I OBSERVED in the whole verse the trial of faith and the victory of faith. The trial of faith - 'These all died in faith, not having received the promises;' that is, they went to the grave ere the blessings God had promised were accomplished. The victory of faith is set forth -
1. By a threefold act of faith in and upon the promises - 'They saw them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them.'
2. By the effect and fruit of it in their lives and conversations - 'And confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth.' This I come now to speak to.
'Strangers and pilgrims.' The notion of strangers and pilgrims I opened to you in the 9th. verse. But how were these holy men strangers and pilgrims? Men may be strangers and pilgrims two ways: either in regard of condition, or in regard of disposition and affection.
1. In regard of condition, so all men are strangers. For that is our home where we live longest. Now all men live longest in another world; there they are for ever, and here but for a while. And as all men are strangers, so they are pilgrims; they are hastening homewards as they yield to the decays of nature; and draw nearer to their long home every day. Every man, both good and bad, is on a journey, travelling homewards; all the difference is in the way that they take. There are some that take the broad way that leadeth to destruction, that as they grow in years they increase in sins, and so are going down to destruction, and hastening to the chambers of eternal death; they are strangers and pilgrims, going out of this world into a worse. But others take the narrow way, and they are entering upon their everlasting happiness by degrees; here is not their home, they are going to God and Christ.
2. In regard of affection and disposition; so these latter sort, the children of God, are only strangers and pilgrims. The voice of wicked men is, 'It is good to be here;' let God do with heaven what he pleaseth, they are contented with their present portion; they would not give their portion in this world for a portion in paradise. But the children of God are strangers in affection; they count themselves so and they confess themselves so, for that is implied in their confession, that it is not only their inward thoughts, but their outward profession before all the world.
But how do they count themselves so?
[1.] By considering the shortness of their present abode, which wicked men do not. There is no truth more obvious and common, and yet none less thought of by wicked and carnal men, than the frailty of our present condition. Wicked men have no firm dwelling upon earth, but that is against their intention, their inward thought and desire is that they may abide here for ever: Ps. xlix. 11, 'Their inward thought is that their houses shall abide for ever, and their dwelling-place to all generations.' They are strangers against their wills; their abode is uncertain in this world, and they cannot help it, and they govern their lives as if they should abide here for ever, and were never come to a reckoning. David begs of God in Ps. xc. ver. 12, 'So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.' It is a lesson we learn by grace to know the shortness and frailty of our present life; therefore they that have grace in their hearts, and are taught of God, count themselves strangers in this sense because they are sensible, and reckon upon it, that here they shall abide but for a while.
[2.] By being unsatisfied with their present comforts. The children of God would not abide here for ever if God would give them leave. It is good to be here, saith a worldling; here is not our rest, saith a child of God: Micah ii. 10, 'Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest.' They cannot sit down contented; if the Lord should give them the world for ever without the enjoyment of himself, this cannot satisfy them; they are strangers in disposition and affection, they desire and groan to be elsewhere. It is a grief to a wicked man to think of a departure, and to be taken off from present things, from sucking the dugs of worldly consolation.
[3.] Because they have another inheritance to expect, they have a home to go to. He that hath no home is nowhere a stranger, where-ever he is. Wicked men are only strangers in regard of their unsettled abode in this world; they have a long home, but they have no inheritance to expect; they are sure to go out of the world, but they are not sure to go to heaven, and so they are strangers, but not pilgrims. But the children of God have a home which they expect, something beyond the present life, therefore they are strangers and pilgrims; they know and are sensible that these things are but short in continuance, and they cannot satisfy; that there are better things to be had, a better portion in another world, winch will satisfy: Ps xvii. 15, 'I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.' They must live here a while, and then go down into the grave and sleep for a while, but when they awake, then they shall have enough.
Three points I shall observe from the words.
Doct. 1. That true believers confess themselves to be strangers and pilgrims in the world.
They count heaven their home, and the world a strange country. Faith makes them to count themselves strangers and pilgrims in the present world. I showed you in the other verse how christians are pilgrims in the world. Here I shall show two things - (1.) The reasons why believers account themselves so; (2.) The influence that faith hath upon this work.
First, The reasons why believers account themselves so. Partly as they look upon heaven, and partly as they look upon the world.
