VER. 14.] SERMONS UPON PHILIPPIANS III. 101
to hell ? The reason is, because they have not resolvedly fixed and determined their choice, or do not regard their end. It would cut off and prevent impertinences if you be true to your end and great scope. As when you are melting away your precious time in ease, and idleness, or carnal vanities, either in trifling, or gaming, or impertinent chatting, or censuring : ' What doeth it ? ' Eccles. ii. 2. Is this striving to go to heaven ? So for inconsistencies : Gen. xxxix. 9, ' How can I do this wickedness, and sin against God ? ' By sin men do not only forget their end and happiness, but run quite away from it.
[3.] To quicken our endeavours ; for the end is the motive as well as the measure. The thought of it makes us vigorous and lively : 1 Cor. xv. 58, ' Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know your labour is not in vain in the Lord ; ' 1 Cor. ix. 24, ' So run that you may obtain.' The prize and worth of the reward addeth spirits to the runner, maketh him run more swiftly. There is labour and difficulty, but we run for a crown. If now labour and difficulty, hereafter it will be comfortable: John vi. 27, ' Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give you ; ' Phil. ii. 12, ' Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.'
[4.] For our joy and solace. A man's end is his solace and support during labours and difficulties, and that afflicted estate wherein God seeth fit to keep us here in the world : Rom. v. 2, 3, ' We rejoice in hope of the glory of God : and not only so, but we glory in tribulation, knowing that tribulation worketh patience.' A man's temper is much known by this, from whence he fetcheth his comforts and supports.
[5.] To defeat the delightful temptations of sense : Heb. xi. 24-26, 1 By faith Moses, Avhen he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season : esteem- ing the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt ; for he had respect unto the recompense of reward.' Most men look to present pleasures rather than future joys.
[6.] To make us constant : Heb. x. 39, ' But we are not of them that draw back to perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of our souls ; ' that we may neither fail nor faint, because of difficulties in the way. In the spiritual race there are stumbling-blocks in the way, difficulties and discouragements which we cannot easily get over ; now the remembering the end puts courage into us.
[7.] To engage us in a uniform course of holiness. No one part of our lives will agree with another if they be not firmly fixed by the power of our last end, which runneth through all the parts, and so puts a harmony into them. Our actions are as a mere lottery ; the various fancies men are governed by are jumbled together by chance ; and so we either walk at random, or having different ends, are ' double-minded and unstable in all our ways,' James i. 8. The last end fixeth the mind, which otherwise would be tossed up and down in a perpetual uncer- tainty, and distracted by a multiplicity of ends and objects.
Use 1. To persuade us to make heavenly things our scope.
1. For this we were created and sent into the world. It is good to consider the cause for which we were born, and the end for which we
102 SERMONS UPON PHILIPPIANS III. [SeR. XI.
were sent into the world : John xviii. 37, ' To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world.' If our Lord Christ did thus, surely man was made for some end, for the wise God maketh nothing in vain. Now what is man's end ? Not to fill up the number of things, as stones ; not to wax bulky, and increase in growth and stature, as plants and trees ; not to eat and drink, and gratify a present appetite, as the beasts. That is a mortal happiness, which will not suit with that immortal spirit which God hath put into us. If we had souls that would perish, it would be more justifiable to look after things that perish. No ; they will survive these present things : Eccles. xii. 7, ' Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God that gave it/ We act here a while ; are put upon the stage of the world, and then gone into the other world. Now since we live longest there, this should be our end and scope.
2. For this end we are redeemed. The saints are purchased to eternal glory: Rev. i. 5, 6, ' Unto him that loved us, and washed us in his blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father.' As our dominion and kingship is perfect in the other world, so is our priesthood, when we minister in the heavenly tern pie immedi- ately before the throne. So it is said that ' Christ hath obtained eternal redemption for us.' The virtue is everlasting: Heb. ix. 12, ' But by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.'