An inheritance incorruptible.

 An inheritance incorruptible. As he who takes away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon niter, so is he who sings songs to a heavy heart. Worldly mirth is so far from curing spiritual grief, that even worldly grief, where it is great and takes deep root, is not allayed--but increased by it. The more a man who is full of inward heaviness is surrounded by mirth, the more it exasperates and enrages his grief; like ineffective weak medicine, which removes not the disease, but stirs it up and makes it more agitated. But spiritual joy is seasonable for all conditions; in prosperity, it is pertinent, to crown and sanctify all other enjoyments, with this which so far surpasses them; and in distress, it is the only cordial of fainting spirits: so, He has put joy into my heart. This holy mirth makes way for itself, which other mirth cannot do. These songs are sweetest in the night of distress. Therefore the Apostle, writing to his scattered afflicted brethren, begins his Epistle with this song of praise, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The matter of this joy is, the joyful remembrance of the happiness laid up for them, under the name of inheritance. Now this inheritance is described by the singular qualities of it. They contain,

1. The excellence of its nature.

2. The certainty of its attainment. The former in these three, Incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away; the latter, in the last words of this verse, and in the verse following: Reserved in heaven for you, &c. God is bountiful to all—gives to all men all that they have--health, riches, honor, strength, beauty, and wit: but those things He scatters (as it were) with an indifferent hand. Upon others He looks, as well as upon His beloved children; but the inheritance is peculiarly theirs. Inheritance is convertible with sonship; Abraham gave gifts to Keturah’s sons, and dismissed them, but the inheritance was for the son of the promise, Gen. 25:5-6. When we see a man rising in preferment or estate, or admired for excellent gifts and endowments of mind, we think--'there is a happy man'. But we consider not, that within a while he is to be turned out of all, and if he has not something beyond all those to look to, he is but a miserable man, and so much the more miserable, that once he seemed and was reputed happy.

There is a certain time when heirs come to possess: thus it is with this inheritance too. There is mention made by the Apostle of a perfect man—unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And though the inheritance is rich and honorable, yet the heir, being young, is held under discipline, and possibly dealt with more strictly than the servants—sharply corrected for that which is overlooked in them; but still, even then, considering that which he is born to, his condition is much better than theirs, and all the correction he suffers harms him not, but prepares him for his inheritance. The love of our heavenly Father is beyond the love of mothers in tenderness; and also beyond the love of fathers, who are usually said to love more wisely, in point of wisdom. He will not undo His children, His heirs, with too much indulgence. It is one of His heavy judgments upon the foolish children of disobedience, that ease shall slay them, and their prosperity shall prove their destruction.

While the children of God are childish and weak in faith, they are like some great heirs before they come to years of understanding: they consider not their inheritance, and what they are to come to, have not their spirits elevated to thoughts worthy of their estate, and their behavior conformed to it. But as they grow up in years, they come, little by little, to be aware of those things, and the nearer they come to possession, the more apprehensive they are of their quality, and of what does answerably befit them to do. And this is the duty of those who are indeed heirs of glory—to grow in the understanding and consideration of that which is prepared for them, and to fit themselves, as they are able, to those great hopes. This is what the Apostle Paul prays for, on behalf of his Ephesians, The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. This would make them holy and heavenly, to have their conversation in heaven, from where they look for a Savior.

That we may, then, the better know something of the dignity and riches of this inheritance, let us consider the description which is here given us of it. And, first, it is—

Incorruptible. Although this seems to be much the same with the third quality, That fades not away, (which is a borrowed expression for the illustrating of its incorruptibleness,) yet, I think that there is some difference, and that in these three qualities there is a gradation. Thus it is called incorruptible; that is, it perishes not, cannot come to nothing, is an estate that cannot be spent. But though it were abiding, yet it might be such as that the continuance of it were not very desirable; it would be but a misery at best, to continue always in this life. Plotinus thanked God that his soul was not tied to an immortal body.

Then, undefiled; it is not stained with the least spot: this signifies the purity and perfection of it, as that the perpetuity of it. It does not only abide, and is pure, but both together; and it abides always in its purity and integrity.

And lastly, it fades not away; it does not fade nor wither at all, is not sometimes more, sometimes less pleasant, but ever the same, still like itself; and that is the immutability of it. As it is incorruptible, it carries away the palm from all earthly possessions and inheritances; for all those epithets are intended to signify its opposition to the things of this world, and to show how far it excels them all; and thus comparatively we are to consider it. For as divines say of the knowledge of God which we have here, that the negative notions makes up a great part of it—we know rather what He is not, than what He is, infinite, incomprehensible, immutable, &c.; so it is of this happiness, this inheritance: and indeed it is none other than God.

We cannot tell you what it is, but we can say so far what it is not, as it is unspeakably above all the most excellent things of the inferior world and this present life. It is by privatives, by removing imperfections from it, that we describe it, and we can go no further—Incorruptible, undefiled, and that fades not away. All things that we see, being compounded, may be dissolved again. The very visible heavens, which are the purest piece of the material world, notwithstanding the pains the philosopher takes to exempt them, the Scriptures teach us that they are corruptible, They shall perish, but you shall endure: yes, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shall you change them, and they shall be changed. And from thence the Apostle to the Hebrews, and our Apostle, in his other Epistle, use the same expression.

