The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

IN as much as the season of this blessedness is not on this side the Grave; nor expected by Saints till they awake, we may further infer;

Ninthly. That their happiness in the mean time doth very much consist in hope. Or that hope must needs be of very great necessity, and use to them, in their present state for their comfort, and support. It were not, otherwise, ⟨p. 227⟩possible to subsist in the absence, and want of their highest good, while nothing in this lower world is, as to kind and nature, suitable to their desires, or makes any colourable overture to them of satisfaction, and happiness. Others (as the Psalmist observes) have their portion in this life; that good, which as to the species and kind of it, is most grateful to them, is present, under view, within sight; And (as the Apostle) Hope that is seen is not hope, ¹for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it. But those whose more refined spirits (having received the first fruits of the holy Spirit of God) prompt them to groan after something beyond time, and above this Sublunary Sphere; of them, the Apostle there tell us, that they are saved by hope. They (as if he should say) subsist by it; they were never able to hold out, were it not for their hope. And that an hope too, beyond this life, as is the hope of a christian;² if in this life only we had hope in Christ, ³&c. the hope of a Christian as such is suitable to its productive cause; the resurrection of Christ from the dead; begotten to a lively hope by the resurrection, &c. Thence is it, the hope of a renewed, never dying life; the hope of a blessed immortality; whereof Christs resurrection was a certain argument and pledge.

Ninthly. That their happiness in the mean time doth very much consist in hope. Or that hope must needs be of very great necessity, and use to them, in their present state for their comfort, and support. It were not, otherwise,