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These words sum up what was certainly the apostolic mind as to the position of Christians in the world. They were members, as we are, of a vast and complex association which we call human society; but, with all its great attributes, it wants permanence. The world passes away as we work and speak. "Here we have no continuing city." We have, indeed, a city; we have a wonderful and beneficent citizenship; we could not live without it; we owe it debts beyond repayment, duties of the most sacred kind; but society is with us and about us to-day, and to-morrow we and it are to be so much farther on in our round of successive changes, by which it becomes something quite different from what it is now, something, perhaps, which now we cannot imagine, and we disappear from life and from the visible world. But though "here we have no continuing city," we do "seek one to come." Born amid change, knowing nothing by experience but change, the human heart yet obstinately clings to its longing for the unchangeable and eternal. Christian souls not only long for it, but look for it. We seek that which is to come — seek it, believing that we shall one day reach it. We do not need Scripture to teach us that "we have no continuing city," that "the fashion of this world passeth away," that "nothing continueth in one stay." But only Scripture can teach us to seek with hope for that which is to come. I need not remind you how, throughout the Psalms, we meet the impressive recognition of this aspect of life and of the world. They are full of the presence, of the greatness, of the eventfulness Of change — change going on for good and evil, for joy and sorrow, in Outward circumstances, in the inward life — changes visible, material, political, moral, and vicissitudes in the fortunes of men and nations; and there are recorded the most rapid alternations and successions of feeling in the soul within, in its outlook towards God and things outside it. The idea of the sovereignty of God is the counterpart throughout the Psalms set over against all that is unsatisfying, disastrous, transitory, untrustworthy, not only in man's condition, but in the best that be can do. The psalmists realised that they had "no continuing city" in a way that is far beyond our experience. They knew a state of society which could rely on nothing settled. It was liable at any moment to be tormented by insolent and lawless wickedness, to be shaken to its foundations by the fever and passion of false religions, to be crushed down into utter ruin by some alien conqueror. They believed that they were the people of God; they believed that they had His promises; and yet what they saw was these promises still unfulfilled, recalled, apparently passing away to nothingness; they, the people of God's holiness, saw in the midst of them, trampling on all light and purity, the bloodthirsty and deceitful man; they, the elect of the Lord of Hosts, saw the enemy master among the ruins of God's holy place, and for generation after generation felt themselves the slaves and spoil of the heathen. What wonder, then, that the voice of grief and humiliation sounds with such tragic repetition in the Book of Psalms? "Hath God indeed forgotten to be gracious, and wilt He shut up His loving-kindness in displeasure?" But what is the other side of all this? It is that perhaps with one, and that only an apparent exception, the voice of unalloyed and uncomforted despair is never heard there. At the very moment that the heart is rent with shame and agony comes the remembrance of the Eternal King of Mercy and Righteousness, whose kingdom endured from end to end, while empires rose and fell, and whose ear heard with equal certainty the cry of the poor, and the blasphemer, and the cruel. In spite of the daily evidence of experience, the wicked "flourishing like a green bay-tree," the power of the oppressor, the mocking tongue of the blasphemer — in spite of all, the foundations stand sure and unshaken by any accidents of mortal condition. "Thou art set in the throne that judgest right." "The Lord shall endure for ever; He hath also prepared His seat for judgment." "The Lord also will be a defence for the oppressed," &c. And so with the transitoriness of the lives and generations of men. Nowhere is a keener sense shown of it than in the Psalms. "For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain." "As soon as Thou scatterest them they are even as a sleep, and fade away suddenly like the grass." "For, when Thou art angry, all our days are gone; we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told." What is there to comfort and compensate for this dreary prospect? Nothing but unlimited trust in God's power and goodness and ever-watchful care. "My days have gone like a shadow, and I am withered like grass." There is the consciousness which must come to all men sooner or later — a consciousness in the Psalmist's case that these great changes in his lot were not undeserved by a sinner. "And that because of Thy indignation and wrath; for Thou hast taken me up, and cast me down." The great revelation of forgiveness and immortality was yet to come, but the Psalmist's faith in the Eternal King of the world never wavered. "The days of man are bat as grass, for lie flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon," etc. "But the merciful goodness," &c. "When the breath of man goeth forth," &c. The waste, the throwing away of human souls, of human affection — is there anything more strangely perplexing in the ruin of death? But the answer is at hand: "Blessed is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help," &c. Men died and were buried, and their children after them; they knew that they must die and be as though they had never been. They walked like shadows in the midst of shadows. They felt to the full the shortness of life, how soon it was over, how awful its inevitable changes; yet they did not faint. They knew that over them was the ever-continuous rule of Him who made heaven and earth and all things. They doubted not that He "keepeth His promise for ever"; and so, with change and mortality in them and around them, written on the solid earth and on the distant heaven, they broke into the exulting song (Psalm 102:25-28): "Here we have no continuing city"; but we know, with a distinctness which all men have not, of the city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. But where is that passionate, delighted, triumphant faith of those men of old? What have we got of their joy and gladness at the very thought of God?

(Dean Church.)

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KJV: For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

WEB: For we don't have here an enduring city, but we seek that which is to come.