Discourses, or, Sermons on several Scriptures

Thirdly, ¹What is it to enter through the Gates into this City.

1. 1What it is to enter through the Gates into the City.

I answer, Though in the foregoing Chapter this City is described to have twelve Gates, and in them the Names of the twelve Tribes of Israel, to signify to us, that through the Grace of the Gospel, there is a Passage and an Inlet into Heaven for all those that are true Israelites; yet, in true propriety of Speech, there is but one Way, and but one Gate to Heaven: Yea, and our Saviour tells us, that Way is narrow, and that Gate is strait; for so we find his Words; ¹Strait is the Gate, and narrow is the Way, that leadeth unto Life, and few there be that find it. The Commandments ⟨p. 58⟩of God are this Gate to the Heavenly City, and the two Tables of the Law are the two Leaves of this Gate, through which every one must pass, that hopes to be admitted into the New Jerusalem. And although David seems to make this Gate very large, when he tells us, Thy Commandments are exceeding broad; ²yet that is only to be understood concerning the Authority of its Injunctions, not of the Liberty of its Indulgence. It is exceeding broad in the Extent of its preceptive Power, for it prescribes Rules to all our Thoughts, Words, and Actions, and to every Circumstance of each; but it is exceeding narrow and strait in the Scope and Allowance that it gives us; that as soon may a Camel go through the Eye of a Needle, as we pass ⟨p. 59⟩through this Gate with the Burden of one unmortified Lust, or one unrepented Sin.