but strangers, and therefore prove yourselves to be so, by an estrangement of affection from this world; and by a warm heart towards heaven. This is the way to prove yourselves strangers, by being mortified to things below, and having your affections set on things above. (1.) If you are strangers in this world, then let your affections be weaned from the things that are here below. When a man is posting from one kingdom to another, he will not care much about what he meets with by the way; if he gets a bad lodging to night, he thinks he will get a better to-morrow, and a few days more be out of that strange land. So it is with the believer, he meets with bad entertainment here; well, a little time will put an end to all. Our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, 2 Cor. iv. 17. (2.) Prove yourselves to be strangers by your warm thoughts of heaven; strangers should love their home. If heaven be our inheritance, how delighted should we be with the thoughts of it? how frequently should we converse with it? how often should we send to it? Do ye belong to heaven, and are you strangers on earth? then, whilst we are denied entrance to our home, let us entertain correspondence with it, like a child that is sent by his father to travel in a strange land; whilst he is denied his father's sight, he will yet entertain correspondence with him by letters.

I would now speak a word or two to the next word, that they are strangers scattered. The original word is strangers of the dispersion; and this was a common word among the Jews, by which they did express that number of their countrymen who were scattered among the nations round about, Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles? say they of Christ, John

vii. 35.

The only thing I would note from hence is, That Christ's people hitherto are scattered abroad; they were never yet gathered all together, nor ever will till the last day. They have been scattering (if I may so say) for these six thousand years; one generation goes and another comes: and they are also scattered through many countries; many of them never yet saw one another's faces, and if they should see one another, they would not understand one another's speech; and the Lord

has ordered this in great wisdom, that his elect shall be scattered, and not confined to one place, it may be you would think it a brave thing, if all the elect of God were confined to this land, or to the neighbouring nation, and that they were all brought forth in one age; you would think that to be a lovely land indeed, if all the inhabitants in it were truly godly; but the wisdom of God sees it far fitter as it is, that the elect should spring up in every age as he sees good. They are scattered now, some spring up in one part of the world and some in another, but they shall be brought all together, to the praise of his grace. They shall come from the east and from the vest, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God, Luke xiii. 29. He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to another, Matt. xxiv. 31. But I shall not stand on this: for it is a plain noted truth, that the elect of God are a scattered company through all ages, and through all parts of the world, as God sees good. Their gathering together begins in churches; that is something like a gathering them together: The Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved, Acts ii. 47. that is, the scattered elect were gathered together to that first church; For as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, Acts xiii. 48. But the great day of gathering them together, is at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is the apostle's expression, 2 Thess. ii. 1. I beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him. The apostle calls this great and last day by this name; it is not only the day of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is the day also for gathering all his people to him. This gathering together is also spoken of by our Lord himself, John x. 16. I have other sheep, them also I must bring in, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

All the USE I shall make from this head is this, Are the elect of God a scattered company through the world? See what your estate is like to be then by what it is now; though be lievers are scattered through the nations, yet they are all centered in one head; though they do not know one another, yet they all know or shall know Jesus Christ, and he knows

them exactly; though they have not communion with all the members of the body, yet they have all communion with the head; what then should be people's great concern, but to labour to know this about themselves, that they are of the scattered remnant that shall be gathered together into one at that day? It will be a sad charge, if Christ shall have to give it in against any of you, Matt. xxiii. 31. How often would I have gathered you, and ye would not? Christians should cheer their hearts, and rejoice their spirits, in the lively hope of this blessed gathering together, when all the elect of God shall be gathered together into one place, never to be scattered any more. So much for this first thing; the first description of these strangers scattered abroad, as relating to their outwaad condition in the world.

The second description of them is from what they were before God; they were a company of distressed and dispersed strangers, but yet they were God's elect ones. They were elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and elect to the sanctification of the Spirit, and elect to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus; a strange description of election! Election is properly of eternal life, and to the utmost period of it, saith the apostle, 2 Thess. ii. 13. God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. But the apostle here speaks of election to justification and to sanctification: here he comprehends the steps and methods and means by which the purpose of election is made effectual. The last design of election is to possess the elected of eternal life; but not by skipping immediately from the grace of election to the state of glory; no, there are several steps between them, Rom. viii. 30. Whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. But I cannot enter on these things now, and shall only add a word or two in general.

The Lord needed not us, nor any of those creatures that are better than we; his setting his love upon a company of the children of men, and giving them to the Son to be redeemed by him, is an act to be wondered at in time and to eternity; earth, and will be more and better wondered at in heaven. The Lord now and then takes a few, and

it is wondered at on

picks them up through the nations where they are scattered; they were all of the same mass, of the same lump, lying in the same pit; Peter was no better than Judas, nor Judas any worse than Peter; Cain was no worse than Abel, and Abel was no better than Cain, till grace made the difference. Jacob and Esau were alike, till grace made the difference; when they were in the same womb, at the same time, yet, saith the Lord, Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. Unaccountable love! and unccountable hatred too! Deep! O how deep are the ways of God, and his judgments past finding out? Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who being his counsellor hath instructed him? he is in one mind, and who can turn him? and what his soul desireth that he doth. For bold ignorant creatures to open their mouth against God, is but like the clay grumbling against the potter; woe be unto them .that strive with the Lord: we should not strive with our Maker, but lie down and look with wonder at the inconceivable depth of his wisdom; and we should learn to say over our Lord's thanksgiving, Luke x. 21. We thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. There are but few of the great and the wise, the mighty men after the flesh that are called; But God hath chosen the weak and the foolish, and the things that are not, to confound the things that are mighty, that no flesh might glory in his presence, but that he who glerith might glory in the Lord, 1 Cor. i. 27, 28.-The Lord hath revealed to us in his word, and he makes it good to us in his daily dealings, that his people are a scattered company throughout this world; but it will be a lovely sight to see them all together, to see them complete, to see them gathered together into Christ the head; such a head! and such a body! will be a marvellous sight indeed! never was any thing like it seen since the creation. It was doubtless a lovely sight, if there had been any with the Divine Being, to have looked and seen all things starting from nothing: to see the heavens extended, and the earth established; to tee the sun, the moon, and the stars starting up and shining at the commanding word of their maker. It was a great change, from the chaos and the confusion of the first mass, VOL. IV.

B

to that beautiful world God made; but there will be a far greater and a more notable change between the state of the church militant, that are fighting and suffering and strangers here below, and that glory which is to be revealed at the appearing of Christ, when he comes in his own and in his Father's glory. A poor believer now seems to be a distressed creature, despised of men; but he is precious in God's sight where there is but the least drop of the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, there God's heart is; that covers all, that ennobles all: if we are but sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ we need fear nothing; we may keep the passover and the sprinkling of blood, and the destroying angel shall not touch us.

The next thing that the apostle speaks of is the sanc tification of the Spirit, which is given to all the people of God, as though yet in small measures; it is but like a little. leaven in a great deal of meal, and we are to wait for the blessing of God till it leavens the whole, and we be sanctified throughout.

SERMON II.

1 PETER i. 1, 2.

Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia; Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace be multiplied.

THESE words, which are the apostle's preface to this epistle, contain three things. 1st, The penman, how he is described, an apostle of Jesus Christ: what sins this man was guilty of, and what grace he met with to raise him again to this dignity, I spoke to in the former discourse. 2dly, I also made some entrance upon the second thing, the description