Use 1. Put in your name among them that profess themselves to be strangers and pilgrims : Heb. xi. 13, ' They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth ; ' and that in your best estate, if it be in the land of promise, where you have most right, in the midst of peace, tranquillity, and worldly enjoyments, where you have most pos- sessions. Consider what reason you have to count yourselves strangers and pilgrims, and what profit jou will have by it.
1. What reason you have so to count yourselves. Consider how frail we are, how uncertain our comforts ; how frail we are, this is not our rest. In our best estate we are but frail: Ps. xxxix. 5, 'Verily every man at his best estate is altogether vanity.' Every word is em- phatical ; there is an asseveration, ' verily ; ' a universal particle, ' every man,' and that ' at his best estate.' The sun in the zenith beginneth to decline. Paul's rapture was seconded with a messenger of Satan ; after a sight of heaven he had a taste of hell. When worldly happi- ness is at the full, it beginneth to decline. And he is not only vain and weak, but vanity itself, and altogether vanity. No man hath a constant fixed abode in the world. And then the uncertainty of worldly things ; we are 'mortal, and all our enjoyments have their mortality. The world is full of changes. Who would build a house where there were continual earthquakes ? or set up his abode and dwelling-place upon the sea ? or lay a foundation upon the ice, that is gone with the next heat and warmth ? Especially God's children, who have least of the world. And then it is not our rest ; if you had the world at will, you have higher things to look after ; this is not your happiness. As that pilgrim said that was travelling to Jerusalem, But this is not the holy city : Micah ii. 10, ' Arise you, and depart, for this is not your rest.' It is the greatest judgment God can inflict upon thee, for thee to take up thy rest here, to be condemned to successes and worldly felicity ; better never iiave a day of rest and case in the world : Luke xvi. 25, ' Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things ; ' Ps. xvii. 14, ' From men of the world, which have their portion in this life ;' Jer. xvii. 13, ' They that depart from me shall be written in the earth,'' — it is a punishment laid on them that depart from God.
2. What profit you will have by it ; it will keep you from lusts and
Vers. 9, 10.] sermons upon Hebrews xi. 263
snares. Birds when they soar aloft, need fear no snares ; he that counts heaven his liome, and the world a strange country, hath a great advantage of others, for he is delivered from the snares of the world. This disposition doth hurt to nothing but to carnal mirth : but it makes way for heavenly refreshings and sweet comforts. Xay it is the best piece of good husbandry, for it is the best way to provide for the world : ]Mat. vi. 33, ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God. and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you ; ' you drive on two cares at once. Xone hold the world by a better tenure than those that are strangers. Abraham dwelt in tents, and Lot dwelt in a city ; and Lot in the pleasant valley found less rest than Abraham in his tent: his lingering in Sodom had cost him dear if God had not pulled him out. It will make us end our days with comfort. Death is an advantage to a spiritual stranger and pilgrim here ; it is a going home after a tedious journey. A man readily leaveth the place he abhorreth, and goeth to the place he loveth ; so if once we could get our affections from the world, death would not be so dreadful. Carnal affections make us unwilling to die ; we are wedded to present things and that makes us loth to depart hence.
Use 2. Eeproof to those that fix their rest here. * It is good to be here,' saith Peter, but as applied to the world is a brutish speech ; it is contrary to sense, experience, and reason.
1. Contrary to sense. Let me confute you by your eyes. Look to the frame of man's body, not only the constitution of his soul, but the frame of his body ; we do not go grovelling on the earth as beasts, nor are we stuck into the ground as trees ; man is of an upright stature, his head is to heaven and his feet to the earth, the seat of the senses is nearest heaven : Ps. viii. 6, ' Thou hast put all things under his feet' But now when men spurn at heaven, when their heads and hearts are fixed on the earth, this is like a man standing upon his head. Worldly men are like worms that come out of the earth, live on it, creep on it, and at length creep into it. and that is all. Let me again confute thee by thine eyes. Consider the frame of heaven ; those aspectable heavens are the most glorious part of the creation, far more glorious than the lower world, and yet it is but the under part of the pavement of heaven. What then is the heaven of heavens, if the lowest part of heaven be so beautiful.