320 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL [SeR. XLVIII.
2. You will l)e taken off from worldly admiration. This is a tliin<^ we are very prone to, to say, 'Happy is the people that is in such a case ; ' but if yon are strangers and pilgrims, you will say, ' Happy is the people whose God is the Lord,' Ps. cxiv. 15. If the heart were above, the world would not seem such a glorious thing. The stars are great .and vast bodies of light, but they seem to be but little spangles, because we here upon earth are at a great distance from them ; so if the heart were taken up with heaven, Avorldly admiration would cease, the honours, pleasures, and profits of the world would not tickle and affect us so ■much as they do. •
3. You would not desire long life if you had the disposition of strangers and pilgrims. A traveller would pass over his journey as •soon as he can and hasten home. A heathen could say, Ex liac vita (Uscedo tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo, &c. ; I go out of this world as out of an inn, not as out of a dwelling-house ; this world is the place of our abode for a time, not of our constant habitation. They are sots that lie guzzling in an inn, and delight to be there, when they should hasten home ; so to desire long life because of carnal enjoy- ments is brutish. To desire to stay here to do God service is gracious ; but to set up our rest here, and not to look after our home, this shows that we do not count ourselves to be strangers and pilgrims.
4. You will be making provision for another world, and laying up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that you may lay hold of eternal life, 1 Tim. vi. 19.
5. You will be hastening homewards more and more, by growing in holiness. Every degree of holiness is a step towards heaven : Ps. Ixxxiv. 7, ' They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion -tippeareth before God.' It is an allusion to those that went up to the temple to worship), whither the males were to go three times in a year ; in the Hebrew it is from troop to troop, they strove how to overtake one another. So he that is in the heavenly journey is growing in grace, and increasing every day more and more, till he comes to appear before God in the glorious temple that is above. So the apostle, Phil. iii. 11, 12, ' If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.' And if they step out of the way they cannot rest till they get into their path again ; as a mariner at sea, that is driven back with winds, yet strives to make to his port again ; so is a christian every day getting home- wards, getting some advantage over his corruptions, and perfecting 'holiness in the fear of God.
6. You will be often thinking of home. Christ says, ' Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,' Mat. vi. 21. A believer to whom heaven is his home, will be longing, Oh ! when shall I come to my country, to my elder brother, my kindred, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Oh, wo is me that I dwell in Meshech! here I am travelling, when shall I be at home ? Do you send your desires and thoughts as harbingers to prepare a place for you ? When the soul thus longs for the sight of God and Christ, we do as it were tell God we long to be ■at home. As Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 8, ' Henceforth there is laid up for me .a crown of righteousness.' He was reckoning what a happy time it vwould be when the crown of righteousness should be set upon his head,
YeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON HEBRE\YS XI. 321
v»'hen he shall get home to his father's house, and enjoy his inheritance and the happiness God hath provided for him. By these marks yon may inquire whether you have this faith, to count yourselves strangers- and pilgrims here. ^
Use 2. To stir us up to he strangers and pilgrims, put in your names among them that profess themselves to be so. Here — (1.) I shall offer you some motives to quicken you ; (2.) I will give you some directions.
1. To quicken you to this work consider these things.
[1.] It is the greatest judgment that can be inflicted upon you, to suffer you to take up your rest here, to be condemned to worldly happiness, and to look for no more. That is a sad doom : Luke xvi. 25, ' Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.' That that is their choice, is their judgment : Ps. xvii. 14, ' From men of the world, who have their portion in this life, whose belly thou fillest with hid treasures ; ' if you look for no other wages, you shall have no other. It is a punishment laid on them that de2)art from God, and leave the fountain of living waters for the puddles of this world : Jer. xvii. 13, ' All that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters.' This is their judgment, to be written in the earth, that is, they shall be men great and famous, taken notice and accounted of here, but this is their portion. It were better for them to be followed with afBictions, to be driven to beg their bread, than to be written in the earth in a way of judgment ; better nevei* have a day of rest and ease in the Avorld, but still to be tossed to and fro in trouble, than to be condemned to worldly felicity. God's children many times, by a just and merciful providence, have least of the world, because they have their portion elsewhere ; the world entertains them as a stepmother, that tliey may look after their own mother Jerusalem, that is above. But when God suffers men to be great and prosperous in the world, and to enjoy worldly comforts to the full, and this is all they are like to have, it is the heaviest judgment that can befall them. Therefore what reason have you to put in your names among them that profess themselves strangers and pilgrims, though you are in your best estate, and live in the midst of peace and tranquillity, and worldly delights flow in with great abundance, yet remember, I am but a stranger and pilgrim here.