are such hopes as are wrought by the ¹power of the holy Ghost, Rom. 15. 13. Certainly, hopes of such great things as these, must be raised by a great power, they are hopes that could never be raised by any natural apprehensions, by any work of Reason: you have hopes of Heaven, and of the glorious reward; How came you by them? What almighty power of the holy Ghost have you felt that hath raised these hopes? If you have no other hopes but those that may spring out of nature, natural conceits and apprehensions, you are far short of this recompense of reward: but this recompense of reward being glorious, it hath a glorious principle to raise hopes, such hopes as can bear down strong difficulties that shall oppose them: the holy Ghost does stretch out the hopes of the soul beyond that which nature can do. In the Hebrew that word that signifies hope, signifies a line, because by hope the heart is stretched out as in a line to the thing it hopes for: now the hopes that nature raises is but in a short line, and they stretch out the heart but a little way, but the hopes that are wrought by the power of the holy Ghost, are such hopes as the heart is stretched out very far by them; and there must be a mighty stretching out of the heart, and that by a mighty power, to make it hope for such great things as these, that God should bring such a poor worm to such high things as these are: Ordinary base drossy hopes that have nothing in them, they are not stretched out to these things, they have some confused apprehensions, and slight opinions about heaven, & they are loth to