[4.] When once our qualification is clear, every step of our remove out of this world is an approach to our abiding city : Eom. xiii. 11, ' Our salvation nearer than when we first believed ;' and 2 Cor. iv. 16, 'Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.'
[5.] Every degree of grace makes your qualification clearer : Col. i.
12, ' Giving thanks to the father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light ;' and 1 Tim. vi. 19, ' Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold of eternal life.' Evidences are in- creased when ripening for heaven more and more.
2. Let us carry ourselves as such as count our best estate in this world as the house of our pilgrimage.
[1.] Let us with great joy and delight of heart entertain the pro- mises of the life to come, resolving to hold and hug them, and esteem them, and make much of them till the performance come : Heb. xi.
13, ' These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.'
[2.] Let us take heed of what may divert us and besot us, and hinder us in our heavenly journey : 1 Peter ii. 11, ' Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.' A relish of the pleasures that offer them- selves in the course of our pilgrimage spoileth the sense that we have of the world to come, and weakens our care and pursuit of it.
[3.] Let us be contented with those provisions that God in his pro-
VeR. 54.J SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX. 71
vidence afFordetli us by the way, though they be meau and scanty : 1 Tim. vi. 8, ' Having food and raiment, let us be content, for we brought nothing into the world,' and it is certain we can carry nothing out/ We came into the world contented with a cradle, and must go out contented with a grave ; therefore, if we want the pomp of the world, let it not trouble us : we have such allowance as our heavenly Father seeth necessary for us till our great inheritance cometh in hand.
[4.] If the world increase upon us, we should take the more care that we may have the comfort of it in the world to come : Eev. xiv. 13, ' Their works follow them ; ' Luke xvi. 9, ' Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations.' There is no other way to show our weanedness in a full estate, nor to keep our hearts clean, or to express our deep sense of the world to come, but this.
Do'jt. 2. That during this estate, and the inconveniences thereof, God's children find matter of rejoicing in his word.
1. Let us consider how this point lieth in this text.
[1.] The Psalmist had a sufficient sense of the inconveniences of the house of his pilgrimage, his absence from Grod, for therefore he counts it a pilgrimage ; the many aftVonts and dishonours that are done to God in the world, which go near to a gracious heart who ■espouseth God's quarrel and interest ; therefore he saith, ' Horror hath taken hold upon me, because men keep not thy law.' Xay, and possibly his own affiictions and troubles, for many interpreters suppose him now expelled from Jerusalem, and driven to wander up and down in the forests and wildernesses ; yet then could he comfort himself in. God, and pass over his time in meditating on his precepts and pro- mises. The troubles and inconveniences of our pilgrimage are easily disregarded by them that have no sense of them, or are slight-hearted, or whose time of trial is not yet come ; but then is strength of grace seen when we can overcome sense of trouble by the encouragements which the bare naked word of God ofFereth. If David were now in exile, it was a trouble to him not to enjoy the ordinances and means of grace with the rest of God's people ; but to deceive the tediousness of it by God's word, that is the trial. If we can depend upon the pro- mise, when nothing but the promise is left us, there are no diflficulties too great for the comfort of God's word to allay.
[2.] The Psalmist jpeaketh not of what he would do, but what he had done : ' Thy statutes have been my songs.' Experience of the ■comfort of the word is more than a resolution to seek it there. In his resolution he would have been a pattern of duty, but now he is a pre- ■cedent of comfort. That which hath been may be ; God, that hath given a promise and comfort to his saints before, will continue it in all ages.
[3.] The Psalmist speaketh not of an ordinary joy, but such as was ready to break out into singing, which noteth the heart is full, and can hold no longer without some vent and utterance ; as Paul and Silas were so full of joy that they sang at midnight in the stocks.