44 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XXI.
saved ? ' it is answered, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and tlioii shalt be saved,' Acts xvi. 31 ; receive Christ into your heart, and he will receive you into heaven. Let us bring our beloved into our beloved's house, into our hearts, and he will then bring you into those mansions that are in his father's house. The primary office of faith is to close with Christ. There the foundation is laid rightly to receive Christ ; and when the union is begun there is a pledge of glory : Col. i. 21, ' Christ in you the hope of glory.' The great work of a christian should be to get Christ in him ; there is the beginning of heaven.
[2.] It directs you to exercise your faith, to believe the promise of heaven which God hath made. Certainly faith is very weak in this 2")articular, else we should have more ravishment and enlargement of aftec- tion. And the reason of tliis weakness of faith is, partly because it is wholly future, and the promi.'^e seems to be checked and defeated by deatli, and partly, because of our great unwortliiness compared with tlie largeness of the recompense. Guilty sinners have low thoughts of the grace of God ; therefoi-e it is a mistake of christians to think they only doubt of their own interest, they doubt of the main promise : Heb. xi. G, ' lie that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder,' <fcc ; it is one of the fundamental truths never closely and surely enongli laid up in your souls. A guilty creature is a])t to straiten the divine mercy ; and we cannot believe God will do all this. Consider the riches of God's mercy, and the sufficiency of Christ's merit. God's mercy is one relief ; it is rich enough and full, enough to give us heaven and glory. When God gives, he will give like himself. The two great perfections of the godhead are im- mensity and eternity ; he will give, with reference to his immensity, ' an exceeding weight of glory ; ' and, with reference to his eternity, ' an eternal weight of glory ; ' the apostle mentions both in 2 Cor. iv, 17, &c. This is a benefit fit for God to give. Then ruminate in your ihouglits upon the abundant merit of Christ Jesus ; it is a high dignity, Ijut remember it is purchased with a great price. Consider the humiliation of Jesus Christ, that you may believe your own exaltation. Certainly if God can abase himself, we may expect that the creature maybe advanced and glorified ; and if Christ is clothed with our flesh, we may the better wait to be appareled with his glory. Consider, if Christ's glory could not hinder liim from dyinf^; for us, certainly our misery cannot hinder us from reigning with Christ ; the giving of Christ makes all more credible : Bom. viii. 32, ' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all tilings ? ' These things will facilitate the ])elief of heaven.
[3.] Get your own title confirmed ; lay claim to your inheritance ; seize upon heaven as your right and your portion, so as not only to believe heaven is possible and credible, but that it is your right, and made over to you in the testament of Jesus Christ: 1 Tim. vi, 19, ' That you may lay hold of eternal life.' A christian should possess and enter upon it as his own inheritance — This is mine. It was sweet when God said to Abraham, Gen. xv. 1, 'I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.' Consider the grace that is wrought in you; it is the earnest and the pledge of giory, it is the bud of glory ; there-
YeR. 5.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL 45
fore let ns ' rejoice in hope of the glory of God/ when we have ' access to his grace by faith,' Kom. v. 2. A christian should lock upon his present standing as a pledge of glory. Heaven, the apostle calls it ' the prize of our high calling,' Phil. iii. 14 ; he that hath given me Christ, and called me, can glorify me. God hath called me to grace that I may wait upon him for glory ; therefore rest upon the promise till yon come to enjoy it, and until God measures the performance into your bosoms.
[4.] Let us often renew our hopes by serious and distinct thoughts. This is the way to anticipate heaven, by musing upon it : Heb. xi. 1, ' Faith is the substance of things hoped for,' <fec. Wherever there is faith it will send out some spies to look within the veil, and see the glory that is there. We should always be thinking and ruminating upon it. If a man were adopted to the succession of a crown, he would always be pleasing himself with the supposition of the glory ; so when poor creatures are called to such hopes, they should be creating sup- positions and images. Worldly men feast their spirits with worldly hopes ; they are thinking of the increase of their trade and promoting their gain: James iv. 13, ' To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain ; ' so a believer will be sending out spies, and feasting himself with his glorious hopes. A child of God doth translate himself by degrees, and weans himself from the world more and more, and is putting his heart into heaven before his person is there ; he is ' seeking things that are above,' Col. iii. 1, and seriously musing upon them ; his heart is in heaven before his body — ' Our conversation is in heaven,' saith the apostle, Phil. iii. 20 : all the business of their lives is laid so that they may look heavenward. As a man beyond the seas, when he hath gotten an estate there, will be forming his business so that he may draw it> home ; so a christian is compassing this in the whole course of his life, that he may get home, and return to his country. It is a hard matter to get the heart to the study of heavenly things ; the children of God should do so. The sabbath-day is the image of heaven, and the com- numion we have with God in the ordinances is the pledge of that communion w'e shall have with God in heaven : God hath appointed that day on purpose for our help.