Hebrews 11 - The Biblical Illustrator

The worlds were framed by the word of God

Spirit in matter:

The whole order of the natural world and man’s physical being may be said to be the expression of chemical combination, and of the various forces resulting therefrom.

The whole is presented to us, after scientific examination, as a most elaborate and exquisite piece of mechanism. Some would also explain man’s mental and moral life as only a higher development of this same mechanism. To prevent misunderstanding, I may state that, while I am willing to admit that these higher parts of man’s life are affected by, and partly dependent upon, this mechanism of things, it seems to me certain that the phenomena of human life require us to believe that there is, over and above that which is mechanical, a “free spirit.” What I seek at present is a common ground with scientists, from which to start in an inquiry; and that I find in admitting the mechanism of all physical being. This mechanical and orderly system of being is generally known as the material world. All parts of the universe are in an intimate relation with each other. This relation is commonly conceived of as government by laws. There are, for example, what are termed the laws of gravitation and magnetic attraction, and the laws of combining proportion. Now, it is necessary to keep before us the strictly scientific idea of the laws of nature; that they are in fact nothing more than the observed mode of action of the forces in nature. They have no real existence of themselves, apart, that is, from the things in which they are observed. For example, there is, so far as science teaches, no material bond between the stone and the earth which are attracted to each other; no link like a string reaching from the one to the other. The stone is not drawn by an elastic-like band which connects it with the earth; but something in the inner nature of the matter causes them to approach. The same is true of magnetic attraction, and also of chemical affinity. So far we have kept strictly to the results of science. It is now that we proceed a step further by inference from what science has taught explicitly to something which its teaching implies. We find that the stone and the earth, the magnet and the iron, and also chemical atoms, enter into those relations which result from attraction or affinity only by reason of what is in them. What, then, is in them by which they can do these things? The earth attracts the stone which has been thrown a distance from it, and the stone, instead of continuing to ascend, comes back of itself towards the earth. This attraction is because the stone is affected by the earth, by a body of matter which is in a certain direction. The effect of the earth’s presence is sufficient to direct the stone to itself; i.e., the earth so affects the inner state of the stone that it is sensible of an attraction of a certain degree and in a particular direction. It knows it is attracted, and its movement is the result of that consciousness. And it knows in what direction it is attracted, and so takes the right path. The phenomena of gravitation and magnetism evidence therefore a degree of conscious life in matter. But the most comprehensive and fundamental kind of attraction is chemical affinity, since all material organisation is built up from it. And it is also the most wonderful, and even skilful, in operation. The atoms which combine by affinity to form water must have a sense of affinity sufficient to cause them to unite; they must be aware of the effect upon them of the other’s presence, or they would remain unmoved. And so with all chemical combinations, both of atoms and molecules; they must have a degree of consciousness to enter into union, to remain in union, and also to allow them to be disunited chemically. The action and reaction of all parts of the physical universe, because it is from the inner states of matter, necessitates the existence of a certain measure and kind of consciousness and intelligence in all matter. We have thus crossed the boundary into a spiritual sphere; but we must advance yet further. That these inner states of atoms, which we find to be conscious states, are not separate and independent of each other, science shows most clearly. All atoms of any given element act exactly alike and are affected exactly alike. There is then one conscious mind in each kind of element. But to go another step” we observe in the chemical combinations of various elements that they have all an inner relation to each other, according to which each element is affected, and affected in one particular way, by its combinations with others. There is, in other words, a necessity in the relations of all chemical elements to each other--a necessity which is the ruling of their inner states. All these inner states and their movements and combinations are in some sort Of unity. And as it is the unity of conscious being in manifoldness, there is a large consciousness which is inclusive of all. But we must examine these atoms a little closer. What they are we have seen to some extent. Can we find out more about them? Can we discover their origin? We are informed that atoms--all atoms--are vortices of ether. Ether is something which pervades all space and permeates all things. It is, and yet is itself non-phenomenal--it has none of the properties of matter. It is therefore the invisible substans, or that which stands under all atomic being as its cause and foundation. It is a living entity, with consciousness and will, and the power to create out of itself an order of life different from itself. Here we come to the fact of spiritual Being as the basis and origin of the vast mechanism of nature; for mechanism never makes mind, but always proceeds from mind. And yet we do not say that ether is God, or that God is ether; but we say that it is essential to those functions which ether is credited with, that it shall be pervaded by that living and moving consciousness which demands the idea of God. We see, then, how science permits us, and indeed requires us, to believe that “things which are seen were not made of things which do appear”; and that the position to which faith leads us is borne out by the facts of science--that “the worlds were framed by the word of God.” “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is still, and ever will be, true for us; as also that “ He upholdeth all things by the word of His power.” His works rivet our gaze and excite our wonder; yet not they, but He is the object of our worship and our chief good. Before Him, higher than all creation, yet present in all, so that He is not far from any one of us--before Him we bow in deep adoration. (R. Vaughan, M. A.)

