1. What is the meetness ? this framing and preparing of us ?
[1.] It implieth a remote fitness, which is regeneration. For in our natural estate we were wholly unfit ; partly, being under God's curse Gal. iii. 13, and Eph. ii. 3, and so incapable to enjoy that blessedness which God hath appointed us unto ; partly, being dead in trespasses and sins, Eph. ii. 1, and so unable to help ourselves. Therefore it is God alone that maketh us to come out of that corrupt estate. Surely we ought to be changed : John iii. 3, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ; ' ' and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,' 1 Cor. xv. 50. That these impediments
VeR. 5.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 479
may be removed, and we made fit, God reneweth us by his Spirit, worketh in us a new life of grace, a divine nature, a spiritual and new being, to make us capable of spiritual and divine things. Of ourselves we are not fit to think a good thought. There is a great unfitness of any spiritual good, to understand it, to do it, to receive it. Well then, since we ought to be changed, and made new creatures, before we can be partakers of spiritual benefits, God's powerful operation is necessary. He must frame us for this very thing.
[2.] It implieth an actual preparation, and a farther degree of meet- ness. After we are entered into the new estate, though at first con- version we have a right, and so are remotely capable, yet we are not meet, and nextly capable, of enjoying this blessed estate. A child in the cradle hath a right to the inheritance, yet he is not fit to manage it till become to just years of maturity and discretion. They distin- guish of jus ImTeditarium and jus aptifudhiale. An heir is not ad- mitted to the management of his right. It is true we are 'begotten to a lively hope,' 1 Peter i. 3 ; but we have not the possession of the inheri- tance as soon as we have the hope of it, or a right to it. It is true, God could at once have cast his people into an exact fitness, as he made Adam happy in an instant ; but God will work congruously, and therefore ordinarily he worketh by degrees. As a seed groweth first into a sprig and then into a tree, so the new creature proceedeth by degrees, till it come to perfection. We are not ordinarily meet, —
(1.) Till we are exercised and tried. It was not fit that the king- dom of grace and glory should be the same, but the one a passage to the other, as he 'called us to glory and virtue,' 2 Peter i. 3. To glory or eternal life as the end, by grace and holiness as the way and means. And the apostle saith, Eph. ii. 10, ' We are his workmanship, created by Christ Jesus unto good works, which he hath appointed that we should walk in them.' So as the new creature was fitted for good works, and good works and holiness are the way to our perfect estate, as in a journey, there is a way that lieth from one place unto another, ordinarily it is fit that we should not be translated to heaven as soon as new made, but a while exercised. It is fit our journey should not be a leap or stride ; but we should by degrees advance to heaven by a powerful and fruitful exercise of godliness ; first tried and exercised here, and then crowned hereafter : 2 Tim. ii. 5, ' None that striveth for the mastery is crowned, unless he strive lawfully.' There is some- thing to be done and suffered here below, we receive our reward here- after ; first serve our generation by the will of God, and then gathered to the blessed. There would be no room or place for temptations, if God did not keep us for a while under the exercise of that grace which God hath planted in us. Therefore he doth not glorify us as soon as we are converted ; no, but when we overcome. It is still to him that overcometh : Kev. ii. 7, 11, 17, 26, ' To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God ; ' those that have passed the pikes, gotten over their difficulties. They that hope to go to heaven without blows look for an estate which God doth not ordinarily vouchsafe unto his people : Heb. vi. 12, 'That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises,' if we look to them that went before us, or to those
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who strive and run with us, 1 Peter v. 9. Every one have their exer- cise and trials, and all the faith and patience they can possibly get seemeth little enough to cany them through.
(2.) Till we are mortified, and more dead to the world. What shall a sinful and sensual person, who doteth upon the pleasures and honours of the world, do with heaven, and the company of God, and the communion of saints? No, there must be a time to fit us and prepare us, that we may be weaned from the world and worldly objects by degrees. The noise of axe and hammer were not to be heard in the temple, the stones were to be fitted and squared elsewhere. So the Lord humbleth us by many afflic- tions, and crucifieth us to the world, Gal. vi. 4, that we may be fitted for the heavenly temple. Here we have many sufferings and conflicts, that we may long for home : Ps. cxx. 5, ' Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar.' Our pilgrim- age seemeth long and tedious to us when the world halli lost its relish with us. Otherwise we are loth to depart ; and God will not force us into heaven against our wills.