1. In respect of heaven, they count that their home, and that for these reasons - (1.) Because thence they are born; (2.) There lies their inheritance; (3.) There are all their kindred; (4.) There they abide longest.
2. In respect of the world. As they consider what heaven is, so they consider what the world is, and therefore they cannot count it their home. The world is Satan's walk, the devil's circuit, where their father's enemy reigns: Job ii. 2, 'And the Lord said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.' It is a place that is defiled with sin: Isa. xxiv. 5, 'The earth is defiled under the inhabitants thereof, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.' It is a hard thing to walk up and down and keep ourselves unspotted in such a place as the world is. The earth is given to the children of men: Ps. cxv. 16, 'The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; but the earth hath he given to the children of men.' It is the slaughter-house and shambles of the saints: Rev. xviii. 24, 'In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.' It is a receptacle not only for Gods enemies and reprobate men, but for the very, beasts, a place that beareth the marks of man's sin, therefore surely they cannot count it their home. They find ill entertainment in the world; God in his providence orders it so that the world should be the more unkind to the saints that they might look after a better place. II the world did not vex them as it doth, possibly it might ensnare them, so that the world's hostility becomes their security as Paul found the world crucified to him, and therefore he was crucified to the world: Gal. vi. 14, 'The world is crucified to me, and I unto the world.' The injuries they receive here turn to their gain and mortification. God's children usually have the worst of it here in the world, and therefore they account themselves but strangers and pilgrims in the world.
Secondly, The influence that faith hath upon this work.
1. Faith shows the truth and worth of things to come. It presents another home, and a better home.
[1.] Faith presents another home: Heb. xi. 1, 'Faith is the evidence of things not seen.' We can see nothing but clouds, stars, and earth round about us; faith looks into the invisible world where God is, and Christ at his right hand, and saints and angels round about him. Reason hath but a dark guess at these things; faith openeth a light into the unknown world, where is our father's house, where is our elder brother, and the best of our kindred: Eph. i. 18, 'The eyes of your understandings being opened, that we may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints.' Unless our eyes are opened we cannot look into these things; faith gives a knowledge of what is above the clouds, there it seeth him that is invisible.
[2.] Faith shows a better home. Faith values all things according to the presence of God; it values all states and conditions as we enjoy God in them. Here in the world there is but little enjoyment of God: 2 Cor. v. 6, 'Whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.' A christian is nowhere a stranger but where he is without God. Faith sees God in the world, but it sees that there is another manner of enjoyment of God without sin, and without sorrow, where there is no absence of God, and no clouding of his presence. A gracious heart is everywhere at home but where it wants God; we could not be so much strangers here if we were not in a great part strangers to the comforts of his presence. If we could have our whole portion here, we should look no further; we have, it may be, enough to support us, but not to satisfy us, but there we shall have all at full: Ps. xvii. 15, 'As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.' For the present we may behold God's face while we are engaged in acts of grace, and in the duties and exercises of religion, this is for our support; but when awake, when we are got into the other world, we shall be satisfied. Here there are many clouds upon the face of God, and we provoke him to withdraw from us; there we shall see him without a cloud in his face. Here we are weary even of gracious enjoyments; there we shall enjoy him without satiety and weariness.
2. Faith gives us a right and title to what it sees: John i. 12,' But ,~ as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.' Faith is not only a spy to show us the land of promise, but it giveth us an interest in it: a man cannot count anything his own till his interest be cleared; madman call all their own that they see. Now faith gives us a joint-interest with Christ. A believer hath the whole privileges of the sons of God; not only support and maintenance here, as an heir is maintained by his father in a foreign country, but he hath an interest in the inheritance: Rom. viii. 17, 'If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.' Faith does not only see that heaven is, and that it is better than earth, but that it is ours, and expects it as an inheritance. So James ii. 5, 'Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?' A believer may be a poor man in the world, but he is a prince in disguise.
3. In regard of the fruit of it; 'Faith works by love,' Gal. v. 6. Now true love carries tile soul thither where the thing beloved is. Love is the poise of the soul, as everything tends to its centre. What is inclination in the creatures, instinct in the beasts, that is love in man. Amor meus pondus meum.
