A fourth volume containing one hundred and fifty sermons on several texts of Scripture…

3. It informs us, that it is a false Hope that doth not urge to Practice and Strictness of Life. Some Men make full account to go to Heaven, but make no preparation for it, their Course is another way, there is not only an Unsuitableness to their Hopes, but a Contrariety: If there were only an Unsuitableness, it were enough to discover the Cheat, for we are to be made meet to be Partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light, Col. 1.12. and to walk worthy of God, who hath called us to his Kingdom and Glory, 1 Thess. 2.12. and to walk worthy of the Vocation wherewith we are called, Ephes. 4.1. There is a Suitableness between a Man and his great Hopes. When David was a Shepherd, he spent his time in keeping his Father's Sheep, and had the Heart of a Shepherd; but when he was called to be King, then he behaved himself like a King, like a Shepherd of the People: So a Christian discovers his Hopes in his Disposition, and in his Practice, and doth walk as an Heir of the Grace of Life. There may be a slight Hope which hath no Efficacy, but those serious Sighs, and hearty Groans I speak of, certainly they will work a Suitableness in the Temper of our Hearts, and the Constitution of our Souls, and we shall be more holy, there will be more worthy walking, more Detestation of Sin, more Contempt of the World, more Diligence in the Spiritual Life. When you walk as if your Hopes were altogether in this World; when Princes in Scarlet embrace a Dunghill; when those that are called to great and glorious Hopes, live as if their Happiness were only here below, heaping up Wealth, Treasure and Worldly Conveniences to themselves, it is a Lamentation. If you saw a Man labouring in filthy Ditches, and sullying himself as poor Men do with Mire and Dirt, who would believe he were an Heir apparent to a Crown, and called to inherit a Kingdom? So when we live as Men of the World, when there is an Unsuitableness between us and our Hopes, how do we walk as the Heirs of Grace? But now when there is not only an Unsuitableness, but an open Contrariety in their Practice, and yet they think to go to Heaven; it is as if a Man whose Journey lay North, should travel just South. Can that Man look to be filled up with God, when God is not in all his Thoughts? Can he long for the Company of Christ that slights his Ordinances? Can he prize the Communion of Saints, to whom good Company is a Prison?