[2.] If you had the world at will, you have no reason to take up your rest here, because the happiness of this world is short, unsatisfac- tory, and not perfective. It is short, we are mortal, and all things about us have their mortality, and many times these things are more fading than we are. Many a man outlives his happiness, as the stalk may remain when the flower is gone; but if not, we are mortal, and must flit into the other world, whether we will or no. The world thrusteth us from itself by miseries, and at last by death ; then there is a violent ejection ; we hang upon it though we are thrust from it, as Lot was loth to go out of pleasant Sodom till the angel pulled him out. Gen. xix. 15. When we stick in the earth, God comes to pluck us up. Wliy should we set our hearts on this world, and like foolish birds build a nest, when to-morrow we must be gone ? And it is not satis-
^ See sei-mon on Ps. cxix. VOL. XIV. V
322 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XLVIIT.
factory, our souls were made for God, and cannot be satisfied without God. When we enjoy most still we want something ; as Noah's dove could not find a place for the sole of her foot, till she came back to the ark. One thing or other is still wanting, how little do we find of what we expected ; when we come to enjoy the world, we seethe error of our esteem. If we would make use of our own disappointments, certainly it would wean us more from worldly comforts ; especially if we would but consider how unsatisfactory they are in death : what will all this world then profit us ? Job xxvii. 8, ' What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul ? ' And then they ai-e not perfective, they can add no value to the soul. Who would dig for iron with mattocks of gold ? The soul is better than all the world , we were not made for the world but the world for us. The world may make us worse, but it cannot make us better ; and it is a very hard matter to keep ourselves from being worse by the world. All the riches, honours, and profits of the world cannot endue thy person with any true good. That is good which maketh us good, so doth grace whereby there is a conformity between us and the chiefest good : James i. 27, 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affiiction, and to keep him- self unspotted from the world.' It is the hardest matter to use the world and not to be defiled by it, and therefore let us seek out another home.
[3.] You have higher and better things revealed to you. If we had no other things to look for, then we might take up our abode here, and satisfy ourselves, and take our fill of what the world yields; but there are higher things, and they are revealed to us. Let thine eye con- vince thy soul ; look upon the aspectable heavens, they are the most glorious part of the creation ■, and if the under part of the pavement is so glorious, what is the inner court, the holy of holies ! And these are revealed to us as hereafter to be ' revealed in us,' Eom. viii. 18, and that both in body and soul. Now they are revealed to you as kept for 3^ou in heaven ; if we had no other things to look for, it were good to be here ; and they are not only revealed to our ears, but we have received our advance-money ; a pawn, a pledge, an earnest, and first- fruits, all to make us say, ' Arise and let us depart, for this is not our rest,' Micah ii. 10.
[4.] These higher things are not only revealed to you, but you are fitted for them. We read not only of heavens being prepared for the saints, but of the saints being prepared for heaven. There is a divine nature given to us, and the new nature can never be satisfied, where we may sin and grieve God. Afflictions are contrary to our old nature and make the world a troublesome place ; so sin is contrary to our new nature, for the new man seeketh a perfect state.
[5.] Consider Christ's choice: John xvii. 16, ' They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.' Christ passed through the world to sanctify our place of service, but he left the world as a place cot fit for him ; if we would choose as Christ chose, we should be strangers here. Christ's judgment is better than ours; if the world liad been worth anything, he would have chosen that kind of life. But he that was Lord of all, and had the fairest title to all tliat was in the
VeK. 13.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 323
world, yet behaved himself as a stranccer, and had neither house nor home : Ps. Ixix. 8. ' I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.' The world frowned upon Christ as one that was not fit for their turn.