The mystery of creation revealed to faith

The word rendered “worlds” means “life,” then that through which life extends--“an age,” a cycle of ages, and next the stage on which life appears--“the world.” Of course the author of this Epistle was not thinking of the worlds which modern astronomy has discovered in the heavenly bodies, but of this world in its successive ages, and possibly of unseen worlds inhabited by spiritual intelligences. To “frame” means to found or create, as a city may be said to be created by its founder. “Things which do appear,” is the translation of a word which is naturalised in our own language as “phenomena.” We might, then, read the text thus: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were created by the word of God, so that that which is seen--the visible universe--did not originate from existing phenomena.” The present order of things--the configuration of rocks and hills, of rivers, seas, and plains--has been brought about by the altered disposition of previous land andwater; the vegetation which clothes the earth, and the living creatures which roam upon it or swarm in its waters, are all descended from former generations of vegetable and animal life--the whole of that which is now seen has sprung immediately from similar phenomena; but it has not always been so. The living “world we see around us was originally founded by the Word of God. This is one way of reading the text. Another is, to understand it as denying the eternity of matter, and affirming the creation of the world out of nothing. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” when there was nothing to make them with. “He spake and it was done, He commanded and it stood fast.” But whether we understand the phrase, “things which do appear,” to stand for natural phenomena or for the material elements, the conclusion is the same, that the visible order of creation came into existence by the simple fiat of the Almighty. Our knowledge of such a fact may be a spiritual intuition or it may rest solely on the testimony of revelation. Either way, it is knowledge of a thing not seen and only perceived by faith. The origin of all we behold around and above us must ever be an undiscoverable secret to the researches of the astronomer, the geologist, and the chemist. For though science may some day learn to read the changeful history of our globe with tolerable accuracy, it can never extract from it the story of its birth. All it can do is to take things to pieces. But simply taking a watch to pieces will tell us nothing of the nature and origin of the metals and gems of which it is made; neither will anatomy discover the nature of life, nor chemical analysis explain the origin of the ultimate forms of matter. They are as inscrutable by such analysis as metals and gems are by the tools of the mechanic. Creation out of nothing is at once inexplicable and incomprehensible. No strictly creative act comes under our observation in any of the phenomena of nature. Philosophy, unaided by the higher teaching of faith, has always taken for granted the eternity of matter. It has uniformly declared that things which are seen were made of things which do appear. The first philosopher with whose speculations we are acquainted maintained that water was the origin of all things. The substitution of gases for water is the necessary result of modern chemistry; it does not make the speculation one whit the wiser, nor, again, the resolution of these gases into primordial atoms. The later speculation which ascribed the origin of all things to fire or heat is just as plausible and just as false. The authors of these theories, ancient or modern, were all on the wrong track. They were seeking in the paths of observation and inductive reasoning the answer to a question which is beyond their range. The only certain answer is that which faith may have guessed, and which revelation endorses. The most illiterate peasant who hears and ponders the declaration of God’s Word, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” is as wise in this matter as the most learned scientist the world contains. Observe, how strictly practical revelation is. That which no science could discover, which only minds finely organised and deeply imbued with spiritual feeling could guess, but which still was necessary for men to know, that they might give to God the glory due to His name, it reveals; but what human intelligence and perseverance would be sure in time to discover, it leaves untouched. The Scripture account of creation is a retrospective prophecy, turning its gaze towards an unknown past instead of towards an unknown future. I regard the Mosaic narrative as a sublime poem on God’s creative work, as accurate in the letter of it as was consistent with its being intelligible to minds unacquainted with scientific discovery, and truer to the real moral significance of creation than any account which science has yet been able to render. But I am concerned to give this subject a more practical bearing. To doubt the opening words of Scripture, “In the beginning,” &c., is not your temptation; but it is your temptation, for it is every man’s, to feel and act as though the things that are seen were made of things which do appear. In one sense, indeed, they are, but in another and more important sense, they are not. In one sense, all you see has come from things like them whence you can trace their origin; and, whatever the forms of animate or inanimate objects around you, they all consist of materials which were in existence before them. Properly speaking, no new materials have been called into existence since God first weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. The original atoms of our globe still exist. They are neither more nor fewer than in the first moment of creation. Ever entering into fresh combinations, they are either held in solution in the air and form the rainbow arch, or having fallen and mingled with the soil they appear in the lowly herb and spreading tree; thence they are assimilated to nourish or protect animal life, and are cast off again to pursue the same round of endless change. But the power which gives them substance and form, the force which imparts to light, heat, and electricity their characteristic energies, the plastic power which possesses plants and animals, so that they appropriate surrounding materials and mould them after their own form and structure--in short, the vital energy which fills all nature, is a thing unseen, by which all we behold is made and sustained in existence. By the Word of God the worlds were made, and by that Word they stand fast. Things seen are not made of things that appear, in anything more than the order of their appearance. They spring from the unseen creative energy of God, operating through those familiar methods which His wisdom has adopted. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.)

The work of creation:

I. WHAT SCRIPTURE IS TO BE ACTUALLY CONSIDERED AS TEACHING US RESPECTING THIS SUBJECT.

1. Let us set out by remarking that the object of this inspired account of the world’s framing or formation is not scientific, but religious. The Bible is meant for the instruction of those of every age, country, and class; it is not meant to teach only a few superior minds, but to afford spiritual food for the whole human race. It is meant to be a book of duty, not a system of natural philosophy.