Use 1. For trial of your faith, dost thou behave thyself as a stranger and pilgrim? You may know it by these marks.
1. There will be a greater weanedness from the comforts of this life. Men that are altogether for present enjoyments, that labour, strive, contend and gape for earthly things, surely they do not look after heaven as their home. A christian is a stranger at home in his own family, where he hath many comforts about him: 1 Cor. vii. 31, 'And they that use the world, as not abusing it,' using all comforts as expecting a greater happiness, using them as a type, and as a motive, and as an help. As a type, that may put you in mind of a better and greater happiness. The enjoyment of temporal blessings should stir us up to a more serious consideration of heavenly things, as the prodigal's husks, when he was abroad, put him in mind of the bread in his father's house; so if there be such comfort and sweetness in the world, the place of our trial, what is there in heaven, our father's house? If the company of our relations be so pleasing and acceptable to us, what is it to be in our father's house for ever in the company of God and Christ? As Fulgentius said when they showed him the beauty and splendour of Rome, If an earthly city be so glorious, what is the heavenly? The cities of the Amorites put Abraham in mind of the city that had foundations: Heb. xi. 9, 10, 'By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange land, for he looked for a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' These are but the comforts of a strange place. You abuse the world when you forget home, use these things as typing out better; if the creature be sweet, heaven is better. Use them as a motive to quicken you to glorify God, 'who hath given you all things richly to enjoy,' 1 Tim. vi. 17. The moon is never eclipsed but when at full. It is naught to kick with the heel, when we wax fat to be the worse for kindness. And then use them as a help, not a hindrance, as instruments of piety and charity, as a viaticum in our journey, and helps to a better life.
2. You will be taken off from worldly admiration. This is a thing we are very prone to, to say, 'Happy is the people that is in such a case;' but if you are strangers and pilgrims, you will say, 'Happy is the people whose God is the Lord,' Ps. cxiv. 15. If the heart were above, the world would not seem such a glorious thing. The stars are great and vast bodies of light, but they seem to be but little spangles, because we here upon earth are at a great distance from them; so if the heart were taken up with heaven, worldly admiration would cease, the honours, pleasures, and profits of the world would not tickle and affect us so much as they do.
3. You would not desire long life if you had the disposition of strangers and pilgrims. A traveller would pass over his journey as soon as he can and hasten home. A heathen could say, Ex hac vita discedo tanquam ex hospitio, non tanquam ex domo, &c.; I go out of this world as out of an inn, not as out of a dwelling-house; this world is the place of our abode for a time, not of our constant habitation. They are sots that lie guzzling in an inn, and delight to be there, when they should hasten home; so to desire long life because of carnal enjoyments is brutish. To desire to stay here to do God service is gracious; but to set up our rest here, and not to look after our home, this shows that we do not count ourselves to be strangers and pilgrims.
4. You will be making provision for another world, and laying up in store a good foundation against the time to come, that you may lay hold of eternal life, 1 Tim. vi. 19.
5. You will be hastening homewards more and more, by growing in holiness. Every degree of holiness is a step towards heaven: Ps. lxxxiv. 7, 'They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.' It is an allusion to those that went up to the temple to worship, whither the males were to go three times in a year; in the Hebrew it is from troop to troop, they strove how to overtake one another. So he that is in the heavenly journey is growing in grace, and increasing every day more and more, till he comes to appear before God in the glorious temple that is above. So the apostle, Phil. iii. 11, 12, 'If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect.' And if they step out of the way they cannot rest till they get into their path again; as a mariner at sea, that is driven back with winds, yet strives to make to his port again; so is a christian every day getting homewards, getting some advantage over his corruptions, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
6. You will be often thinking of home. Christ says, 'Where the treasure is, there will the heart be also,' Mat. vi. 21. A believer to whom heaven is his home, will be longing, Oh! when shall I come to my country, to my elder brother, my kindred, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Oh, wo is me that I dwell in Meshech! here I am travelling, when shall I be at home? Do you send your desires and thoughts as harbingers to prepare a place for you? When the soul thus longs for the sight of God and Christ, we do as it were tell God we long to be at home. As Paul, 2 Tim. iv. 8, 'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.' He was reckoning what a happy time it would be when the crown of righteousness should be set upon his head, when he shall get home to his father's house, and enjoy his inheritance and the happiness God hath provided for him. By these marks you may inquire whether you have this faith, to count yourselves strangers and pilgrims here.'
