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time of our lives to call us to it. But if he be pleafed to excufe us from it, and to let this cup pafs from us, (which may lawfully be our earnest prayer to God, fince we have fo good a pattern for it), there will be another. duty incumbent upon us, which will take up the whole man, and the whole time of our life; and that is, to ferve him without fear, in holiness and righteoufnefs before bim all the days of our lives.

SERMO

N LXVIII.

Good men ftrangers and fojourners upon earth.

Preached at Whitehall, before the Royal family, Nov. 1. 1686.

HE B. xi. 13.

And confeffed that they were ftrangers and pilgrims on the earth.

The whole verfe runs thus:

Thefe all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having feen them afar off, and were perfuaded of them, and embraced them, and confeffed that they were Strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Τ

The first fermon on this text.

HE Apoftle having declared, at the latter end of the foregoing chapter, that faith is the great. principle whereby good men are acted, and whereby they are fupported under all the evils and fufferings of this life, y 38. Now the juft fhall live by faith; in this chapter he makes it his main bufinefs to fet forth to us at large the force and power of faith. And to this purpose, he firft tells us what kind of faith he means, viz. a firm perfuafion of things not present and vifible to fenfe, but invifible and future, y 1. Now faith (faith he) is the confident expectation of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen. Faith reprefents to us the

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reality of things which are invisible to sense, as the exiftence of God, and his providence; and of things which are at a great distance from us, as the future ftate of rewards and punishments in another world.

And then he proceds to fhew, by particular and famous inftances, that the firm belief and perfuafion of these things was the great principle of the piety and virtue of the faints, and of good men in all ages of the world. By this Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, Jofeph and Mofes, and all the famous heroes of the Old Testament, obtained a good report, and pleafed God, and did all thofe eminent acts of obedience and felf-denial which are recorded of them. They believed the being of God, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently feek him. They dreaded his threatenings, and relied upon his promises of future and invifible good things. They lived and died in a full perfuafion and confidence of the truth of them, though they did not live to see them actually fulfilled and accomplished. All these (faith he, speaking of those eminent faints which he had inftanced in before) died in faith, not having received the promises, but having feen them afar off, and were perfuaded of them, and embraced them. This is fpoken with a more particular regard to Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob, to whom the promises of the conqueft and poffeffion of a fruitful land were made, and of a numerous offspring; among whom should be the Meffias, in whom all the nations of the earth should be bleffed.

These promises they did not live to fee accomplished and made good in their days; but they heartily believed them, and rejoiced in the hope and expectation of them, as if they had embraced them in their arms, and been put into the actual poffeffion of them: And they confeffed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

This faying and acknowledgment more particularly and immediately refers to those fayings of the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, which we find recorded Gen. xxiii. 4.; where Abraham fays to the fons of Heth, I am a ftranger and a fojourner with you; and chap. xlvii. 9. where Jacob fays to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have

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the days of the years of my life been. These good men were ftrangers and fojourners in a land which was promifed to be theirs afterwards. They dwelt in it themfelves as ftrangers, but were in expectation that it would one day become the inheritance of their pofterity.

Now, in this, as by a type and fhadow, the Apostle reprefents to us the condition of good men, while they are paffing through this world: They are pilgrims and Strangers in the earth; they travel up and down the world for a time, as the Patriarchs did in the land of Canaan, but are in expectation of a better and more fettled condition hereafter: They defire a better country, that is, an heavenly, fays the Apostle, at the 16th verfe of this chapter.

That which I design from these words, is, to reprefent to us our present condition in this world, and to awaken us to a due fenfe and ferious confideration of it. It is the fame condition that all the faints and holy men that are gone before us were in in this world: and every one of us may ke fay with David, Pfal. xxxix. 12. I am a stranger with thee, and a fojourner, as all my fathers were. It is a condition very troublesome and very unfettled, fuch as that of pilgrims and ftrangers ufeth to be. This we must all acknowledge, if we judge rightly of our prefent ftate and condition. They confelled that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth; but yet it was not without the hope and expectation of a better and happier condition in reverfion. So it follows juft after, They that fay fuch things, (that is, that confefs themselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth), declare plainly that they feek a country.

