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I. Every faithful teacher must conceive it to be his duty TO DRAW MEN'S HEARTS FROM THINGS BELOW TO THE CONTEMPLATION OF THINGS OF AN HIGHER STRAIN, and from seeking the things tending to a temporal, unto such as belong to life eternal.

1. This was the aim of all the men of God, whose faithfulness the Scriptures hath recommended unto our imitation. All that pedagogy during the law was only to train men unto Christ, and to salvation by Him.

2. All other professions further men in their earthly estates, some employed about the health of the body, some about the maintaining of men's outward rights, some about the framing of tender minds in human disciplines and sciences; all which further our fellowship and society among men; only this, of all other professions, furthereth men in their heavenly estate, and fitteth them, yea maketh up for them their fellowship with God (Ephesians 4:11, 12).

3. Hereby men lay a sure groundwork of profiting men in godliness, for this expectation and desire of life eternal once wrought in the heart, it easily bringeth men to the denial of themselves, both in bearing the cross for Christ, as Moses esteemed highly of the rebuke of Christ — for he had respect unto the recompense of reward — as also in stripping themselves of profits, pleasures, advancements, friends, father, wife, children, liberty, yea, of life itself.

II. TRUE FAITH NEVER GOES ALONE, BUT, as a queen, IS ATTENDED WITH MANY OTHER GRACES, as knowledge, love, fear of God; among which hope here mentioned not only adorneth and beautifieth, but strengtheneth and fortifieth the believer, and as a helmet of salvation, causeth the Christian soldier to hold out in repentance and obedience.

1. The original of it. It is a gift of God and obtained by prayer as faith also is, whence the apostle prayeth that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give the Ephesians to know what the hope is of his calling.

2. The subjects in whom it is. The saints, for as the practise of believers before Christ to wait for His first coming in humility, as we read of Simeon, Hannah, and many others, so now believers as constantly wait for his second coming and the comforts of it (Revelation 22:17).

3. The object of this hope. Things to come, and, namely, after the resurrection, life eternal. In which regard the apostle calleth it a hope laid up in heaven, which is all one with that in the text, hope of life eternal, unto which it lifteth up the heart and affections. Where the excellency of the grace may be conceived from the excellency of the object; it is not conversant about momentary and fleeting matters, nor insisteth in things below, but about durable and eternal things to come; and not only comforteth the soul here below on earth, but crowneth it hereafter in heaven.

4. It is added in the description that this grace of hope doth firmly and not waveringly expect this eminent object, and this it doth, both because it is grounded not upon man's merit, power, or promises, but upon the most firm promise of God, as also in that the Holy Ghost, who first worketh it, doth also nourish it, yea, and so sealeth it up unto the heart as it can never make ashamed; it may, indeed, be tossed and shaken with many kinds of temptations, yet in the patient attending upon the Lord it holdeth out and faileth not.

(T. Taylor, D. D.)

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KJV: In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

WEB: in hope of eternal life, which God, who can't lie, promised before time began;