Use 2. To stir us up to be strangers and pilgrims, put in your names among them that profess themselves to be so. Here - (1.) I shall offer you some motives to quicken you; (2.) I will give you some directions.
1. To quicken you to this work consider these things.
[1.] It is the greatest judgment that can be inflicted upon you, to suffer you to take up your rest here, to be condemned to worldly happiness, and to look for no more. That is a sad doom: Luke xvi. 25, 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.' That that is their choice, is their judgment: Ps. xvii. 14, 'From men of the world, who have their portion in this life, whose belly thou fillest with hid treasures;' if you look for no other wages, you shall have no other. It is a punishment laid on them that depart from God, and leave the fountain of living waters for the puddles of this world: Jer. xvii. 13, 'All that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters This is their judgment to be written in the earth, that is, they shall be men great and famous, taken notice and accounted of here but this is their portion. It were better for them to be followed with afflictions, to be driven to beg then bread, than to be written in the earth in a way of judgment, better never have a day of rest and ease in the world, but still to be tossed to and fro in trouble, than to be condemned to worldly felicity. God's children many times, by a just and merciful providence, have least of the world, because they have their portion elsewhere; the world entertains them as a stepmother that they may look after their own mother Jerusalem that is above. But when God suffers men to be great and prosperous in the world, and to enjoy worldly comforts to the full, and this is all they are like to have, it is the heaviest judgment that can befall them. Therefore what reason have you to put in your names among them that profess themselves strangers and pilgrims, though you are in your best estate, and live in the midst of peace and tranquillity, and worldly delights flow in with great abundance, yet remember, I am but a stranger and pilgrim here.
[2.] If you had the world at will, you have no reason to take up your rest here, because the happiness of this world is short, unsatisfactory, and not perfective. It is short, we are mortal, and all things about us have their mortality, and many times these things are more fading than we are. Many a man outlives his happiness, as the stalk may remain when the flower is gone; but if not, we are mortal, and must flit into the other world, whether we will or no. The world thrusteth us from itself by miseries, and at last by death; then there is a violent ejection; we hang upon it though we are thrust from it, as Lot was loth to go out of pleasant Sodom till the angel pulled him out: Gen. xix. 15. When we stick in the earth, God comes to pluck us up. Why should we set our hearts on this world, and like foolish birds build a nest, when to-morrow we must be gone? And it is not satisfactory, our souls were made for God, and cannot be satisfied without God. When we enjoy most still we want something; as Noahs dove could not find a place for the sole of her foot, till she came back to the ark. One thing or other is still wanting, how little do we find of what we expected; when we come to enjoy the world, we see the error of our esteem. If we would make use of our own disappointments, certainly it would wean us more from worldly comforts; especially if we would but consider how unsatisfactory they are in death: what will all this world then profit us? Job xxvii. 8, 'What is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul?' And then they are not perfective, they can add no value to the soul. Who would dig for iron with mattocks of gold? The soul is better than all the world; we were not made for the world but the world for us. The world may make us worse, but it cannot make us better; and it is a very hard matter to keep ourselves from being worse by the world. All the riches, honours, and profits of the world cannot endue thy person with any true good. That is good which maketh us good, so doth grace whereby there is a conformity between us and the chiefest good: James 1. 27, 'Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.' It is the hardest matter to use the world and not to be defiled by it, and therefore let us seek out another home.
[3.] You have higher and better things revealed to you. If we had no other things to look for, then we might take up our abode here, and satisfy ourselves, and take our fill of what the world yields; but there are higher things, and they are revealed to us. Let thine eye convince thy soul; look upon the aspectable heavens, they are the most glorious part of the creation; and if the under part of the pavement is so glorious, what is the inner court, the holy of holies! And these are revealed to us as hereafter to be 'revealed in us,' Rom. viii. 18, and that both in body and soul. Now they are revealed to you as kept for you in heaven; if we had no other things to look for, it were good to be here; and they are not only revealed to our ears, but we have received our advance-money; a pawn, a pledge, an earnest, and first-fruits, all to make us say, 'Arise and let us depart, for this is not our rest,' Micah ii. 10.