2. It is also to be borne in mind that the sacred narrative of the creation is chiefly and prominently to be regarded as of a moral, spiritual, and prophetical kind. Man’s original relation to his Maker, as a responsible being, is directly taught; his restoration from moral chaos to spiritual beauty is figuratively represented; while, as a prophecy, it has an extent of meaning which will only be fully unfolded at a period yet future; perhaps that spoken of as “ the times of the restitution of all things.”

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH GOD’S WORK IN CREATION DISPLAYS AND CALLS UPON US TO CONSIDER HIS PERFECTIONS.

1. Creation exhibits to us God as supreme in power. When we reflect how much labour and difficulty generally accompany the forth-putting of human power, the idea of creative power becomes peculiarly impressive. Surely reverence and adoration should be prompted, together with humility and trust.

2. The work of creation also exhibits to us God as supreme in wisdom. Everywhere we trace the working of One who is “perfect in knowledge.” In even the smaller parts of the Creator’s workmanship we trace the operation of a wisdom, alike in larger and in smaller objects; in the star, and in the insect; in the elephant, and in the fly; in the mightiest of forest trees, and in the smallest tuft, or even blade of grass. There is nothing lost sight of; nothing has been imperfectly done; each thing answers a defined end. This wisdom of God shown in creation is assuredly not meant to be devoid of influence upon His rational, responsible creatures; it should teach submission on the part of man, and beget pious trust in his heart.

3. The work of creation likewise exhibits to us God as supreme in goodness. Most justly is the earth said to be “full of the goodness of the Lord”; inasmuch as throughout the system of things we behold what must, at the least, be pronounced, on the whole, to be fitted to promote the good of both rational and animated beings. There are what may seem to be defects; but the latter arise out of the infirmity, sinfulness, and dereliction of the creature. (A. R. Bonar.)

Faith revealing God as Creator

I. CONSIDER THE STATEMENT THAT IT IS ONLY THROUGH FAITH WE KNOW THAT THE WORLD WAS CREATED BY GOD.

1. Reason could not discover the Creator.

2. Scripture reveals the Creator.

3. Faith knows God as Creator by her simple dependence on

Scripture declaration.

II. CONSIDER THE PRACTICAL USES OF THIS TRUTH.

1. It teaches the nature of faith.

2. It teaches the character of God.

3. It teaches the consolation of the saints.

4. It teaches the condemnation of the impenitent. (C. New.)

Faith apprehending the mystery of creation

The province of faith is the unseen. The past and the future lie all out of sight, and are therefore its undisputed domain. The present is a mixed and compound thing--shared between faith and sight. The apostle takes his first example of faith from the past. Everything that we ourselves have not seen, though it be the most strongly attested of all facts is apprehended by us through faith alone. That which the senses cannot tell us can only be accepted on testimony. The facts of history come to us in books. In many cases there is a conflict of testimony, occasioning either a perpetual difference of opinion or an occasional reversal of opinion with regard to the events or the characters of a past nearer or more remote. Christian faith also rests upon testimony.
In this it is like all belief in things not seen. The difference lies in the source of the testimony. History is written and received on what professes to be human testimony. Christian faith believes itself to have the word of God Himself for its evidence and its authority. To ascertain this Divine testimony is an anxious and responsible task. First of all these disclosures for which faith is demanded, is that one of which the text speaks--the creation of the universe by the fiat of Almighty God. We have here--none can dispute it--a subject lying altogether in the province of faith. Either faith, or nothing, can apprehend this fact. Not only is it a thing out of sight, as all the past is; not only is it a thing belonging to the most remote past, inasmuch as it involves that fact which is the condition of all facts: more than this--it is that one fact of which by the nature of the case there can be no human testimony; the origination of the creature itself is the very subject of the revelation, and if it be true--in other words, if it have any witness--that truth must be one of God’s “mysteries,” that witness must be God alone. We will look for a moment into the particulars of the statement. “By faith.” It is by an exercise of that principle which has been called above the assurance of things unseen. “By faith we understand,” we apprehend, or grasp with the mind, that fact which follows. Here mind is set in motion by faith. And that as to a fact--a fact of the pre-Adamite past--a fact which may lie long millenniums before human existence--but a fact, of which the results and consequences still are and are mighty. What is this fact? “That the worlds have been framed,” settled, or fitted in order and coherence, “by a word of God.” The word here used for “the worlds” is very peculiar. It is that word which, properly meaning “ages” or “periods,” is applied to the material universe as an existence not in space only but in time--having a vast succession of ages and periods inside eternity, as well as a vast expansion of parts and substances inside immensity. The same word occurs in the first chapter--“By whom also He made the worlds.” Now the point of the statement lies in this--not that faith apprehends the existence of matter, or the order, the beauty, the variety, the adaptation of matter, or even the fact, taken by itself, of the non-eternity of matter: these things are not in the special province of faith; some of them are matters of sight, others are matters of theory; the action of faith is this--she grasps the revealed fact, that the material universe, seen to exist, surveyed by the senses in its manifoldness and its harmony, was originally framed “by a word of God.” Once more, the end and result of this “framing by a word.” “So that things which are seen”--or, according to the true reading, “the thing which is seen”--speaking of the whole sum of created being, the vast mass and aggregate of the material universe--“the thing which is seen hath not come into being out of things which appear.” The original of the universe was itself created. God Himself is the alone eternal, as He is the alone self-existent. The subject before us is deeply important, specially seasonable, and directly practical.

