A SERMON

BY

THE REV. MARCUS RAINSFORD.

WE

"They seek a country."-HEB. xi. 14.

E have here a description of the people of God, written in the Word of God: "They seek a

country."

I think we all feel more or less that we are living in very eventful times. Seldom have we entered upon a new year more likely to issue in details of extraordinary magnitude and importance than this year that we have entered upon. In every direction we observe tokens of anxiety, of change, and even of confusion; and his is the happiest lot who can afford to live above the changes and chances of this poor world, realizing that the Lord reigneth, and habitually conversing with the realities of eternity.

There is no rest here, dear friends, and sooner or later everyone I am now addressing will have to learn that lesson. We are all pressing onward, whether we will or whether we will not, to some great consummation. If we look around us the rivers are rushing forward, the winds are sweeping past us, the seasons are pressing on, years succeeding years, surely, silently, irresistibly, and so it is with ourselves, we are going onward, we stand in a most mysterious position. If we look up, there is the silent heaven above us; if we look down, the silent graves beneath us; and we are living betwixt them—we are journeying while we live. There is a better country, dear

SERM. XVII.

friends, where skies are brighter and homes are happier, "where the inhabitants never say I am sick, and the people that dwell there are forgiven their iniquity."

We are journeying-each year, each hour that passes by brings us nearer to that journey's end. Many who began the last year with us reached it ere the year did close, and many a one who has commenced this year with us will reach his journey's end ere it closes. Who of all of us? and whither? Alas! alas! too many try to make a rest here. It cannot be, dear friends, it cannot be. "I am a stranger with thee," said David, "and a sojourner as all my fathers were." And Jacob, toohe was a stranger. When he stood before the king of Egypt, he said, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been." He had had a long journey, yet he says, "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage." And when the Apostle is addressing himself to the people of God, he has one style for them all—"strangers and pilgrims." Now a stranger is one who doth not rest in the land in which he sojourns. He speaks a different language, his interests are different, he has no settled dwelling-place. This is to be a stranger. A pilgrim is one who, with his staff in his hand and his shoes on his feet, is on a journey; his thoughts are far away, his object is far away, his rest is far away; he may avail himself of the passing accommodation afforded by the country through which he is travelling, but he never thinks of resting in it. Oh, it would be very well for all of us if in this weary world we had the spirit of strangers and pilgrims. There is a better country. If in this life only we have hope, surely we would be of all men most miserable. There is a better country, and the King of that country hath called us,—called

us "unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ, our Lord.” He hath "called us to his kingdom and to his glory." Would that the text told the heart-story of everyone of us. "They seek a country."

You observe that the Apostle is speaking of those of whom he tells us in verse 1, that faith to them was "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" and in verse 38, he tells us, moreover, that they were men "of whom the world was not worthy." If you glance, when you have time, through the chapter, you will find how few of the world's smiles, and how little of the world's favour the worthies here spoken of enjoyed. The promise of their God was their portion, indeed their only portion, and it was a promise in their case long delayed as to the performance thereof. We read of them that they lived in faith, and they died in faith: "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country." While they lived, their life was a confession of the fact that they sought a country, and being dead, the record of their life speaks for them that "they seek a country."

Now observe, it was not the country that they had come forth from; for we read in verse 15, "if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned." It was not the land of Canaan that they desired and sought; for in verse 9, we read of Abraham that, "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country; and we read in Gen. xxxvii. 1, that "Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger." It was not a better country here they sought; there was no better

country under the heavens of God than the land God had given them; and as there was no better country here, and as they did plainly declare that they sought a country, the Apostle draws the conclusion that it was a heavenly country that they sought, and he adds, "God is not ashamed to be called their God."

Observe how this beautiful record, like a diadem of glory, sparkles with gems of truth, and faith, and hope, radiant with God's own love. "These all." In the first verse of the next chapter the Apostle speaks of them as a cloud of witnesses, witnessing to the power of faith, both as to what faith can do, and as to what faith can suffer. "These all." A number of names are mentioned, and the Apostle says that time would fail him to go through all the names. What a variety of persons, what a variety of characters, what a variety of attainments, and yet the Spirit of God gives the same account of all. All saw the promise, all were persuaded of its truth, all embraced it, all confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and all declared plainly that they sought a country. How the Lord loves his children as his children, without entering into the question of the greatness or the smallness of their attainments. He loves them all as his children; all are equally dear to him. The more we know of him, the happier we are, but all are dear to him; no difference of degree is attempted to be instituted between any or all of these, yet we know how very much more faith some had than others.

Observe another beautiful truth here; whatever the variety or the degree of their attainments may have been, (some were warriors, some sons of consolation, some were mere sufferers for Christ's sake, some obtained a good report here on earth by faith, of some we could hardly tell whether they had any faith or not); but observe, whatever their attainment, there is only one thing noted about them,—

that they lived in faith, and that they died in faith; because, whatever they attained to, it was by faith they attained to it; whatever they accomplished, it was by faith they accomplished it; and the Lord naming their faith as the root of all their power, calls our attention to that faith in which they lived, and in which they died.

Observe, again, they were strangers and pilgrims. What made them to be strangers and pilgrims here? The knowledge they had of the interest which the love of God gave them in his promises. They saw the promise, and that drew away their eyes from all earthly objects; they heard the Father's voice in promise, and that drew away their ears from all earthly sounds; they saw by faith the distant rest and home, and earth seemed small, and unsatisfying, and clouded, and unworthy in comparison. The knowledge of their God and of his love made them strangers and pilgrims here.

We gather from this fact another. That God's promises contain sufficient support and comfort for all of his stranger and pilgrim people. Oh why are we so ignorant of them? There is not a tear, or cause of a tear, for which there is not relief in the promise. There is not a conflict, a temptation, a distress, an apprehension, for which there is not provision in the promise of our God. All that these worthies had in life was the promise. They were "heirs of promise," they fed upon promise, they walked in the light of promise; and although they never got the thing promised, they found, in the promise itself, sufficient to support and sustain them in all their wanderings, in all their conflicts, and in all their trials. The trial of faith is no new thing, not one of "all of these" received the promise. We sometimes think it very strange to have to wait a long time for the promise. Why, they waited all their lives; they died without the promise. Compare this statement with verses 17 and 13,