[4.] These higher things are not only revealed to you, but you are fitted for them. We read not only of heavens being prepared for the saints, but of the saints being prepared for heaven. There is a divine nature given to us, and the new nature can never be satisfied, where we may sin and grieve God. Afflictions are contrary to our old nature and make the world a troublesome place; so sin is contrary to our new nature, for the new man seeketh a perfect state.
[5.] Consider Christ's choice: John xvii. 16, 'They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.' Christ passed through the world to sanctify our place of service, but he left the world as a place not fit for him; if we would choose as Christ chose, we should be strangers here. Christ's judgment is better than ours; if the world had been worth anything, he would have chosen that kind of life. But he that was Lord of all, and had the fairest title to all that was in the world, yet behaved himself as a stranger, and had neither house nor home: Ps. lxix. 8, 'I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.' The world frowned upon Christ as one that was not fit for their turn.
[6.] Consider, nature teacheth us this lesson, to look upward for our borne. Look to the frame of man's body, not only to the constitution of his soul, but to the frame of his body; we do not go grovelling on the ground as beasts, nor are we stuck into the earth as trees. God hath given man an upright stature; his head, which is the seat of the senses, is placed next to heaven, to teach us that man should look up thither; and his feet are on the earth: Ps. viii. 6, 'Thou hast put all things under his feet.' A worldly man is like a man standing upon his head, spurning at heaven with his heels, and his head and heart fixed to the earth; or like worms that come out of the earth, they are bred there and creep on the ground, and then creep into it; so they are dwellers upon the earth, as the antichristian state is always called.
[7.] Consider the profit of being strangers and pilgrims on the earth. (Note: see sermon on verse 9).
2. To direct you how you should do so.
[1.] As to the pleasures of the world, avoid fleshly lusts. Brutish affections are all for a present good; these weaken our desires of heaven, they cloud the eye, and deaden the heart, as the flesh-pots of Egypt made Israel to despise Canaan. Carnal lusts are a great hindrance. Men diet themselves for a race: 2 Cor. ix. 25, Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things, and ver 27 'I keep down my body, and bring it into subjection.'
[2.] As to the profits of the world take these directions - (1.) Take heed of a resolution to be rich, of fixing this as your end and scope, making gain the business of your lives: 1 Tim. vi. 9, 'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare.' He doth not say he that is rich, for a godly man may through the blessing of God increase in this world's goods; but he that will be rich, the devil has you upon the hip when you make that your business and scope.
(2.) Grasp not at too much in the way of your calling; take heed of enlarging worldly desires: Isa. v. 8, 'Woe unto them that join house to house, and field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.' When men fill the head with cares, and the heart with sins, when they grasp at too much, and jostle out better things, then they offend. Some business is necessary to drain the spirits; whilst we are in the body, we cannot wholly mind spiritual employments; in great condescension God hath appointed diligence in our callings as a part of our work. Our journey to heaven lies not only through duties of religion, but through the duties of our callings; moderate labour is a help, not a hindrance; but then take heed that you be not immoderate to waste the vigour of your spirits, and jostle out better things.
(3.) If gain come in but slowly, be content with God's allowance. A little will serve the turn for a viaticum for our journey to help us to heaven: 1 Tim. vi. 7, 8, 'For we brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out; and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content;' it is enough for our passage, we are travelling to heaven, and when we come there the soul shall be filled up as full as it can hold. When we came into the world we were contented with a cradle, and when we go out we must be contented with a grave; and whilst we are here, worldly goods serve only for a more plentiful life. David sums up worldly felicity: Ps. xvii. 14, 'Whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure; they are full of children, and. leave the rest of their substance to their babes.' They that have the greatest portion in this life may have more variety of God's creatures upon their tables and backs, and what they do not thus spend, the rest of their substance they leave to their children. Now a more plentiful estate is but fuller of snares; and for our posterity, our children are under a providence as well as we; they have but a journey to go, and a little will serve their turn as well as ours, and when we die we leave a God behind us to provide for them. It is carnal confidence, - nay, worse, it is blasphemy and idolatry, - to think we can better provide for them than God. And therefore be contented with God's allowance, such as comes in with moderate labour in your callings.
