And it must needs be so, for the head of Christians was a stranger. His love made him a stranger; for he left his Father's bosom. His love drew him from heaven to earth, and here he conversed as a stranger. He dwelt in his body here as a tabernacle, which he laid aside for a while, to work the work of our redemption, and then after to dwell in it for ever. He was the prime stranger of all strangers. He that makes us all strangers here, and citizens of heaven, he was a stranger on earth. He was not indeed a stranger, for he was Lord of heaven and earth, yet in regard of his state of exaltation that was to come after, in regard of dispensation, he was here as a servant : he lived here as a stranger. And indeed he was as strangely * Sibbes's previous sentences aie a paraphrase of Augustine in loco. — G.
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used ; ' for he came among his own, and his own knew him not,' as it is in John i. 10. He was not known among his own countrymen the Jews; ' he was a stranger on earth.'
He conversed with us here, and was among us as a stranger. You see how his speech and carriage and conversation on earth it was as a stranger's. He was talking alway of his Father's house and of the kingdom of heaven. When he speaks of the estate of the church, which is the only company of people here in whom God rules by his Spirit, yet because they are ordained for the kingdom of heaven, he calls them strangers here, and terms them by that that they are ordained to. All his mind was of the kingdom of heaven. We see after he was risen, the matter of his discourse, as the gospel tells, it was of the kingdom of heaven. He talked of things that belonged to the kingdom of God; all his speeches were that way, and his comparisons were fetched that way. * The kingdom of heaven is like' to such a thing and such a thing. And all his work was to draw men from the earth. As it was his grand work to redeem men from the earth, that is, from hell, and from their cursed condition, so the matter of his teaching was answerable to his work, to draw men to heaven. All the pains that he took before and after his death, till he was taken into heaven, it tended that way.
He came from heaven to earth to woo us to be a spouse to himself. He came from heaven into a strange country, to take us for his spouse, to take our nature, and in our nature to win us, to die for us. He carried himself as a stranger every way; he regarded not earthly things. Now answerable to our head Christ, must all Christians be in their affections and dispositions. We must be conformable to him ; we must be strangers as he was.
All that look to die in the faith of Christ, and to be happy for ever, they must witness their believing and loving of better things by an answerable carriage to all things here below ; they must have the affection of strangers and travellers. Faith doth enforce this. It is the nature of the soul, from a principle and ground of nature, that when the soul is carried up one way, it is shut another; when it cleaves unto, and embraceth better things, when it is open to heaven, the point of the soul is shut to the earth; and we look upon these things as strangers and pilgrims, only for necessary use.
These holy men the patriarchs were strangers.
1, Strangers in their oicn esteem. As Abraham and Jacob, they confess they were sojourners; and David, though he were a king, yet he saith ' he was a stranger, as all his fathers were.' So all the patriarchs they professed themselves to be strangers and sojourners ; and they did it not in word only, but in deed. They shewed it by dwelling in tabernacles and tents ; poor things, fit for strangers. Heaven was their house. Tabernacles are moveable, weak things, that have no foundation ; so they knew their life was like a tabernacle here. And their manner of life shewed what they looked for ; they carried themselves as those that hoped and looked for better things. They were strangers in their dispositions; they affected things above, and cared no more for these things than for necessary use, to help them to serve God in their places ; and those that are strangers in their dispositions, they desire to be at home.
2. Again, they were strangers in God's esteem.. God termed them so ; and so it is with all that believe in Christ. When we once believe, and are new creatures, new born to a better inheritance, presently at the same time we are strangers here.
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'" 3. Strangers likewise in the esteem of the world. The world used them as strangers, strangely. When a man leaveth the world and cleaveth to God, presently the world setteth on him by reproaches, and all they can. Because they think he will disgrace them by his change, therefore they labour to make him as black as they may that way : they use all strangely that break from them. God will have it so. Because he will have his children not to love the world, therefore he will have the world hate them. So they are strangers in that respect : they think it strange that they do not as they did formerly ; that they do not as they do. Wicked men think it strange that they ' run not with them into the same excess of riot,' 1 Pet. iv. 4 : so they are strangers in the esteem of wicked men.