1. First of all, it is essential to the right posture of the creature towards the Creator.

2. Not only the posture of the soul, but the whole management of the life, depends upon this primary principle. A thousand motives of self-interest and of gratitude conspire to teach the duty of obedience. We disparage none of these--we want them all. But there is one groundwork of duty which lies at the root of all--and that is, the living vital apprehension of the relationship which cannot be modified of the creature to the Creator.

3. Finally, it is this faith in creation which furnishes the strongest presumption of the truth of redemption itself. He who thought it worth while, having a clear foresight of everything, to call into existence, out of nothing, a world that should be the theatre, and a creature that should be the agent, of sin, may be believed when He says (though we durst not have said it for Him) that He counts us worth redeeming--that He intends to restore to holiness and happiness lives and souls made originally in His image--nay, by a process most wonderful to beings nearest His throne, to introduce “a dispensation of the fulness of times,” in which to gather together all the scattered elements in Jesus Christ, and “in the ages to come to show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us” in the Son of His love. It is thus that faith in an unseen past allies itself with faith in an invisible future, and breathes forth in one petition the whole of its confidence and the whole of its hope--“I am Thine: oh save me!” (Dean Vaughan.)

Understanding God’s works:

This chapter teaches much by what it omits as well as by what it includes. There is no mention of Adam, or of Lot, or of faith during the forty years in the wilderness (see the gap between Hebrews 11:29-30). There are several most suggestive associations. Faith is associated with hope (Hebrews 11:1), with righteousness (Hebrews 11:4), with holiness (Hebrews 11:5), with diligence (Hebrews 11:7), with trial (Hebrews 11:17), and with conflict (Hebrews 11:32-37). The element of assured confidence runs right through the chapter. Abel “obtained witness”; Enoch received a “testimony”; Abraham “looked for a city,” and many of the patriarchs were “persuaded” (Greek, πειθω--the same word in Romans 8:38) that there was reality in God’s promises, and that they would be fulfilled. “The evidence” (R. V., “the proving”) “of things not seen.” Those who believe in God’s Word are not in doubt as to the existence of the things He has promised. His Word is proof positive of their reality, and if we believe that Word they become realities to us. We are just as sure of their existence as we should be if we could see them.

I. FAITH WELL GROUNDED. The Hebrews knew of but one ground of faith. It was their habit to ask, “What saith the Scriptures?” (John 7:42). The writer of this Epistle would know this, and when he spoke of faith he meant faith in the declarations of the Old Testament. This chapter from beginning to end takes us back to this Divine standard, and, without discussing the question, assumes, what every Jew would readily grant, that its statements are absolutely true. The faith of this chapter is therefore belief in the testimony of God.

II. FAITH ENLIGHTENING THE MIND. “Through faith we understand” (Greek, νόεω). Atheism is folly (Psalms 14:1). To be without faith in God’s Word is to be “void of understanding” respecting His works. The history of human philosophy consists largely of a series of records of the vain efforts of men to account for the universe apart from the true cause of its origin. The variety of opinions expressed by sceptics upon the subject of the origin of the world casts discredit upon the whole of these opinions, just as half a dozen discordant testimonies in defence of a prisoner would cast discredit upon the whole case for the defence. By the light of philosophy we guess, we speculate; but “by faith we understand.” Well, might the Psalmist say, “The entrance” (or opening)” “of Thy Word giveth Psalms 119:130). Faith sees a beginning of the universe (John 1:1). It sees “in the beginning God” (Genesis 1:1). It sees God as a Creator (“God created” Genesis 1:1). It sees Him as the author of order (“the worlds were framed”; Greek, καταρτίζω, to make thoroughly right or fit). It sees His continuous working (“the world”; Greek, αἰὼν--age. The birth of worlds was the birth of time, and therefore the history of worlds is fitly called that of the ages).

III. FAITH CONSONANT WITH REASON. The understanding approves what faith makes clear, just as the eye takes in the minute objects revealed by the microscope. It could not have seen those objects without the aid of the microscope, but, having seen them, it can admire them, and the mind, instructed by the eye, can realise and rejoice in the beauty and fitness of what is so revealed. There is much in what faith reveals that reason demands and requires. Reason tells us, for instance, that there can be no effect without a cause, and that no cause can give to an effect what it has not in itself. If we see personality in an effect, reason says there must have been personality in the cause. We see personality in man, and therefore we infer that the author of his being must have been a person. Faith satisfies this demand of reason by the revelation of a personal God. Reason connects order with the operations of mind. Type set up for the printing of a book must, it cannot but infer, have been set up by a person possessed of an amount of intelligence equal to the task. A thousand infidels could not convince a rational being that the setting up of the type was the result of chance, or that it could have been brought about in any way without the direction of a mind. Reason sees in nature the most absolute order, and it infers that if a mind is required to produce order in the setting up of the type, it is much more required in this vaster display of order which is apparent everywhere in the material universe. Faith endorses the wisdom of this inference as it gazes at nature in the light of revelation, and says with Milton:

“These are Thy glorious works,

Parent of good, Almighty!

Thine this universal frame.”

Faith speaks of God ordering things “according to the good pleasure of His Ephesians 1:5), and reason hears and is satisfied.

