Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

Let what has been said, be carefully pondered, and that it may be of use, let me exhort you,

First, To take heed that ye entertain no hopes of heaven, but what are built on a solid foundation: tremble to think what fair hopes of happiness death sweeps away like cobweb•: how the hopes of many are cut off, when they seem to themselves to be on the very threshold of heaven; how, in the moment they expected to be carried by angels into Abraham's bosom, into the regions of bliss and peace, they are carried by devils into the society of the damned in hell, into the place of torment, and regions of horror. I beseech you to beware, (1.) Of a hope built up, where the ground was never cleared. The wise builder digged deep, Luke vi. 48. Were your hopes of heaven never shaken; but ye have had good hopes all your days? Alas for it; you may see the mystery of your case explained, Luke xi. 21. When a strong man armed keepeth his place, his goods are in peace. But if they have been shaken; take heed lest there have only some breaches been made in the old building which you have got repaired again, by ways and means of your own I assure you your hope (howsoever fair a building it is) is not to trust to; unless your old hopes have been razed, and you have built on a foundation quite new (2) Beware of that hope which looks brisk in the dark; but loseth all its lustre, when it is set in the light of God's word, when it is ⟨p. 234⟩examined and tried by the touchstone of divine revelation, John iii 20. For every one that doth evil, hatcth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Ver. 21. But he that doth the truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. That hope, which cannot abide scripture-trial, but sinks when searched into by sacred truth, is a delusion, and not a true hope: for God's word is always a friend to the graces of God's Spirit, and an enemy to delusion. (3.) Beware of that hope, which stands without being supported by scripture-evidences. Alas! many are big with hopes, who cannot give, because they really have not any scripture-grounds for them. Thou hopest that all shall be well with thee after death: but what word of God s it, on which thou hast own caused to hope? Psal. cxix. 49. What scripture-evidence hast thou to prove, that thy hope is not the hope of the hypocrite?