Address —
1. Those who set their hearts on earthly things —
[How unlike are you to the saints of former days ! Com- pare your life, or rather your spirit, with that of the persons mentioned in my text. Do not mistake, as though their call was peculiar, and nothing resembling it is given to you. I know you are not called to go out from your country, and to dwell in tents : but you are called to " desire a better coun- try," and that supremely ; yea, and not only to desire it, but to seek it ; to seek it with your whole hearts. And is there not just occasion for you to seek it ? Compare the present with the future world : can you doubt which should have the
•> Mai. iii. 8. ' Jam. iv. 4. ^ Mark viii. ^38.
' John xiv. 23. >" Exod. iii. 15.
preference in your esteem ? You cannot. Why, then, do you not act agreeably to your convictions? Do you not know, that you can never have any hope of heaven, if you do not desire it: you can never possess it, if you do not labour for it? I must further say, that, if you will not be the Lord's people, you can have no hope that he will give himself to you as your God. You are afraid, perhaps, that your names will be cast out as evil, if you renounce the world, and live in it as pilgrims and sojourners. To be ridiculed as righteous overmuch, is, in your eyes, too formidable an evil to be encountered. But, if you are ashamed to be called God's servants, will not he be ashamed to be called your God ? No doubt he will : and I wish you to consider this, ere it be too late. Without a surrender of yourselves to him, you can never hope that he will give himself to you.]
2. Those who are endued with patriarchal virtue —
[There are some, I trust, who, like the patriarchs, desire, and shew too by their lives that they do " desire a heavenly country." Go on, beloved, in your heavenly way ; and what- ever opportunities be afforded you to go back, regard them not : yea, if even the fiercest opposition be made to you, let it not impede your course one moment. What if people despise, and hate, and persecute you, shall that be suffered to divert you from your purpose ? Do you not remember what is said of our Lord, that " for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God"?" Do ye, then, walk in his steps ; and, like him, in due time you shall " inherit the glory prepared for you from the foundation of the world."]
1 Heb. xii. 2.