Use is to reprove us,
1. That we dono more regard the public welfare of God's people. A man is known by his affection to Sion ; dying Joseph comforts him- self, not only with his own happiness, but the happiness of God's people after his death. Every true member of the church hath life in Christ, and this life givetli feeling, and that feeling stirreth up the affections of joy or sorrow. It is a part of our care that it may be well, not only with our souls, but with the church : Ps. cx.KXvii. 6, ' If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth ; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.' They could as well forget themselves as forget Sion, here was their chief happiness. Their own private calamities have not been so grievous as the public ; it was ill with every member when in Babylon, but it was ill with Sion as well as ill with them, and the church sorrow is the chiefest. As Phinehas's wife complained : 1 Sam. iv. 22, ' The glory is departed from Israel, for the ark of God is taken.' It is not, My father is dead, my husband is dead ; but the ark of God is taken, the glory is departed from Israel. When it is well with them and ill with the church, they cannot but mourn, as Daniel and Nehemiah, and those in Ps. cxxxvii. 6. Possibly their own private condition may be tolerable. When it is well with the church, though ill with them, it is a comfort, their private griefs are swallowed up in the public joy. Paul in prison rejoiceth in the progress of the gospel, though with his particular loss, Phil. i. 1.5-18. But when it is well with them and the church too, it doubleth their contentment: Ps. cxxviii. 5, 6, 'The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion, and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all thy days ; yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.' To have public and private mercies together is very sweet, that we have
VeR. 22.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 415
no occasion to be out of tune, but can join in comfort with the people of God. Yea, when they are entering upon their j^reat happiness, church promises are a comfort, as well as private particular promises. Jesus Christ thought of his in the world when he was going to his Father • John, xiii. 1, * When Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of the world unto his Father, having loved his own Avhich were in the world, he loved them unto the end.' He was landing at the haven, but he had left friends at sea, conflicting with winds and waves.
2. It reproveth us that we do no more put forth faith upon these occasions. We are not only to pray down, but believe down troubles and oppositions : Heb. xi. 34, ' By faith they turned to flight the armies of the aliens.' You will think that this is easy, a little confidence will serve the turn ; so it is to those that do not mind the affairs of Sion ; but to them that long, pray, and wait, that prefer the affairs of the church above their chief joy, it is a hard thing. It is hard to settle the heart upon the promises for church deliverances, else what mean so many fears and despondencies which God's people complain of? Men are not deeply enough engaged in the church's quarrel, 'and therefore do not mind tlie church's deliverance. However these bewray that they cannot believe, by their murmurings when God's interest and theirs is not combined, and by their apostasy; it is 'an evil heart of unbelief that maketh them depart from God,' Heb. iii. 12.
Secondly, Another effect of faith we have in the next clause of the text — And gave commandment concerning his hones. This is a cir- cumstance often taken notice of in scripture : Gen. 1. 25, ' And Joseph took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely vit^it you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence;' so Exod. xiii. 19, 'And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him;' after a hundred and fifty years they did it ; and. Joshua xxiv. 32, * And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, they buried in Shechem.' The same desire Jacob made before he died : Gen. xlvii. 30, ' I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their burying-place.' This request was not out of superstition, or with respect to any contentment or pleasure which departed saints take in the disposal of their bodies, nor as if there were a more easy resurrection in that soil rather than another, it is all one in Egypt or in Canaan ; nor as if they hoped to be some of those that should rise out of their graves at the resurrection of Christ, Mat. xxvii. 52, 53 ; nor that they might be partakers of the prayers and sacrifices there offered, as Bellarmine thinks, besides the impiousness of the conceit that prayers can avail the dead, and that to the blessings obtained by prayer local nearness is necessary, — at this time there were none, nor two hundred years afterwards. No, there W'Cre special reasons for this desire.