But it is unnecessary to fetch too great a compass, to evince the corruptibility of all inheritances. Besides what they are in themselves, it is a shorter way to prove them corruptible in relation to us and our possessing them--by our own corruptibility and corruption, or perishing out of this life in which we enjoy them. We are here—perishing among perishing things; the things are passing which we enjoy, and we are passing who enjoy them. An earthly inheritance is so called in regard of succession; but to everyone it is at the most but for the term of life. As one of the kings of Spain replied to one of his courtiers, who, thinking to please his master, wished that kings were immortal. If that had been, said he--I would never have liked to be a king. When death comes, that removes a man out of all his possessions to give place to another; therefore are these inheritances decaying and dying in relation to us--because we decay and die; and when a man dies, his inheritances and honors, and all things here, are at an end, in respect of him; yes, we may say the world ends to him.

Thus Solomon reasons, that a man’s happiness cannot be upon this earth; because it must be some durable, abiding thing that must make him happy—abiding, namely, in his enjoyment. Now, although the earth abides, yet, because man abides not on the earth to possess it, but one age drives out another, one generation passes, and another comes—as wave is driven on by wave, therefore, his rest and his happiness cannot be here.

Undefiled. All possessions here are defiled and stained with many other defects and failings—still somewhat lacking, some damp on them or crack in them; fair houses, but sad cares flying about the gilded and ceiled roofs; stately and soft beds, and a full table, but a sickly body and queasy stomach. As the fairest face has some mole or wart in it, so all possessions are stained with sin, either in acquiring or in using them, and therefore they are called, mammon of unrighteousness. Iniquity is so involved in the notion of riches, that it can very hardly be separated from them. Jerome says, To me it appears, that he who is rich is either himself an unjust man, or the heir of one. Foul hands pollute all they touch; it is our sin which defiles all that we possess! It is sin that burdens the whole creation, and presses groans out of the very frame of the world. For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Sin is the leprosy which defiles our houses, the very walls and floors, our food and drink, and all we touch; polluted when alone, and polluted in society; our meetings and conversations together being for the greatest part nothing but an interchange of sin and vanity. We breathe up and down in an infected air, and are very receptive of the infection by our own corruption within us. We readily turn the things we possess here to occasions and instruments of sin, and think there is no liberty nor delight in their use, without abusing them. How few are those who can carry, as they say, a full cup without spilling; who can rightly use great wealth and estates; who can bear notoriety without pride, and riches without covetousness, and ease without luxury!

Then, as our earthly inheritances are stained with sin in their use, so what grief and strife, and contentions about obtaining or retaining them! Does not matter of possession, this same—mine and yours—divide many times the affections of those who are knit together in nature, or other strict ties, and prove the worst cause of strife between nearest friends? If we trace great estates to their first original, how few will be found that owe not their beginning either to fraud, or rapine, or oppression! and the greatest empires and kingdoms in the world have had their foundations laid in blood. Are not these defiled inheritances?

That withers not. A borrowed speech, alluding to the decaying of plants and flowers, which bud and flourish at a certain time of the year, and then fade and wither, and in winter are as if they were dead. And this is the third disadvantage of possessions and all things worldly--that they abide not in one estate, but are in a more uncertain and irregular inconstancy than either the flowers and plants of the field, or the moon, from which they are called sublunary; like Nebuchadnezzar’s image, degenerating by degrees into baser metals, and, in the end, into a mixture of iron and clay.

The excellence, then, of our heavenly inheritance is, that it is free from all those evils. It falls not under the stroke of time, comes not within the compass of its scythe, which has so large a compass, and cuts down all other things. There is nothing in it weighing it towards corruption. It is immortal, everlasting; for it is the fruition of the immortal, everlasting God, by immortal souls; and the body rejoined with it shall likewise be immortal, having put on incorruption, as the Apostle speaks.

It fades not away. No spot of sin nor sorrow there; all pollution wiped away, and all tears with it; no envy nor strife; not as here among men, one supplanting another, one pleading and fighting against another, dividing this point of earth with fire and sword. No! this inheritance is not the less by division, by being parted among so many brethren, everyone has it all, each his crown, and all agreeing in casting them down before His throne, from whom they have received them, and in the harmony of His praises. This inheritance is often called a kingdom, and a crown of glory. This word may allude to those garlands of the ancients; and this is its property, that the flowers in it are all Amaranthes (as a certain plant is named), and so it is called, A crown of glory that fades not away. No change at all there, no winter and summer: not like the poor comforts here, but a bliss always flourishing.

The grief of the saints here, is not so much for the changes of outward things, as of their inward comforts. Sweet the hour--but short the tarrying. Sweet presences of God they sometimes have, but they are short and often interrupted; but there no cloud shall come between them and their Sun--they shall behold Him in His full brightness forever. As there shall be no change in their beholding, so no weariness nor abatement of their delight in beholding. They sing a new song, always the same, and yet always new. The sweetest of our music, if it were to be heard but for one whole day, would weary those who are most delighted with it. What we have here cloys, but satisfies not; the joys above never cloy, and yet always satisfy.

We should here consider the last property of this inheritance, namely, the certainty of it—Reserved in heaven for you; but that is connected with the following verse, and so will be fitly joined with it.

Now for some use of all this. If these things were believed, they would persuade for themselves; we would not need to add any entreaties to move you to seek after this inheritance. Have we not experience enough of the vanity and misery of corruptible things? And are not a great part of our days already spent among them? Is it not time to consider whether we are provided with anything surer and better than what we have here? Whether we have any inheritance to go home to after our wandering? or can say with the Apostle, We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?

If these things gain our assent while we hear them, yet it dies so easily. Scarcely any retire themselves after to follow forth those thoughts, and to make a work indeed of them; they busy their heads rather another way, building castles in the air, and spinning out their thoughts in vain contrivances. Happy are those whose hearts the Spirit of God sets and fixes upon this inheritance: they may join in with the Apostle, and say, as here, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you!