The ppints considerable are, first, this, that God's children upon earth here are strangers and pilgrims; They are not at home, but are travelling toward their country.
The second is this, that
Theij profess themselves to be so. They know they are so, and they confess that they are so. They are not ashamed of it.
For the first,
Doct. It is the disposition of him that hath truly interest in better things (though but in faith and hope) to be a stranger and a pilgrim in regard of all things here below.
And this follows the other ; for where the eyes of the understanding are opened, and a man is persuaded, there is an embracing of better things as our proper good things ; there is a considering of all other things as things that do not belong to us; in a manner we are strangers. When faith apprehends Christ and heaven and happiness to be our own, and our country to be above, faith apprehending and grasping these things, and embracing them, at the same time it is to be supposed, and necessarily follows, that we are strangers.
It follows out of the necessity of the thing itself; for, upon the very consideration that a man is an heir of heaven, that he hath another country and condition, out of the necessity of the thing itself, though there were no other reason for it, the affections of the soul will be closed up, as it were, to other things, and he will consider of other things in an inferior condition as they are.
For the things, though they be good in their kind and order, both the things above and the things below, yet there being such a difference in these good things and the things here below, the contentments here on earth being so meanly good, and so short in continuance, and so weak in their satisfaction of the soul, that they cannot be possessed, together with the blessed assurance of better things, but with the affections of strangers and pilgrims, this follows, I say, from the nature of the thing, that in whose eyes heavenly things are great, in his eyes earthly things are mean. They are accounted as they are, secondary, mean things of the way, to help him forward home.
If a man were on the top of a great mountain, he would see the things below to be very little, and the things above would appear greater to him ; so when the soul is raised up to see great things, though they be afar off,
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as these did with the eye of faith, at the same time, his soul looking to things below must needs apprehend them to be little in quantity, as indeed they are.
If a man were in body lift up to heaven, and should look upon the earth, what were the earth but a poor silly point, the whole earth itself, much more a man's own possession ; so when the soul is lifted up to heaven by faith, — which sets a man in heaven before his time, — when it looks from thence to the earth and earthly things, it must of necessity consider them, as they are, to be poor mean things. Therefore this follows, that being persuaded of the promises, that is, of the good things promised in religion in the word of God, to earthly things they were ' strangers and pilgrims.'
He that is from home, and hath another home which he is not at, he is a stranger; but Christians have another home.
1. For, first, they are bred from heaven, they are born from heaven, they are born in Jerusalem that is from above; they are born in the church by the seed of the word and Spirit. Now as they are from heaven, so their bent is to heaven again ; for everything natiirally riseth as high as it springeth. As we say of water, it mounts as high as the head of it is, so our afiections mount as high as the spring of them is. Now a Christian being born from heaven, he tends to that in his affections, that is his country. It is his country, because his Father is there in his glory, and his Saviour is there, and a great part of his kindred are there ; the souls of perfect men, and the glorious angels in a most glorious manner, — though they be in their attend- ance upon the earth, — there is his country, his city, his house, there is his happiness, his home. I shall not need, therefore, to prove that the godly are strangers. If heaven be his country, earth must needs be the place of his pilgrimage ; there is no question but that follows.
It is said here ' they were pilgrims and strangers upon earth.' ' Upon earth ;' because, wherever a Christian is, if it be upon any place upon earth, he is a stranger and a pilgrim. If he be in his own house, he is upon earth, and therefore he is a stranger in his own house ; if he be in his own possession, he is upon earth, and therefore he is a stranger in his own possession. As David confessed, though he were a king, ' I am a stranger and a pilgrim here, as all my fathers were,' 1 Chron. xxix. 15. A king in his kingdom is upon God's earth, and therefore he is a stranger in his own kingdom here. As Austin saith very well, * Qidsque domus sua:,' &c., every man is a stranger in his own house.* We are strangers here on earth, therefore. It is not any condition on earth that exempts a child of God from being a stranger, when the greatest kings in the world have con- fessed that they were strangers and pilgrims ; so that all Christians, of what condition soever they are, from the highest to the meanest, they are all strangers upon earth. It is a clear point.