land, to gather up his debts owina him but he desires to be in his own kingdom and nation ; so we are here a wKile as in a strange land, but our desire is chiefly after the kingdom of heaven, whei'e we shall be for ever. The world is the place of a saint's abode, not his delight : is it thus with us ? Do we, like the patriarchs of old, " desire a better country?" Heb. xi. 16. This is the temper of a true saint; his affections are set on the kingdom of God, his anchor is cast in heaAcn, and he is carried thither with the sails of desire.
3. Are Ave heavenly in our speeches ^ Christ after his resurrection did speak of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, Acts. i. 3. Are your tongues tuned to the language of the heavenly Canaan ? Mai. iii. 16., " Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another." Do you, in your visits, sejison your discourses with lieavcn ? There are many say, they
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hope they shall he saved, but you shall never hoar them speak of the kinfjdom of heaven ; perhaps of their wares and druj^s, or of some rich purchase they have got, but nothiuj"^ of the kingdom. Can men travel together in a jouruey, and not speak a word of the place they are travelling to ? Are you tra- vellers for heaven, and never speak a word of the kingdom you are travelling to? Herein many discover they do not belong to heaven, for you shall never hear a good word come from them. J^erha sunt specu/a tnetitis, Berx. The words are the looking- glass of the mind, they shew what the heart is.
4. Are we heavenly in our trading? Is our traffic and merchandize in heaven ? Do we trade in the heavenly kingdom by faith ? A man may live in one place, and trade in another, he may live in Ireland, and trade in the West Indies, so, do we trade in the heavenly kingdom ? They shall never go to heaven when they die, who do not trade in heaven while they live. Do we send up to heaven voUies of sighs and groans ? Do we send forth the ship of prayer thither, which fetcheth in returns of mercy ? Is our com- munion " with the Father and with his Son Jesus ?" 1 John i. 3. Phil. iii. 20.
5. Are our lives heavenly ? Do we live as if we had seen the Lord with bodily eyes ? Do we emulate and imitate the angels in sanctity ? Do we labour to copy out Christ's life in ours ? 1 John ii. 6. It was a custom among the Macedonians, on Alexander's birth-day, to wear his picture about their necks set with pearl and diamond : do we carry Christ's picture about us, and resem- ble him in the heavenliness of our conversa- tion ? If we are thus heavenly, then we shall go to the kingdom of heaven when we die ; and truly there is a great deal of rea- son why we should be thus heavenly in our thoughts, affections, conversation, if we con- sider,
(1.) The main end why God hath given us our souls, is, that we may mind the king- dom of heaven ; our souls are of a noble ex- traction, they are akin to the angels, a glass of the Trinity, as Plato speaks. Now, is it rational to imagine, that God would have breathed into us such noble souls only to look after sensual objects? Were such
bright stars made only to shoot into the earth ? Were these immortal souls made only to seek after dying comforts ? Had this been only the end of our creation, to eat and drink, and converse with earthly objects, worse souls would have served us; sensitive souls had been good enough for us ; what need our souls be rational and divine, to do only that work which a beast may do?
(2.) Great reason we should be heavenly in our thoughts, affections, conversation, if we consider what a blessed kingdom heaven is; it is beyond all hyperbole ; earthly king- doms do scarce deserve the names of cottasfea compared with it. We read of an angel coming down from heaven, who did tread with his right-foot ujk)Ji the sea, and with, his left-foot on the earth, Rev. x. 2. Had we but once been in the heavenly kingdom, and viewed the superlative glory of it, how might we, in an holy scorn, trample with one foot on the earth, and with the other foot upon the sea ? There are rivers of plea- sure, gates of pearl, sparkling crowns, white robes, — may not this make our hearts hea- venly ? It is an heavenly kingdom, and only such go into it as are heaAcnly.
Use 4th. Of exhortation. To all in general.