IV. FAITH ABOVE REASON. Reason has no opportunity of observing the process by which something is made out of nothing, and so it has made the rule, “Ex nihilo, nihilfit”--out of nothing nothing comes, Now in opposition to this axiom faith recognises God as a Creator. Faith sees more than reason does, as a man looking at the stars through a good telescope sees more than another who looks with his unaided sight. One sees farther than the other, but the view spread out before the one is not necessarily in conflict with that seen by the other.

V. FAITH REGARDING THE UNSEEN. He who believes in God as the framer of the universe believes in what he has not seen. He was not present at the time of the creation. (Note the question in Job 38:4.) He has not seen, and yet he believes. This is, however, what men are doing every day. A man takes a ticket on a steamer bound for New Zealand. He has never seen New Zealand, but he so thoroughly believes in its existence that he spends his money and enters upon a long voyage that he may get there. Sight doesn’t always secure certainty, and there may be the most absolute certainty without it. (H. Thorne.)

Faith’s attitude towards the creation:

I. IT IS A NECESSARY EXERCISE FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD TO TURN THEIR MINDS TO THE CREATION.

1. It discovereth much of God.

(1) His essence.

(2) His attributes, goodness, power, wisdom.

2. It is a wonderful advantage to faith to give us hope and consolation in the greatest distresses.

3. It puts us in mind of our duty.

(1) Reverence.

(2) Humility.

(3) Kindness.

II. WE UNDERSTAND THE TRUTH AND WONDERS OF THE CREATION BY FAITH, AND NOT BY REASON.

1. There are three sorts of lights which God hath bestowed upon men: the light of nature, the light of grace, and the light of glory. There is the daylight of glory, which is the sun when it arises in its strength and brightness; and there is the light of faith, which is like the moon, a light which shines in a dark place; then there is the weak and feeble ray of reason, which is like the light of the lesser stars. By the first light, we see God as He is in Himself; by the second, God as He hath discovered Himself in the Word: by the third, God as He is seen in the creature.

2. In this world reason had been enough, if man had continued in his innocency. His mind then was his only bible, and his heart his only law; but he tasted of the tree of knowledge and hereby he and we got nothing but ignorance. It is true, there are some relics of reason left for human uses, and to leave us without excuse (John 1:9). But now in matters of religion, we had need of external and foreign helps. Man left to himself would only grope after God.

3. The only remedy and cure for this is faith, and external revelation from God. The blindness of reason is cured by the Word; the pride of reason is cured by the grace of faith. Revelation supplies the defect of it; and faith takes down the pride of it, and captivates the thoughts into the obedience of the truths represented in the Word; so that reason now cannot be a judge; at best it is but a handmaid to faith.

4. The doctrine of the creation is a ,nixed principle; much of it is liable to reason, but most of it can only be discovered by faith. If by faith only we can understand the truth and wonders of the creation, then

(1) It informs us, that reason is not the judge of controversies in religion, and the doubts that do arise about the matters of God are not to be determined by the dictates of nature. If then we leave the written Word and follow the guidance of our own reason, we shall but puzzle ourselves with impertinent scruples, and leave ourselves under a dissatisfaction.

(2) It informs us that the heathens had never light enough for salvation. Certainly they are blind in the work of redemption, since they are so blind in the work of creation.

(3) It shows us the great advantage that we have by faith, and by the written Word.

(4) It informs us that religion is not illiterate. Grace doth not make men simple, but rather perfects human learning. None discern truths with more comfort and satisfaction than a believer; it solves all doubts and riddles of reason.

(5) We learn hence the properties of faith to have knowledge, assent, and obedience in it; therefore it is not a blind reliance, but a clear, distinct persuasion of such truths, concerning which human discourse can give us no satisfaction.

(6) It is the nature of faith to subscribe to a revelation in the Word, though reason give little assistance and aid. It serves to stir you up to act faith. What is the use of faith upon the creation? To answer all the objections of reason, and settle the truth in the soul, and to improve it for spiritual uses and advantages, and to facilitate the belief of other truths upon this ground; did He make the world out of nothing? Many truths are less wonderful than this. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Of the work of creation

I. WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY CREATION, or what it is to create.

1. It is not to be taken here in a large sense, as sometimes it is used in Scripture, for any production of things wherein second causes have their instrumentality, as Psalms 104:30.

2. We are to take it strictly for the production of things out of nothing, or the giving a being to things which had none before.

(1) There is an immediate creation, as when things are brought forth out of pure nothing, where there was no pre-existent matter to work upon.

(2) There is a secondary and mediate creation, which is the making things of pre-existing matter, but of such as is naturally unfit and altogether indisposed for such productions, and which could never by any power of second causes be brought into such a form. Thus all beasts, cattle, and creeping things, and the body of man, were at first made of the earth and the dust of the ground; and the body of the first woman was made of a rib taken out of the man.

II. THAT THE WORLD WAS MADE, THAT IT HAD A BEGINNING AND WAS NOT ETERNAL. This the Scripture plainly testifies (Genesis 1:1). And this reason itself teacheth: for whatsoever is eternal, the being of it is necessary, and it is subject to no alterations. But we see this is not the case with the world; for it is daily undergoing alterations.

III. WHO MADE THE WORD AND GAVE IT A BEGINNING? That was God, and He only.

1. The world could not make itself; for this would imply a contradiction, namely, that the world was before it was: for the cause must always be before its effect.

