reckons us to be ftrangers and pilgrims as long as we are in this world. In the fame fenfe the author to the Hebrews fpeaks of the faints of old, Thefe all died in faith, not having received the promifes, but having feen them afar off, and were perfuaded of them, and embraced them, and confeffed that they were Atrangers and pilgrims on the earth, Heb. xi. 13. This notion extends to all mankind, and fhews that the Apostle looked upon them all as ftrangers and pilgrims on the earth: confequently the exhortation founded upon this notion extends to all alike, and reaches as far as the obligations of morality reach. And this confideration, placed in this view, has great weight in it, with refpect to all who have faith enough to defire a better, that is, an heavenly country, and to know themselves to be but only paffengers through this world, and on their way to a city prepared for them. This is putting all our hopes and fears, with respect to futurity, in balance against the folicitations of fenfual pleasure this is appealing to our reafon, to fhew us how abfurd it is to give ourselves up to momentary enjoyments, in a place where we have no certain abode, at the hazard of forfeiting our right to that country where we have an inheritance which fhall endure for ever. Wife travellers do not use so to entangle themselves in the affairs of foreign countries, as to cut off all hopes of a return to their own home: fuch efpecially as belong to a country in no respect to be rivalled by any other place, and are entitled to a large fhare of the wealth and honour of it; fuch, I say, will not fuffer their thoughts and cares to be fo engaged abroad as to forget their own inheritance, which waits to be enjoyed, and which, once enjoyed,

will recompenfe all the fatigues and hazards of the journey. But this comparison conveys to our minds but a faint image of the cafe before us: one country may differ from another, but no one differs fo much from another as to represent to us the difference between heaven and earth. Many are entitled to great degrees of honour and riches in their own countries; but no man is entitled to fo much on earth as every man is entitled to in heaven, if he forfeits not his hopes by facrificing them to the mean and low enjoyments of the world. Put the case, that a man was fo framed by nature as to hold out a thousand years in his native air, and to be hourly in danger of death in foreign parts, and at best able to hold out but to fixty or eighty years at moft how eagerly would fuch a man prefs homewards, if ever he found himself in another country! How would he despise the strongest temptations of pleasure that should pretend to stay him but a day! How contemptible would all the honours and glories and riches of foreign kingdoms appear to him, when put in the balance against the secure and long life to be enjoyed at home! Add to this fuppofition one circumstance more, that the man is by nature made for the enjoyments which his own country only can afford, that all the pleasures elfewhere to be found are attended with pain and uneafiness in the pursuit, liable to many vexations and disappointments; the enjoyment of them turbulent and tranfient, the remembrance of them irksome and oftentimes tormenting: in this cafe what would a wife man do? Would he not reject with disdain fuch enjoyments as these, and call up all the strength of his mind, fummon all the powers of reafon to

withstand temptations fo deftructive to his natural and real happiness ?

But what need to dwell on fuppofitions, when the truth of our cafe, fairly represented, will appear in a ftronger light than any supposition can place it?

If we have immortal fouls, and that we have nature speaks within us, this place, we are fure, is not their native country: nothing immortal can belong to this globe, where all things tend to decay; which fhall itself be one day confumed, and this beautiful order be fucceeded by a new confufion and another chaos. Were this the only place to which we have relation, we might juftly complain of nature for the fad provifion she has made for man: he only, of all the creatures of this lower world, wants an happiness fuited to his capacity. The reft of the creatures seem satisfied and happy, to the full measure of their capacities, by the provifion made for them. Man alone finds no true enjoyment here, but is ever restless, and in pursuit of fomething more than this world can give. If fomething more is in referve for him, his defires are well fuited to his condition, and the wisdom of God is difcernible in giving man defires fitted for nobler enjoyments than this life affords, fince for man much nobler enjoyments are prepared. These defires are given to be a conftant call to him to remember the dignity of his creation, and to look forward to the better hopes of a better world; and to govern and reftrain the appetites which, too freely indulged, fet him upon a level with the brutes, and difqualify him for the happinefs proper to rational beings.

вез

Taking this to be the cafe, what is it a wife man has to do, but to get as well through this world as he can; I had almost said as faft as he can, that he may arrive at those enjoyments in reserve for him, which will yield a full as well as an endless satisfaction? What can he think of the pleasures of this world, but that they are below the care of him who is born to fo great expectations? Thus he muft think even of innocent delights: they are frail, tranfitory, and uncertain; he is immortal: these therefore are but unworthy objects of his defires; fit to be used, but too mean to be courted; proper for his diverfion, but never good enough to become his business, or to employ his thoughts in the purfuit of them. But guilty pleasures, the fenfual enjoyments and pollutions of the world, appear to him in a more ugly form: he is upon the way, haftening to the place where his heart is fixed: fensual pleasures are robbers which frequent his road, and lie in wait to take away his life and his treasure : these he will fly, for they are dangerous, and he has all his wealth about him; even his hopes and expectations of immortality, which die away if once he falls into the fnares of sensuality.

Confider this cafe fairly, look to the glory and immortality which are placed before you, and the everlasting habitation prepared for those who ferve their Maker in holiness, and keep themselves unfpotted from the world: then view the temptations which furround you, which would fix you down to this world, and intercept all your hopes; and tell me what more powerful argument there can be to abftain from fleshly lufts than this, that ye are

ftrangers and pilgrims on earth, and look for another, even an heavenly habitation.

Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die, fay the difciples of Epicurus: commendable in this, that their exhortation is fuitable to their principle. There is no inconfiftency in exhorting men to make the best of this world and the pleasures of it, when you teach them there is no other to be expected but furely it is to the highest degree abfurd to teach the fame doctrine, without afferting the fame principle. There is not common fenfe in saying, Let us eat and drink, for after this life we fhall enter upon another without end. Yet this is the wife exhortation which every man makes, who pretends to believe a future ftate, and yet pleads for a liberty to indulge his appetites in this. Yes, fay you but God, who knows what he has prepared for us hereafter, has yet given these appetites and how can it be fo inconfiftent with our future expectations to gratify our appetites at prefent, fince our appetites as well as our expectations are natural, and both derived from the fame original? This is the capitol of the caufe, the darling argument of the fenfual man. But fuppofe this world to be a ftate of trial, fuppose these appetites to be given partly for the proof of our virtue, how will the confequence ftand then? God has given us appetites for the trial of our virtue, therefore we may indulge our appetites without any regard to virtue: how? No man furely can reafon thus: it can never follow that we are at liberty to fin, because God has thought fit to call us to a trial of our virtue. But if God has given us appetites, and made it part of our