2. Contrary to our experience, as men or as christians.
[1.] To our experience as men. Why do you fix here ? The world thrusteth us from itself by miseries, and at last by death ; then there is a violent ejection, here it entertaineth us as a stepmother ; but we linger in it as Lot lingered, he was loth to go out of pleasant Sodom till the angels pulled him out : Gen. six. 16, 'And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him, and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.' We are often frustrated by a just and merciful providence, and we should make use of our disappointments. Providence doth often buffet us when it finds us busy where we should not ; where we are more strangers, there we are most employed. When we stick to the earth, God cometh to pull us off".
264 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XLIII.
[2.] To our experience as christians. Afflictions serve to make a divorce between us and the world, hut much more sins. Crosses are grievous to all, but sins to the godly ; sin hindereth us of the free enjoyment of heaven, as crosses do of the comforts of the world. Sin is evil in itself, though we feel it not. Affliction is only evil to our feeling because it smarts ; affliction is as Avormwood, bitter ; but sin is as ])oison, deadly ; it separates us from God, which affliction does not. Sin is contrary to the new man, eclipseth the light of God's countenance, hindereth the enjoyment of God in Christ, which is a heaven upon earth, as desertion is the soul's hell. Many com- plain of crosses that complain not of sins ; they look upon heaven as a reserve and place of retreat when, beaten out of the -world, which is neither a mark nor a work of grace. A beast will leave a place where it findeth neither meat nor rest. But this makes the children of God Aveary. Here is a condition of sinning and offending God which is most grievous to the godly. Paul groans on this account .- Rom. vii. 24, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? ' If any had cause to complain of miseiy Paul had, being in perils and sufferings often ; but that which he complains of is sin. What a grief is it to a christian to meet with a ten]})tation at every turn, to find every sense a snare and every creature a bait ; we can scarce open our eyes but we are in danger.
3. It is contrary to reason. We were not made for the world but the world for us. Whenever we enjoy the world, we see the error of our esteem ; it cannot satisfy our desires, nor recompense our pains. Those that enjoy it least are safest ; the world cannot make us better, it may make us worse ; all the riches and honours of the world cannot endue thy person with any true good. That is good that makes us good, reason will judge so; now the whole world cannot make us better, but grace will. Beware then of fixing your rest here below, which is bewrayed by the complacency of your souls in worldly things, by your lothness to die, by seldom thoughts of heaven. Oh, this wretched disj)osition is contrary to sense, experience, and reason !
Secondly, We are now come to the ceremony and rite by which this obedience of Abraham was signified and expressed — ' Dwelling in tents.' A tent is opposed to a house, or settled dwelling : 1 Chron. xvii. 5, ' For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day, but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another.' The tabernacle was a figure of the church, and the temple of heaven. Houses were then in fashion ; Lot had his house in Sodom, Gen. xix. 2-4, and Abraham was rich and able to build ; it was not out of necessity but choice that he dwelt in tents. You may look upon it, partly, as an act of policy ; partly, as an act of religion.
1. As an act of policy, that they might live in a strange country peaceably, free from the envy and grudge of the nativ^es, who are not wont to brook the increase and greatness of strangers, but thencefor- ward seek to root them out. Thus the Rechabites, who were strangers in Israel, dwelt in tents: Jer. xxxv. 7, 'Neither shall ye build houses, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any ; but all your days ye shall dwell in tents, that ye may live many days in the land where ye
Vers. 9, 10.] sermons upon Hebrews xi. 265
be strangei s ; ' it was the advice of Jonadab their father to them. Such a thing befell Isaac, the grudge of the natives at the prosperity of his flocks : Gen. xxvi. 12-14, ' Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundred-fold, and the Lord blessed him. And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he ])ecame very great. For he had possession of flocks and possession of herds, and great store of servants. And the Philistines envied him.'