"The _inheritance of the saints_." So then, heaven, with all its glories, is an _inheritance_. Now, an inheritance is not a thing which is bought with money, earned by labor, or won by conquest. If any man hath an inheritance, in the proper sense of that term, it came to him by birth. And thus it is with heaven. The man who shall receive this glorious heritage, will not obtain it by the works of the law, nor by the efforts of the flesh; it will be given to him as a matter of most gracious right, because he has been "begotten again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;" and has thus become an heir of heaven by blood and birth. They who come unto glory are sons; for is it not written, "The Captain of our salvation bringeth many sons unto glory?" They come not there as servants; no servant has any right to the inheritance of his master. Be he never so faithful, yet is he not his master's heir. But because ye are sons--sons by the Spirit's regeneration--sons by the Father's adoption--because by supernatural energy ye have been born again, ye become inheritors of eternal life, and ye enter into the many mansions of our Father's house above. Let us always understand, then, when we think of heaven, that it is a place which is to be ours, and a state which we are to enjoy as the result of _birth_--not as the result of work. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." That kingdom being an "inheritance," until ye have the new birth ye can have no claim to enter it. _The Sleep of Death._