2. There lieth their treasure and their inheritance. It is said, Eph.
VeR. 6.] SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS V. 5
i. 3, that Christ hath ' blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places.' He hath blessed us with spiritual blessings in earthly places, hath he not ? Here he hath adopted, justified, and sanctified us in part, but the full accomplishment is reserved for the world to come. God would not dispense the fulness of our blessedness in the present world ; that is an unquiet place ; we are not out of gunshot and harms way, nor in an earthly paradise. There Adam enjoyed God among the beasts, but we shall enjoy him in heaven among the angels. In the world God would show his bounty to all his creatures — a commoa inn for sons and bastards ; the place of trial, not of recompense ; the place where God hath set his footstool, not his throne, Isa. Ixvi. ; it is Satan's walk, the devil's circuit : ' Whence comest thou ? From compassing the earth to and fro,' Job il 2 ; a place defiled with sin, and beareth the marks of it, given to all mankind in common : Ps. cxv. 16, ' The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's, but the earth hath he given to the children of men ; ' the slaughter-house and shambles of the saints, for they are slain upon earth ; a receptacle for elect and reprobate.
3. There are all our kindred. There is our home and country, where our Father is, and our Lord Jesus Christ, and all the holy ones of God : Ubi pater, ihi 'patria. We pray to him, ' Our father which art in heaven.' It is heaven that is our Father's house, and the ever- lasting mansions of the blessed. There is our redeemer and elder brother, Col. iii. 1 ; * the heaven of heavens doth contain him.' There are the best of the family. Mat. viii. 12 ; there is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is a misery to be strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, to be shut out from the society of God's people ; but in heaven there are other manner of saints there. To be shut out from the company of the blessed is a dreadful excommunication indeed.
4. There we abide longest. An inn cannot be called our home ; here we abide but for a night, but there for ever with the Lord. The world must be surely left ; if we had a certain term of years fixed, yet it is very short in comparison of eternity. Therefore since we live longest in the other world, there is our home : Mic. ii. 10, ' Arise, depart hence, this is not your rest' God speaketh 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. This lite is but a passage to eternity. Israel first dwelt in a wandering camp, before they came to dwell in cities and waUed towns ; and the mysteries of their religion were first seated in a tabernacle, and then in a temple ; so here first in a mortal, frail condition, and then come to the place of our eternal rest. There is an appointed time for us all to remove : Job vii. 1, ' There is an appointed time for man upon earth ; his days are as the days of an hireling.' An hireling when he hath done his work, then he receiveth his wages, and is gone. Actors when they have finished their parts, they go within the curtain, and are seen no more. So when we have served our generation and finished our course, our place will know us no more, and God will furnish the world with a new scene, both of acts and actors.
5. The necessary graces that belong to a clii'istian show that a christian is not yet in his proper place ; as faith, hope, and love.
6 SEKMOXS UPON 2 COKINTHIANS V. [SeR. IX.
[1.] Faith hath another world in prospect and view ; and our great aim is to come at it. Sense showeth us we have no abiding city upon earth, but faith points at one to come, where Christ is, and we shall one day be. Now this faith were but a fancy, if we should always abide in this earthly tabernacle, and there were no other life to be expected when this is at an end. The salvation of our souls is called the end of our faith ; 1 Peter i. 9, that is the main blessing we look for from Christ. So 1 Tim. i. 16, 'We believe on him to life ever- lasting.' So Heb. X. 39, ' We are not of them who draw back to per- dition, but of them that believe to the saving of their souls.' The great satisfaction that the immortal soul hath by faith is, that it seeth a place of eternal abode, and therefore it cannot settle here, it must look higher than the present world. Faith persuadeth us that the end of our creation and regeneration was far more noble than a little miserable abode here. There is no man in the world, but if he follow the light of reason, much more if he be guided by the light of grace, will seek a place and an estate of rest, wherein he may finally quiet his mind. Therefore faith cannot be satisfied till we reach our heavenly mansion ; he is unworthy of an immortal soul that looketh no further than earthly things.