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SERMON VII.

THE SAINT'S CONFESSION.

HEBREWS XI. 13.

"THESE ALL CONFESSED THAT THEY WERE STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS ON THE EARTH."

How brief, yet how remarkable a confession? and to whom does it apply? To Abel, to Enoch, to Noah, and to Abraham, and to Sarah, and to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to all the family of the faithful. Yes, my brethren, "these all confessed," says the Apostle, after having enumerated a goodly number of the family of God, "that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." It was then the confession, and we can show that it ever has been, and ever

must be, the confession of the children of God, in all places and at all times. Throughout the large and blessed family of the Redeemer, one characteristic, one distinguishing feature is ever visible. They are not of the world, even as he was not of the world. Whatever be their ages, whatever be their circumstances, this is true of them all. If there ever had been an individual, who might have felt himself in some degree at home upon earth, it certainly was Abraham, when in the country which was given to him and to his heirs for ever, by God himself; yet in what terms does the inspired writer speak of him in this country, thus supernaturally made over to him, "Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country." Even in the land of his inheritance, he never felt himself at home. The same, also, was the confession of Moses: "I have been a stranger in a strange land;

1 Hebrews xi. 9.

2 Exodus ii. 22.

so again, David, in the midst of the most ample possessions, reigning over a wealthy and populous kingdom, anointed to the government, and established in it by the visible appointment of God himself, expressed precisely the same feeling: "I am a stranger with thee, and a

my

fathers were,

is the

sojourner, as all confession of his heart; whilst, as a last example, the highest and the best, we find even our blessed Saviour himself, the Lord of heaven and earth, during his visit in the flesh to this land of sin and sorrow, exclaiming, "I am not of this world," realizing what the Psalmist had before declared of him, that he should be a "stranger among his brethren, and an alien among his mother's children." He indeed passed through the world, but it was only to sanctify it as the place of his people's service; his heart and his constant residence were not here, to fix it as their place of rest. We see, then, that the declaration of the text is not an 1 Psalm xxxix. 12. 2 St. John xvii. 16.

isolated passage, uncorroborated by the general tenour of Holy Writ, but a truth which the experience and the confessions of the people of God, of every age, fully

establish and confirm.

Let us earnestly implore the Divine blessing, and the Divine presence, while we meditate upon those peculiar terms by which the children of God are here pourtrayed.

I. They confessed themselves to be "strangers upon earth." For the sake of confining ourselves more closely to the immediate subject before us, let us examine the simple definition of the term ;— a stranger is a foreigner, a person born in some other country, and who is for the present separated from his kindred, his inheritance, and his home.

Observe, then, at once, the reason for the application of the name; observe the Apostle's motive for recording the simple fact, that all the good and holy men of whom he had been speaking, unite in the confession of the text. The people

of God confess themselves strangers, because, speaking in a spiritual sense, they are not born here; this is not their native country. "That which is born of

the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," are the words of our Lord. From the moment that they are born of God, created anew by the Spirit, they take up the confession of the text, because from that moment, their hearts have taken up the feelings from which it flowed. They have become partakers of the Divine nature," and the renewed heart turns constantly, unceasingly turns, to the land of its nativity, and the man, become a new creature in Christ Jesus," becomes also a stranger and a foreigner upon earth, a sincere aspirant after the joys of heaven.

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Again, as the people of God are strangers upon earth, because it is not the land of their nativity, so also are they strangers, because their inheritance is not here.