(4.) If God give abundance, take heed of carnal complacency: Ps. lxii. 10, 'If riches increase, set not your heart upon them;' when you rejoice in them, and grow proud of them, as if there were any real addition to your worth, it is a sign you have them for your whole portion. Remember you are to use them as God's stewards; if God give you. abundance, you must give an account of it how you lay it out. If you think you are lords and not stewards, you are at home. The abundance that God hath given you is but a larger trust: Luke xvi. 9, 'Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.' The more you have, the greater advantages you have of doing good; and when you die, you will be welcomed to heaven with the applauses and suffrages of the poor saints.
[3.] Meditate often on the promises, they are our cordials in our journey: Ps. cxix. 54, 'Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.' They are cordials to cheer us and strengthen us in our way; and it is good to feed and strengthen the soul. And they are our antidotes against the infection of the world: 2 Peter i. 4, 'Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.' The world is an infectious air, but the promises preserve us against the corruptions that are in the world through lust; and they refresh the divine nature, and keep our hopes alive.
[4.] Enjoy as much of heaven as you can on the earth.
[5.] Go to God to circumcise the foreskin of your heart.
[6.] Get a clearer and more sensible interest in Christ.
[7.] Meditate on the happiness you shall have at home.
[8.] Prize the communion of saints. (Note: see these directions handled on Verse 9).
'They confessed.' Abraham told the people of the land of Canaan, Gen. xxiii. 4, 'I am a stranger and a sojourner with you;' Jacob told Pharaoh: Gen. xlvii. 9, 'The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.' It seems it was their general and open profession wherever they came; before idolaters they declared what they were and whither their hopes tended, though it laid them open to the scorn and hatred of those among whom they lived. So David: Ps. xxxix. 12, 'I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.' From hence we observe -
Doct. 2. That the making an open confession of the truth is a necessary duty: Rom. x. 9, 10, 'If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.' It is not enough that our hearts be right with God, but there must be a confession with the mouth.
Quest. But are we bound always to make this confession? Is it not said, Rom. xiv. 22, 'Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God.'
Ans. 1. Profession of the main things of godliness is always necessary in those that have given up their names to Christ: Mark xvi. 16, 'He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' Now baptism is to be attended with an open profession of our faith: so Rom. x. 9, 'If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe with thy heart that God raised him from the dead,' &c., which is the foundation of the christian faith, and the great article then in question. It is for the glory of God that his servants should own him, and for the profit of others.
2. When we are called thereunto, then we must witness a good confession. But when are we called thereunto? I answer, We are called by God and by men. (1.) By God: partly by his providence, and partly by a special impulse. Partly by his providence; when a good cause is like to be deserted for want of followers, then God seems by the voice of his providence to say, Who is on my side? Who? When the non-profession of the truth is equivalent with the denial of it. This was Daniel's case: Dan. vi. 10, 'Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house, and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.' You will think he might have omitted the opening of his windows; but to have shut his windows would have been implicitly to have yielded to the unjust decree not to call on the God of Israel. Partly by the impulse of the spirit, for that doth determine the circumstances of a known duty; as Paul at Athens: Acts xvii. 16, 'His spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry;' and Acts xviii. 5, 'Paul was pressed in spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.' (2.) We are called thereunto by men, when they desire an account of our faith for their instruction: 1 Peter iii. 15, 'Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.'
3. In many cases we must have faith to ourselves, and. we are not bound to make possession of it; as for instance, when the cause we maintain may receive detriment by an unseasonable agitation, for every thing hath its season; or when others may receive detriment, and we are like to give offence to our weaker brethren: Roni. xiv. 1, 'Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.' Our liberty in indifferent things is not to be urged to the prejudice of our brethren. Again we are not to make a profession till we have matured and ripened our persuasion; rash men that profess suddenly whatever they conceive to be right put themselves upon a double inconvenience, either of continuing in the defence of an error when their opinion is declared, or lie under the scandal of changeableness if they submit to the truth, which doth much weaken their testimony.
Doct. 3. Christians should more plainly discover that their journey lies heavenward.
Here I shall show you why they should do so, and how they should do it.