This bore up the Patriarchs under all the evils and troubles of their pilgrimage, that they expected an inheritance, and a quiet and fettled poffeffion of that good land which God had promifed to them. Anfwerably to which, good men do expect, after the few and evil days of their pilgrimage in this world are over, a bleffed inheritance in a better country, that is, an heavenly; and, with bleffed Abraham, the father of the faithful, they look for a city which hath foundations, whofe builder and maker is God; as it is faid of that good Patriarch at the 10th verfe of this chapter.

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It is very frequent, not only in fcripture, but in other authors, to reprefent our condition in this world' by that of pilgrims and fojourners in a foreign country: for the mind, which is the man, and our immortal fouls, which are by far the most noble and excellent part of ourselves, are the natives of heaven, and but pilgrims and ftrangers here in the earth; and, when the days of our pilgrimage fhall be over, are defigned to return to that heavenly country from which they came, and to which they belong. And therefore the Apoftle tells us, Phil. iii. 20. that Chriftians have relation to heaven, as their native place and country: Huav gỗ To πολίτευμα ἐν κρανοῖς υπάρχει, our converfation is in hea ven; fo we render the words: but they properly fignify, that Chriftians are members of that city and fociety which is above; and tho' they converse at present here below, while they are paffing through this world, yet heaven is the country to which they do belong, and whither they are continually tending; fedes ubi fata quictas oftendunt, "where a quiet habitation, and a perpetual reft, is defigned and prepared for them." This acknowledgment David makes concerning himself and all the people of God, 1 Chron. xxix. 15. For we are ftrangers before thee, and fojourners, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are as a fhadow, and there is none abiding. likewife St. Peter, 1 epift. i. 17. Pass the time of your fojourning here in fear; and chap. ii. 11. Dearly beloved, I befeech you as ftrangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lufts.

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And not only the infpired writers of holy fcripture, but Heathen authors, do frequently make ufe of this allufion. Plato tells us, it was a common faying, and almoft in every man's mouth, Παρεπιδημία τις ἐστὶν Bios, "The life of man is a kind of pilgrimage." And Tully, in his excellent difcourfe de fenectute, concern"ing old age," brings in Cato defcribing our paffage out of this world, not as a departure from our home, but like a man leaving his inn, in which he hath lodged for a night or two: Ex vita ifta difcedo tanquam ex hofpitio, non tanquam ex domo; commorandi enim natura diverforium nobis, non habitandi, dedit: "When I leave this world, (fays he), I look upon myfelf as departing out "of an inn, and not as quitting mine own home and 66 habitation;

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"habitation; nature having affigned this world to us 66 as a place to fojourn, but not to dwell in."

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is the fame with what the Apostle fays in the text concerning the Patriarchs, They confeffed that they were ftrangers and pilgrims on the earth; and concerning all Chriftians, chap. xiii. 14. Here have we no continuing city; but we feek one to come.

But I do not intend to follow the metaphor too clofe, and to vex and torture it, by purfuing all thofe little parallels and fimilitudes which a lively fancy might make or find, betwixt the condition of ftrangers and pilgrims, and the life of man during his abode and paffage through this world. I will infift only upon two things, which feem plainly to be defigned and intended by this metaphor; and they are these.

1. That our condition in this world is very troublefome and unfettled: They confeffed that they were ftrangers and pilgrims on the earth.

2. It implies a tendency to a future fettling, and the hopes and expectation of a happier condition, into which we fhall enter when we go out of this world. For fo it follows in the very next words after the text, They confelfed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that fay fuch things, declare plainly that they feek a country. They that fay fuch things; that is, they that acknowledge themselves to have lived in fuch a reftlefs and uncertain condition in this world, travelling from one place to another, as the Patriarchs Abraham, Ifaac, and Jacob did, and yet pretend to be perfuaded of the goodness of God, and the faithfulness of his promife, in which he folemnly declared himself to be their God, do hereby plainly fhew, that they expect fome happier condition hereafter, wherein that great promife of God will be made good to them to the full.

And these are two very weighty and useful confiderations, that we should both understand our present condition in this world, and our future hope and expectation after our departure out of it, that fo we may demean ourfelves fuitably to both thefe conditions; both as it is fit for those who look upon themselves as pilgrims and fojourners in this world, and likewife as it becomes thofe who feek and expect a better country, and hope to be made

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