Infer. 2. With what weaned affections should the people of God walk up and down this world, content to live, and willing' to die f For things present are theirs if they live, and things to come are theirs if they die. Paul expresses himself in a frame of holy in- differency, Phil. i. 23. " Which to chuse I know not." Many of them that are now in fruition of their inheritance above, had vitam in patientia, mortem in desiderio, " Life in patience, and death in desire," while they tabernacled with us. " O (cried one) what would " I give to have a bed made to my wearied soul in Christ's bosom ?
" 1 cannot tell you what sweet pain and delightful torments
" are in his love ; I often challenge time for holding us asunder ; " I profess to you, I have no rest till I be over head and ears in " love's ocean. If Christ's love (that fountain of delights) were laid " open to me as I would wish, O how overcome would this my *c soul be ! I half call his absence cruel ; and the mask and vail on " his face a cruel covering, that hideth such a fair, fair face from " a sick soul. I dare not challenge himself, but his absence is a " mountain of iron upon my heavy heart. O when shall me meet ! " How long is the dawning of the marriage-day ! O sweet Lord " Jesus, take wide steps ! O my Lord, come over mountains at " one stride ! O my beloved, flee like a roe, or young hart upon u the mountains of separation ! O if he would fold the heavens " together like an old cloak, and shovel time arid days out of the " way, and make ready in haste the Lamb's wife for her husband ! " Since he looked upon me, my heart is not mine own."
Who can be blamed for desiring to see that fair inheritance which is purchased for him ! But, truly, should God hold up the soul by the power of faith, from day to day, to such sights as these, who would be content to live a day more on earth ! How should we be ready to pull down the prison walls, and not have patience to wait till God open the door ! As the Heathen said,
Victurosquc dii celant, ut vivere durent.
And truly the wisdom of God is in this specially remarkable, in giving the new creature such an admirable crisis, and even tem- per, as that scripture, 2 Thess. iii. 5. expresses, " The Lord direct
SEAM. XV. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 197
" your hearts into the love of God and patient waiting for Christ. " Love inflames with desire, patience allays that fervor. So that fervent desires (as one happily expresses it) are allayed with meek submission; mighty love with strong patience. And had not God twisted together these two principles in the Christian's constitution, he had framed a creature to be a torment to itself, to live upon a very rack.
Inf. 3. Hence we infer the impossibility of their salvation that know not Christ, nor have interest in his blood. Neither Heathens, nor merely nominal Christians, can inherit heaven. I know some are very indulgent to the Heathen, and many formal Christians are too much so to themselves : but union by faith with Jesus Christ, is the only way revealed in scripture, by which we hope to come to the heavenly inheritance. I know it seems hard, that such brave men, as some of the Heathens were, should be damn- ed : but the scripture knows no other way to glory, but Christ put on, and applied by faith. And it is the common suffrage of mo- dern sound divines, that no man, by the sole conduct of nature, without the knowledge of Christ, can be saved. There is but one way to glory for all the world, John xiv. 6. " No man cometh to " the Father but by me." Gal. iii. 14. " The blessing of Abraham " comes upon the Gentiles through faith.11 Scripture asserts the impossibility of being or doing, any thing that is truly evange- lically good, out of Christ, John xv. 5. " Without me ye can do " nothing.11 And Heb. xi. 6. " Without faith it is impossible to " please God.11
Scripture every whqjp connects and chains salvation with voca^ tion, Rom. viii. 30. and vocation with the gospel, Rom. x. 14. To those that plead for the salvation of Heathens, and profane Christians, we may apply that tart rebuke of Bernard, that while some labour to make Plato a Christian, he feared they therein did prove themselves to be Heathens.
Inf. 4. How greatly are we all concerned to clear up our title to the heavenly inheritance ! It is horrible to see how industrious many are for an inheritance on earth, and how careless for heaven. By which we may plainly see how vilely the noble soul is depres- sed by sin, and sunk down into flesh, minding only the concernments of the flesh. Hear me, ye that labour for the world, as if heaven were in it ; what will ye do when at death you shall look back over your shoulder, and see what you have spent your time and strength for, shrinking and vanishing away from you ? When you shall look forward, and see vast eternity opening its mouth to swallow you up ; O then what would you give for a well-grounded assur- ance of an eternal inheritance !
O, therefore, if you have any concernment for your poor souls ;
198 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. SERM. XVT.
if it be not indifferent to you what becomes of them, whether they be saved, or whether they be damned, " give all diligence to " make your calling and election sure,1' 2 Pet. i. 10. " Work out " your own salvation with fear and trembling ; for it is God that " worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure," Phil. ii. 12. Remember it is salvation you work for, and that is no trifle, Remember, it is your own salvation, and not another's. It is for thy own poor soul that thou art striving ; and what hast thou more ?
Remember, now God offers you his helping hand ; now the Spirit waits upon you in the means, but of the continuance thereof you have no assurance ; for it is of his own good pleasure, and not at yours. To your work, souls, to your work. Ah, strive as men that know what an inheritance in heaven is worth.
And, as for you that have solid evidence that it is yours ; O, that with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven, you would adore that free grace, that hath entitled a child of wrath to a heavenly inheri- tance ! Walk as becomes heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. Be often looking heaven-ward when wants pinch here. O look to that fair estate you have reserved in heaven for you, and say* I am hastening home ; and when I come thither, all my wants shall be supplied. Consider what it cost Christ to purchase it for thee ; and with a deep sense of what he hath laid out for thee, let thy soul say,
Blessed be God for Jesus Christ
Of the Kingly Office of Christ, as it is executed spiritually upon the Souls of the Redeemed.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteih itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