Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

good. Despair is the opposite to hope; where this takes place, a total
derangement of all the mental faculties ensues; and generally, if not soon
relieved, the wretched subject dies, or puts an end to life.
What is the proper definition of hope? The following is the most
common, and probably the best:—"The expectation of future good;" an
expectation, too, that arises from desire. It must be good, else it could not
be desired; it must be future, or it would not be an object of expectation:
good in possession precludes hope. "Hope that is seen (possessed) is not
hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for
that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." A thing that was
once an object of hope may have been attained; and if so, hope, in
reference to that, is at an end. Hope is never exercised but where there is
a conviction, less or more deep, of the possibility of attaining its object.
As hope implies desire, it must be a natural or moral good that is its
object, for nothing can be desired that is known to be evil. That which is
good can alone gratify the heart; and to gratify is to please, satisfy, and
content. When Milton puts in the mouth of Satan the following speech:
"So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell fear;
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good:"
the poet does not mean that the nature or operation of evil can be
changed; but that the diabolic heart might be pleased, satisfied, for the
time, and contented with it, as a means of gratifying revenge and malice;
as all good was then to him beyond the reach and sphere of hope. None
but the devil could have uttered such a speech; as none but that archangel
ruined could bring the fellest malice and revenge into successful action,
so as to desire gratification from the result. Could Satan have taken evil
in the place of good, so as to have rested satisfied with it, in that moment
the nature of evil must have been changed to him, and hell cease to be a
place of torment. But it is a diabolical boast, and has neither truth nor
reason in it.