You may be encouraged from what has been said, earnestly to seek heaven; for there are many mansions there. There is room enough there. Let your case be what it will, there is suitable provision there for you. Or if you come to Christ, you need not fear but that he will prepare a place for you.
He'll see to it that you shall be well accommodated in heaven.
But secondly, I would improve this doctrine in a twofold exhortation.
First. Let all be hence exhorted, earnestly to seek that they may be admitted to a mansion in heaven. You have heard that this is God's house: it is his temple. If David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah, and in the land of Jeshua, and of the Philistines, so longed that he might again return into the land of Israel, that he might have a place in the house God here on earth, and prized a place there so much, though it was but
that of a doorkeeper;6 then how great in happiness will it be to have a place in this heavenly temple of God. If they are looked upon as enjoying an high privilege that have a seat appointed there in kings' courts, or an apartment in kings' palaces, especially those that have an abode there in the quality of the king's children; then how great a privilege will it be to have an apartment or mansion assigned us in God's heavenly palace, and to have a place there as his children.
How great is their glory and honor that are admitted to be of the household of God.
And seeing there are many mansions, there are mansions enough for us all. Our folly will be the greater, if [we] neglect to seek a place in heaven, having our minds foolishly taken up about the worthless, fading things of this world.
Here consider three things.
1. How little a while you can have any mansion or place of abode in this world. Now you have a dwelling amongst the living. You have an house or mansion of your own, or at least one that is at present for your use; and now you have a seat in the house of God.
But how little a while will this continue?
In a very little while the place that now knows you in this world, will have you no more. The habitation you have here, will be empty of you. You will be carried dead out of it, or shall die at a distance from it, and never enter into it any more, or into any other abode in this world.
Your mansion or place of abode in this world, however convenient and commodious it may be, it is but as a seat that shall soon be taken down, but "a lodge in a garden of cucumbers."
You stay as it were but for a night. Your being itself is but a house of clay, which will quickly molder, and tumble down. And you shall have no other habitation here in this world but the grave.
Thus God in his providence is putting you in mind by the repeated instances of death that have been in the town within the two weeks past, [that] hath in one house in which death has shown his dominion over old and young. The son was taken away first before the father, being in his full strength and flower of his days; and the father, who was then well and having no appearance of approaching death, followed in a few days. And their habitation, and their seat in the house of God in this world, will know them no more.
Take warning by these warnings of providence to improve your time, that you may have a mansion in heaven. We have a house of worship newly erected amongst us, which now you have a seat in, and probably are
pleased with the ornaments of it; and though you have a place among others in so comely an house, you know7 not how little a while you shall have a place in this house of God. Here are a couple snatched away by death that had met in it but a few times, that have been snatched out of it before it was fully finished, and never will have any more a seat in it. You know not how soon you may follow. And then of great importance will it be to you to have a seat in God's house above.
Both the persons lately deceased, were much in their deathbeds in warning others to improve their precious time.
The first of them was much in expressing his sense of the vast importance of an interest in Christ, as I was a witness; and was earnest in calling on others to improve their time, to be thorough to get an interest in Christ; and seemed very desirous that young people might receive counsel and warning from him, as the words of a dying man, to do their utmost to make sure of conversion; and a little before he died, left a request to me that I would warn the young people in his name. God has been warning of you in his death, and the death of his father that so soon followed, which may well be the more set home by his dying warnings.
The words of dying persons should be of special weight with us; for then they are in circumstances wherein they are most capable to look on things as they are, and to judge aright of 'em. {They are} between both worlds as it were {this world and the next}, [a] state that we must all be in.
Let our young people therefore take warning from hence, and don't [act] such fools as to neglect seeking a place and mansion in heaven. Young persons are especially apt to be taken with the pleasing things of this world. You are now, it may be, much pleased with hopes of your future circumstances in this world, {much} pleased with the ornaments of that house of worship that you with others have a place in. But, alas, do you not too little consider how soon you may be taken away from all these things, and no more forever have any part in any mansion, or house, or enjoyment, or business under the sun.
Therefore let it be your main care to secure an everlasting habitation for hereafter.
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