HEAVENLY LIFE UPON EARTH. 217 truly and properly our home, where we must take up our everlasting abode, than this, which we are every hour expecting to be separated from, and to see no more ? We are strangers and that is our country. We are heirs, and that is our inheritance ; even " an inherit- ance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us. "(l) We are here in continual distress and want, and there lies our substance ; even a better and an enduring substance.(m) Yea, the very hope of our souls is there; all our hope of relief from our distresses ; all our hope of happiness, when here we are miserable ; all this hope is laid up for us in heaven.(n). Why, beloved Christians, have we so much interest, and so few thoughts there? so near relation, and so little affection ? Doth it become us to be delighted in the company of strangers, so as to forget our Father and our Lord ? or to be so well pleased with those that hate and grieve us, as to forget our best and dearest friends ? or to be so fond of borrowed trifles, as to forget our own possession and treasure? or to be so much im- pressed with tears and wants, as to forget our eternal joy and rest? God usually pleads our property in ús : and thence concludes he will do us good, even because we are his own people, whom he hath chosen out of all the world. Why then do we not plead our inte- rest in him, and so raise our hearts above, even be- cause he is our own God, and because the place is our own possession ? Men commonly over -love and over- value their own things, and mind them too much. O that we could mind our own inheritance, and value it half as much as it deserves ! 18. (12) Once more, consider there is nothing but heaven worth setting our hearts upon. If God have them not, who shall ? If thou mind not thy rest, what wilt thou mind ? Hast thou found out some other god ? or something that will serve thee instead of rest ? Hast thou found on earth an eternal happiness ? Where is it? What is it, made of ? Who was the man that found it out? Who was he that last enjoyed it ? Where dwelt he? What was his name? Or art thou the first that ever (l) 1 Pet. i 4. (m) Heb. x. 34. (n) Col. i. 5. 7 Ee
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