334 SERMONS UPOX HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XLIX.
Use 1. Do not reckon tlie absence of a temptation to be grace. Grace is seen in tlie conflict, when you have an opportunity to start from him, and yet your hearts keep close to God ; the opportunity is present, but grace forbids. Joseph had not only a temptation, but an opportunity, but grace resisted it : Gen. xxxix. 9, ' How can I do this great wickeduess, and sin against God ? ' These patriarchs might have had an opportunity to return ; nothing kept them back, but the command of God. Esse honum facile est, uhi quod vetat esse, o-emotum est — It is easy to be good when we cannot be otherwise, or when all temptations to the contrary are out of the way. All the seeming good that is in many, they owe it to the want of a temptation, and to the want of an opportunity of doing otherwise. Some have not the wit to be heretics, nor an estate to be luxurious, or the like.
Use 2. It showeth us the evil of those that can break through the restraints of providence ; when their way is hedged up with thorns, yet they will find a path. As the Lord complains, Isa. xxvi. 10, ' In the land of uprightness they will deal unjustly;' they will stumble when stumbling-blocks are removed out of the way ; they be proud in deep poverty, wicked in godly families, sin, when the awe of parents should restrain them. They have not an opportunity and an occasion to sin, but they make one, and draw iniquity with cart-ropes. Where the cliannel is cut, the water followeth easily : so where there is an opportu- nity the heart runs out to sin ; this is sinful ; but when men overthrow the banks and cut down the dam, that corrupt nature might find an issue or course, it is exceeding sinful.
Use 3. It presseth us to a voluntary mortification, in the fulness of all things to be strangers and pilgrims ; not upon necessity, but upon reasons of conscience, as it was with these here in the text. David professetli himself to be a stranger and a pilgrim, not only when he was hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, but when he was in his palace, and in his best estate. We are not to renounce our comforts, and throw away God's blessings ; but we are to renounce our carnal affections. We cannot get out of the world when we please, but we .must get the world out of us. It is a great trial of grace to refuse the ojiportunity ; it is the most difficult lesson to learn how to abound, more difficult than to learn how to want, and to be abased , to have comforts, and yet to have the heart weaned from comforts ; not to be necessarily mortified, but to be voluntarily mortified and by choice. We use to say, Such an one would do well to be a lord or a lady, when we see him proud, and masterful, and dainty in fare and apparel. Oh it is a harder matter than we are aware of, when we have an opportunity to be evil, worldly and carnal, not to be evil, worldly and carnal, but in the fulness of all things to be as if we had nothing ; to possess all things as if we ]-)ossessed not, as the apostle speaks and directs, 1 Cor. vii. 30, 31, ' That they that rejoice be as though they rejoiced not ; and they that buy as though they possessed not ; and they that use the world as not abus- ing it.'
Again, I observe the constancy of these patriarchs : they kept con- stant to their purpose, and were unmindful of their country from whence they came. They were hated, maligned by the inhabitants of the land, burdened by the envy of the natives ; they could not dig a well, but they were fain to strive for it ; but though they had these hard con-
7eRS. 14-16.] SERMONS UPOX IIEBKEWS XI. 335
ditions, yet they were not miudful of that country from whence they came, hecause God had called them out of it. This ajffords a second doctrine.
' Doct. 2. When we have renounced the world aaid sin, we must take heed of an hankering mind after these things again.
Drawing hack is very hateful to God : Heb. x. 38, ' If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.' This is a dog's nature, to lick up his vomit ; it is a swine's trick, to return to wallow- ing in the mire : 2 Peter ii. 22, ' It is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' Christ tells us, Luke ix. 62, ' No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kmgdom of God.' \Ye shall never be fit for Christ, or any good and excellent use, unless we be unmindful of what we have left for Christ, and hold on our course. The crab that goes backward, was an unclean creature under the law.