2. The production of the world could not be by chance.

3. God created all things, the world, and all the creatures that belong to it. He attributes this work to Himself, as one of the peculiar glories of His Deity, exclusive of all the creatures (Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 45:12; Isaiah 40:12-13).

None could make the word but God, because creation is a work of infinite power, and could not be produced by any finite cause: for the distance between being and not being is truly infinite, which could not be removed by any finite agent, or the activity of all finite agents united.

IV. WHAT GOD MADE. All things whatsoever, besides God, were created Revelation 4:11). The evil of sin is no positive being, it being but a defect or want, and therefore is not reckoned among the things which God made, but owed its existence to the will of fallen angels and men. Devils being angels, are God’s creatures; but God did not make them evil, or devils, but they made themselves so.

V. OF WHAT ALL THINGS WERE MADE. Of nothing; which does not denote any matter of which they were formed, but the term from which God brought them; when they had no being He gave them one (Col Romans 11:36).

VI. How ALL THINGS WERE MADE OF NOTHING. By the word of God’s power. It was the infinite power of God that gave them a being; which power was exerted in His Word, not a word properly spoken, but an act of His will commanding them to be (Genesis 1:3; Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9).

VII. IN WHAT SPACE OF TIME THE WORLD WAS CREATED.

VIII. FOR WHAT END GOD MADE ALL THINGS. It was for His own glory Proverbs 16:4; Romans 11:36). And there are these three attributes of God that especially shine forth in this work of creation, namely, His wisdom, power, and goodness.

IX. IN WHAT STATE WERE ALL THINGS MADE? I answer, They were all “very good” (Genesis 1:31). The goodness of the creature consists in its fitness for the use for which it was made. In this respect everything answered exactly the end of its creation. Again, the goodness of things is their perfection; and so everything was made agreeable to the idea thereof that was formed in the Divine mind. There was not the least defect in the work; but everything was beautiful, as it was the effect of infinite wisdom as well as almighty power. Inferences:

1. God is a most glorious being, infinitely lovely and desirable, possessed of every perfection and excellency. Whatever excellency and beauty is in the creatures is all from Him, and sure it must be most excellent in the fountain.

2. God’s glory should be our chief end. And seeing whatever we have is from Him, it should be used and employed for Him: For “all things were created by Him and for Him” (Colossians 1:16).

3. God is our Sovereign Lord Proprietor, and may do in us, on us, anal by us, what He will (Romans 9:20-21).

4. We should use all the creatures we make use of with an eye to God, and due thankfulness to Him, the Giver; employing them in our service, soberly and wisely, considering they stand related to God as their Creator, and are the workmanship of His own hands.

5. There is no case so desperate, but faith may get sure footing with respect to it in the power and Word of God. Let the people of God be ever so low, they can never be lower than when they were not at all (Isaiah 65:18).

6. Give away yourselves to God through Jesus Christ, making a cheerful and entire dedication of your souls and bodies, and all that ye are and have, to Him as your God and Father, resolving to serve Him all the days of your life: that as He made you for His glory, you may in some measure answer the end of your creation, which is to show forth His praise. (T. Boston, D. D.)

The fact of creation an object of faith

Our object is to inquire what is implied in our really believing the fact of the creation. There is the widest difference between your believing certain truths as the results of reasoning or discovery, and your believing them on the mere assertion of a credible witness, whom you see and hear, especially if the witness be the very individual to whom the truths relate. The truths themselves may be identically the same. But how essentially different is the state of the mind, and how different the impression made on it!

I. WE MAY ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFERENCE BY A SIMPLE AND FAMILIAR EXAMPLE. Paley makes admirable use of an imaginary case respecting a watch. He supposes you to be previously unacquainted with such a work of art. You hold it in your hand; you begin to examine its structure, to raise questions in your own mind, and to form conjectures. How did it come there, and how were its parts so curiously put together? You at once conclude that it did not grow there, and that it could not be fashioned by chance. You feel assured that the watch had a maker. You gather much of his character from the obvious character of his handiwork. You search in that handiwork for traces of his mind, his heart. You speculate concerning his plans and purposes. But now, suppose that while you are thus engaged, with the watch in your hand, a living person suddenly appears before you, and announces himself, and says, It was I who made this watch--it was I who put it there. Is not your position instantly changed? Your position, in fact, is now precisely reversed. Instead of questioning the watch concerning its maker, you now question the maker concerning his watch. You hear not what the mechanism has to say of the mechanic, but what the mechanic has to say of the mechanism. You receive, perhaps, the same truths as before, but with a freshness and a force unknown before. They come to you, not circuitously and at second hand, they come straight from the very being most deeply concerned in them.

