O ye worldly-minded professors, can ye read this without being ashamed and reproved? What will bring a man to this confession? Will sickness and a near approach to death? O no: men return from the most dangerous illness to greater love of the world and more ardent pursuit after it. -Look at a dying worldling; see him, like a drowning man, clenching the faster what he has grasped for his hope and help. Men not only live fools, but die fools too: their senses beguile them; their reason befools them; they reject the plainest truths before them.
Nothing will kill the love of a bewitching world, in a deceitful heart, but the view of heaven by faith: no man will confess himself a stranger to the world and a pilgrim on the earth, until he sees himself "a fellow citizen with the saints and of the household of God." Eph. 2:19. Admire those ancient heroes of faith: view and imitate their conduct.
What caused this confession? They had not received the promises: the Messiah was not then come from heaven with all the inestimable blessings of his kingdom; yet they believed in him, looked to him, and lived, by faith, upon him as promised. Though they saw the precious promises afar off, yet they were realized to their hearts by faith; the distance of them did not weaken their confidence in their real existence; faith brought them nigh to their minds. They were persuaded of them, and embraced them; they clung to the promises of God as the chief delight and greatest joy of their souls.
Worldly men cry, "O, faith is to do all for you!" No, not so: Christ has done all for us; by faith we enjoy all the comfort of it: hence we become followers of Christ: "strangers and pilgrims on the earth," and travellers to our Father's kingdom. Have you had no mark of disapprobation from carnal men? Do they see nothing in you to while they object? Then you have great reason to question whether you are a real follower of a despised, crucified Lord: the world will love its own. Are you striving to keep both God and the world? Of all men upon earth, you are most to be pitied, for you will be most miserable: most joyful to say, I am "a stranger and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." Psalm 39:12.
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