2. It must not be to places idolatrous, and where true religion is mider a restraint; you usually then put yourselves upon a snare. Abraham could not remain in Chaldea because of abominable idolatry and corruption, and you go into them voluntarily to learn of their ways.
3. If it be in ]ilaces free from infection, where you may live with safety and a good conscience, to get more knowledge and experience, it is commendable ; as the Queen of Sheba came from far to hear the ■wisdom of Solomon, 1 Kings x. 1, for which she is commended by Christ, Mat. xii. 42.
248 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XLII.
Fourthly, For merchants, who remove for traffic, especially into places where the true religion is not professed, it may be suppressed with extremity of rigour.
1. It is lawful certainly to pass from country to country for traffic's sake and to maintain commerce, for there are divers commodities in divers places.
2. Conversation with heretics and infidels may be allowed, else we must go out of the world : 1 Cor. v. 9, 10, ' I wrote unto you in an epistle, not to company with fornicators, yet not altogether with the fornicators of the world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye needs go out of the world,' I speak of a civil commerce, which may be maintained with these cautions.
[l.J With all our traffic we must take all occasions to propagate re- ligion in the truth and power of it especially when stirred up by impulse of spirit; Deut. xxxiii. 18, 19, 'And of Zebulun he said, Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out ; and, Issachar, in thy tents. They shall call the people unto the mountain ; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness, for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hid in the sand.'
[2.] Traffic must be managed by fit persons, not novices, and persons ungrounded in religion ; it is very dangerous for such. This is as if you should turn a child loose among a company of poisons ; an empty pitclier soon cracks by the fire.
[3.] There must be no fixed habitation ; if you thus leave the ordinances and societies of saints for trade, religion is made to stoop to sraiu.
SERMON XLII.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dtvelUng in taber7iacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs ivith him, of the same promise : for he looked for a city lohich hath founda- tions, whose builder and maker is God. — Heb. xi. 9, 10.
The apostle is commending faith from t!ie examples of the ])atri- archs; after the flood lie beginneth with Abraham, the father of the faithful. In the former verse he speaks of the place whence he was called, in this of the place to which he was called ; there he had com- mended him for his self-denial in obeying God's call, and here for his patience and constancy in waiting for the promise. From God's training up Abraham in a course of difficulties, we see it is no easy matter to go to heaven ; there is a great deal of ado to unsettle a believer from the world, and there is a great deal of ado to fix the heart in the expectation of heaven. First there must be self-denial in coming out of the world, and divorcing ourselves from our bosom sins and dearest interests ; and then there must be patience shown in waiting for God's mercy to eternal life, waiting his leisure as well as performing his will. Here is the time of our exercise, and we must
Vers. 9, 10.] sermons upon Hebrews xi. 249
expect it, since the father of the faithful was thus trained up ere lie could inherit the promises.
In these two verses we have a second effect of Abraham's faith and the reason of it.
In the ninth verse we have the second effect of Abraham's faith — ' By faith he sojourned in the land of promise,' dec. There you may take notice of.
1. The act of obedience — By faith lie sojourned in the land of "promise, as in a strange country.
2. The symbol and rite by which this obedience was signified and expressed — Dwelling in tahernacles.
'6. His fellows and followers in the same obedience — With Isaac and Jacob, heirs luith Jnm of the same promise. Of these in their order.
First, I begin with the act of obedience — ' By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country.' The words may be taken in a double sense, as they imply his condition of life and his disposition of heart. Abraham was both a literal and a spiritual stranger in the land of promise.
] . Let us look upon the expression as implying his condition of life. Abraham was not in the condition of an inheritor, but of a sojourner in the land of Canaan ; therefore it is called the land of his sojournings, or in which he was a stranger : Gen. xvii. 8, ' I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger ; ' and so he confesseth to the children of Heth, Gen. xxiii. 4, ' I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.' This sojourning was an act of faith, because he was borne up by faith in the promise against all the troubles which he suffered. He had large lands and possessions in Ur of the Chaldees ; but these he left, and when he came to Canaan, the land of promise, he might expect the fruit of his faith and labours; or else, having seen the land, to return with God's leave to the place from whence he came. But God had not yet done with the trial of his faith ; from his father's house he was a voluntary and obedient exile ; and in Canaan, where God brought him, he is still in the con- dition of a sojourner ; the same faith that moved him to go he knew not whither, bindeth him there to wait God's leisure till he should enjoy the benefit of the promise, being contented in the meanwhile with what estate divine providence should allot.