II. NOW, LET US APPLY THESE REMARKS TO THE MATTER IN HAND. YOU are all of you familiar with this idea, that, in contemplating the works of creation, you should ascend from nature to nature’s God. It is most pleasing and useful to cultivate such a habit as this. Much of natural religion depends upon it, and holy Scripture fully recognises its propriety. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament showeth his handicraft.” “All Thy works praise Thee, Lord God Almighty.” “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold, Who hath created these things.” “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.” It is apparent, however, even in these and similar passages, that created things are mentioned, not as arguments, but rather as illustrations; not as suggesting the idea of God, the Creator, but as unfolding and expanding the idea, otherwise obtained. And this is still more manifest in that passage of the Epistle to the Romans which particularly appeals to the fact of creation, as evidence of the Creator’s glory evidence sufficient to condemn the ungodly (Romans 1:20-21). So that the Scriptural method on this subject is exactly the reverse of what is called the natural. It is not to ascend from nature up to nature’s God, but to descend from God to God’s nature; not to hear the creation speaking of the Creator, but to hear the Creator speaking of the creation. We have not in the Bible an examination and enumeration of the wonders to be observed among the works of nature, and an argument founded upon these that there must be a God, and that He must be of a certain character and must have had certain views in making what He has made. God Himself appears and tells us authoritatively what He has done, and why He did it. Thus “ through faith we understand that the worlds were made by the Word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” We understand and believe this, not as a deduction of reasoning, but as a matter of fact, declared and revealed to us. For this is that act of the mind which, in a religious sense, is called faith.

III. But it may be said, ARE WE, THEN, NOT TO USE OUR REASON ON THIS SUBJECT AT ALL? That cannot be, for the apostle himself enjoins you, however in respect of meekness you are to be like children, still in understanding to be men. Certainly you do well to search out all those features in creation which reflect the glory of the Creator. Nay, you may begin in this way to know God. It is true, indeed, that God has never in fact left Himself to be thus discovered. He has always, as He did at first, revealed Himself, not circuitously by His works, but summarily and directly by His Word. We may suppose, however, that you are suffered to grope your way through creation to the Creator. In that case you proceed to reason out from the manifold proofs of design in nature’s works the idea of an intelligent Author, and to draw inferences from what you see respecting His character, purposes, and plans. Still, even in this method of discovering God, if your faith is to be of an influential kind at all, you must proceed, when you have made the discovery, just to reverse the process by which you made it; and having arrived at the conception of a Creator, you must now go back again to the creation, taking Him along with you, as one with whom you have personally become acquainted, and hearing what He has to say concerning His own works. He may say no more than what you had previously discovered. Still, what He does say, you now receive not as discovered by you, but as said by Him. You leave the post of discovery, the chair of reasoning, and take the lowly stool of the disciple; and then, and not before, even on the principles of natural religion, do you fully understand what is the real import, and the momentous bearing of the fact, that a Being, infinitely wise and powerful, and having evidently a certain character as just and good, that such a Being made you, and is Himself telling you that He made you, and all the things that are around you; “that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”

IV. THUS, IN A RELIGIOUS VIEW, AND FOR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES, THE TRUTH CONCERNING GOD AS THE CREATOR MUST BE RECEIVED, NOT AS A

DISCOVERY OF YOUR OWN REASON, FOLLOWING A TRAIN OF THOUGHT, BUT AS A DIRECT COMMUNICATION FROM A REAL PERSON, EVEN FROM THE LIVING AND PRESENT GOD. This is not a merely artificial distinction. It is practically most important. Consider the subject of creation in the light simply of an argument of natural philosophy, and all is vague and dim abstraction. But consider the momentous fact in the light of a direct message from the Creator Himself to you. Are you not differently impressed and affected?

1. More particularly--see, first of all, what weight this single idea, once truly and vividly realised, must add to all the other communications which He makes on other subjects to you. Does He speak to you concerning other matters, intimately touching your present and future weal? Does He tell you of your condition in respect of Him, and of His purposes in respect of you? Does He enforce the majesty of His law? Does He press the overtures of His gospel? Oh! how in every such case is His appeal, in its solemnity, and its power, enhanced with tenfold intensity, if you regard Him as, in the very same breath, expressly telling you, I who now speak to you, so earnestly and so affectionately, I created all things--I created you.

2. Again, on the other hand, observe what weight this idea, if fully realised, must have, if you regard the Lord Himself as saying to you, in special reference to each of the things which He has made: I created it, and I am now testifying to you that I created it. What sacredness will this thought stamp on every object in nature, if only you are personally acquainted with the living God; and especially if you know Him as the Lawgiver, the Saviour, the Judge. (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

That the world was framed in an accurate, orderly, and perfect manner

I. To ILLUSTRATE THIS BY SOME SIMILITUDES OUT OF SCRIPTURE.

1. The perfection and order of the world is compared to the body of a man (1 Corinthians 12:12).

2. It is compared to an host or army (Genesis 2:1).

3. It is compared to a curious house (Job 38:4-6).

II. WHEREIN THIS ORDER AND BEAUTY OF THE WORLD DOTH CONSIST.

1. In the wonderful multitude and variety of creatures, distributed into so many several excellent natures and forms, they all do proclaim the beauty and order of the whole world.

2. The beauty and artificial composition of all things.

3. The disposition and apt placing of all things.

4. The wonderful consent of all the parts, and the proportion they bear one to another.

5. The mutual ministry and help of the creatures one to another.

6. The wise government and conservation of all things according to the rules and laws of creation.

III. IF GOD MADE THE WORLD IN SUCH HARMONY AND ORDER, WHENCE CAME ALL THOSE DISORDERS THAT ARE IN THE WORLD? We see some creatures are ravenous; other creatures are poisonous; all are frail, and still decaying and hasting to their own ruin. Whence come murrains, sicknesses, and diseases? Whence come such dislocations, and unjointings of nature by tempests and earthquakes? All these confusions and disorders of nature are the effects of sin. Our sins are as a secret fire that hath melted and burnt asunder the secret ties and confederations of nature.