1. Why they should do so. And that for these reasons -
[1.] It is for the glory of God that we should profess our hopes, that the world may know that we have wages that we expect in another world. God would be ashamed to be called our God if we did not seek a country: Heb. iii. 6, 'Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence, and the rejoicing of the hope, firm unto the end.' We should not only comfort ourselves in our hopes but boast of them, and glory in our hopes that we have such a good master; we may boast of our wages.
[2.] It is for the comfort and quickening of others. A man is glad to meet with his own countrymen in a foreign land; so when others see you ready to go with them to heaven, it is a great comfort and support to them, especially when we are talking and discoursing of heaven': 1 Thes. iv. 18, 'Wherefore comfort one another with these words.' Good discourse conveys a warmth; Saul in the company of prophets prophesieth.
[3.] It is for the reproof of the world, for the more explicit our profession is, the more are wicked men condemned; the blind careless world is awed by these means. Noah by building the ark, 'condemned the world,' Heb. xi. 7. So when they see you so busy for heaven, it is a real reproof of their carelessness and wickedness.
2. How we should make this discovery.
[1.] By often speaking to one another: Mat. xxvi. 73, 'Surely thou art one of them, for thy speech bewrayeth thee.' So the speech of God's people bewrays them. Christ is often speaking of heaven, and of his Father's house. The primitive christians were impeached of treason because they were often speaking of the happiness of that kingdom which they expected: John iii. 31, 'He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth.' Worldly men will be talking of worldly things; so they that are for heaven will be confessing and declaring that they seek a country, and they will be speaking to one another of these things.
[2.] By practice and conversation; hereby you should make your confession more explicit. Show what you are by your lives: Phil. iii. 20, 'For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.' A christian's heart is not only above, but his life is above. But how should we show forth this heavenly conversation? I answer -
(1.) By a contempt of worldly things. A self-denying christian showeth whither his journey lieth; they dare not take all advantages of growing great; they do not make it their business to be high in the world: Heb. xiii. 5, 'Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have.' Covetousness is a sin in the heart, but many times it is seen in the life, and when it breaketh out, men shame their profession.
(2.) By our garb and behaviour; thus should you make a distinction between yourselves and the men of the world: Rom. xii. 2, 'Be not conformed to this world.' A christian is a man of another garb, he doth not put himself into the world's dress. He lives a distinct life from the world, and doth not do as the most do, so as the world wonders at them as we do at a foreigner that goes in a distinct garb and habit: 2 Peter iv. 4, 'Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot.'
(3.) By special holiness and strictness, that your lives and conversations should carry an express conformity and likeness to your hopes. 1 Thes. ii. 12, 'That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.' You should discover what manner of hopes you have by the holiness, raisedness, and heavenliness of your lives and conversations.
Use 1. This may reprove those that are Nicodemites, christians too much in the dark. In times of persecution fear takes off from an open profession but in times of profaneness shame is an hindrance, men are ashamed to own Christ, coguntur esse viles, ne mali habeantur. Men are ashamed of strict carriage and good discourse, they had rather be wicked than base and vile in the esteem of the world. No, rather say, If this be to be vile, I will be more vile; as David, 2 Sam. vi. 23, 'I will be yet more vile than thus , and Paul, Rom i 16, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.' If you are ashamed of Christ, he will be ashamed of you: Luke ix. 26, 'Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory, and in the Father's, and of his holy angels.' Who would endure a servant that will be ashamed to own his master? We should not be ashamed to be forward in godliness and religion, it is a sign we esteem as basely as the world doth of godliness. It argues a mighty depravation when our shame is there, where our confidence and our glorying should be; you condemn hereby your profession, and justify the reproaches and slanders that wicked men cast on it. Christ despised the shame: Heb. xii. 2, 'Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, and despised the shame.' It argueth too great a desire of the love and praise of men: John xii. 42, 43, 'Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.' Wicked men declare their sin openly: Isa. iii. 9, 'The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not.' God is not ashamed of us though we be vile, base, and despicable: Heb. xi. 16, 'God is not ashamed to be called their God;' and shall we be ashamed of God, and of his recompenses? If dogs bark at you, they will do so at strangers, it is their kind.
Use 2. It condemns the backwardness of God's children, that they do no more talk of their hopes, and the glory of their kingdom, and of the world to come, that they may go hand in hand, and comfort and quicken one another in God's ways.
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