4. There they abide longest. That we account our home where we abide. An inn cannot be called our home, where we come but for a night, and away ; but now there we are ' for ever with the Lord.' Here we are in motion, there in rest. The world must be surely left. If we had a certain term of years fixed, yet it would be very short in comparison of eternity. All the time we spend here it is but a night, but a moment, in comparison of eternity. We live longest in the other world, and therefore there is our home : Micah ii. 10, ' Arise, de- part hence ; this is not your rest.' God speaks it of the land of Canaan, when they had polluted it with sin. It is true of all the world. Sin hath brought in death, and there must be a riddance. It is but a passage from danger. Israel dwelt first in a wandering camp, before they came to dwell in cities and walled towns ; and the apostle alludes to that, ' Here we have no abiding city ; we look for one to come.' As the Israelites did look for walled towns and cities of the Amorites to be possessed by them, so here we have but a wandering camp, we look for a city. And mark, as it was with them in then- outward estate, so in the mysteries of their religion ; they were first seated in a tabernacle, and then in a temple : in a tabernacle, which was a figure of the church ; then in a temple, which was a figure of heaven ; for you know, as in the temple there were three partitions — the outward court, the holy place, and the holy of holies— so there are three heavens. The third heaven Paul speaks of — ' the heaven of heavens ' ; and there is the starry heaven, and the airy heaven, the outward court. This life being so frail, so fickle, we can- not call our abode here our home. ' What is your life ? ' saith the apostle ; ' it is but as a vapour,' James iv. 14 ; a little warm breath
VeR. 19.] SERMONS uroN rSALM OXIX. 177
turned in and out by tlie nostrils: Job vil. 1, 'Is there not an ap- pointed time for man upon earth ? His days are as the days of an hireling.' A liired servant you do not intend should live with you for ever ; you hire him for a day or two, and when he hath ended his work, he receives his wages and is gone. So all our days are but a little while ; we do our service, and then we must be gone. Actors, when they have finished their parts, are seen no more. They go within the curtain. So when we have fulfilled our course, God fur- nisheth the world with a new scene of acts and actors.
5. The necessary exercise of their graces doth make them count their lives here but a pilgrimage, and themselves but strangers upon earth, viz., faith, love, hope.
[1.] Faith shows the truth and the worth of things to come. Faith will make them strangers : Heb. xi. 13, ' They saw these things and were persuaded of them, and they counted themselves pilgrims and strangers.' Oh ! were we persuaded of things to come, we would be hasting towards them. We cry, Home, home ! We talk of heaven and eternity, but we do not believe them. Sense and reason cannot out-see time, nor look above the clouds and mists of the lower world, * afar off,' in the apostle's phrase, 2 Peter i. 9 ; but faith shows the truth of things to come. We that are here upon earth, when we look to heaven, the stars seem to us but so many spangles. Oh ! but when we get into heaven and look downward, the world then will seem but as a molehill. That which now to sense seems such a glorious thing will be as nothing.
[2.] The love of Christ which is in the saints makes them to account themselves as strangers. A child of God cannot be satisfied with things here below, because his love is set upon God. Two things the heart looks after, as soon as it is awakened by grace, and love puts us upon them both, viz., a perfect enjoyment of God, and a perfect obedience to God. (1.) That they may be with God and Christ. The saints have heard much, of Christ, read much of him, tasted and felt much of him ; they would fain see him, and be with him, Phil. i. 23. If they had the choicest contentment the w^orld could aftord, this would not satisfy them so much as to be there 'where Christ is, and to be- hold his glory.' The apostle thinks this to be motive enough to a gracious heart to seek things above, for there ' Christ is at the right hand of God ;' love will catch hold of that. Col. iii. 1. The place is lovely for Christ's sake. Love will not suffer them to count this to be their home. Though Christ is present with them now spiritually while they are here, yet the presence and nearness is but distance, but a kind of absence, compared with that which is to come ; and there- fore this veiy presence doth not quench their desires, but kindles them, and sets them a-longing for more. All the presence, the communion, the sight of Christ they get now, is but mediate, through the glass of the ordinance, 1 Cor. xiii. 12 ; and it is frequently interrupted, his face is many times hidden, Ps. xxx. 7 ; and it is not full, as it shall be there, Ps. xvi. 11. But now in heaven it will be immediate ; God will be ' all in all ; ' and there it will be constant, ' they shall be ever with the Lord ; ' and there they shall be 'satisfied with his likeness,' Ps. xvii. 1.5 ; then they shall enjoy his presence indeed. So that love