1. It discovers the glory of God. The whole world is but God’s shop, where are the masterpieces of His wisdom and majesty; these are seen very much in the order of causes, and admirable contrivance of the world.

(1) The wisdom of God and His counsel is mightily seen. The world is not a work of chance, but of counsel and rare contrivance.

(2) The majesty and greatness of God.

2. It showeth us the excellency of order; how pleasing order and method is to God: God hath always delighted in it. All order is from God; but all discord and confusion is from the devil. Order is pleasing to Him in the state and civil administrations in the Church, and in the course of your private conversations.

3. It discovers the odiousness of sin that disjointed the frame of nature. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Faith realising the invisible Creator:

In that beautiful part of Germany which borders on the Rhine there is a noble castle which lifts its old grey towers above the ancient forest, where dwelt a nobleman who had a good and devoted son, his comfort and his pride. Once when the son was away from home, a Frenchman called, and, in course of conversation, spoke in such unbecoming terms of the great Father in heaven as to chill the old man’s blood. “Are you not afraid of offending God?” said the baron, “by speaking in this way.” The foreigner answered with cool indifference, that he knew nothing about God, for he had never seen Him. No notice was takes of this observation at the time; but the next morning the baron pointed out to the visitor a beautiful picture which hung on the wall, and said, “My son drew that!” “He must be a clever youth,” returned the Frenchman, blandly. Later in the day as the two gentlemen were walking in the garden, the baron showed his guests many rare plants and flowers, and, on being asked who had the management of the garden, the father said, with proud satisfaction, “My son; and he knows every plant almost, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall!” “Indeed!” observed the other. “I shall soon have a very exalted opinion of him.” The baron then took his visitor to the village and showed him a neat building which his son had fitted up for a school, where the children of the poor were daily instructed free of expense. “What a happy man you must be,” said the Frenchman, “to have such a son!” “How do you know I have a son? “asked the baron, with a grave face. “Why, because I have seen his works; I am sure he must be both clever and good, or he would not have done all you have shown me.” “But you have never seen him!” returned the baron. “No, but I already know him very well, because I can form a just estimate of him from his works.” “I am not surprised,” said the baron, in a quiet tone; “and now oblige me by coming to this window and tell me what you see from thence.” “Why, I see the sun travelling through the skies and shedding its glories over one of the greatest countries in the world; and I behold a mighty river at my feet, and a vast range of woods, and pastures, and orchards, and vineyards, and cattle and sheep feeding in rich fields.” “Do you see anything to be admired in all this?” asked the baron. “Can you fancy I am blind?” retorted the Frenchman, “Well, then, if you are able to judge of my son’s good character by seeing his various works, how does it happen you can form no estimate of God’s goodness by witnessing such proofs of His handiwork?”

By faith Abel offered

External worship rendered by two kinds of men

I. CARNAL MEN MAY JOIN WITH THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN EXTERNAL DUTIES OF WORSHIP.

1. Natural conscience will put men upon worship.

2. Custom will direct to the worship then in use and fashion.

3. Carnal impulses will add force and vigour to the performances.

(1) Vainglory.

(2) Secular aims and advantages. Use

1. It serves to inform us that the bare performance of the duties of religion is no gracious evidence. Cain may sacrifice as well as Abel. A Christian is rather tried by his graces than by his duties; and yet this is the usual fallacy that we put upon our own consciences. Use

2. If it be so, that carnal men may join with the people of God in duties of worship, here is direction: in all your duties put your hearts to this question, Wherein do I excel a hypocrite? So far a natural man may go. As Christ said (Matthew 5:47).

II. THAT THERE IS A SENSIBLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GODLY AND THE WICKED IN THEIR SEVERAL DUTIES AND PERFORMANCES.

1. Why is it so?

(1) They have another nature than wicked men. Water can rise no higher than its fountain; acts are according to their causes; nature can but produce a natural act. The children of God have the Spirit of grace bestowed upon Zechariah 12:10).

(2) They have other assistance. The children of God have a mighty Spirit to help them (Jude 1:20).

2. Wherein lies the difference between the worship of the godly and the worship of carnal men that live in the Church. I answer, In three things mainly--in the principle, in the manner, and in the end.

(1) In the principle. Natural men do nothing out of the constraints of love, but out of the enforcement of conscience; duty is not their delight, but burden.

(2) There is a difference in the manner how these duties are to be performed; this is to be regarded as well as the matter. A man may sin in doing good, but he can never sin in doing well. A man may sin though the matter be lawful, for the manner is all (Luke 8:18).

(3) There is a difference in regard of the end. Now there is a general and a particular end of worship.

(a) A general end, and that is twofold; to glorify God and to enjoy God; the one is the work of duty, and the other is the reward of duty. Now carnal men are content with the duty instead of God and satisfy themselves with the work wrought, though there be no intercourse between God and their souls. Therefore a godly man looks at this, what of God he hath found. You must not be content with the duty instead of God.

(b) There is a peculiar aim, and that is always suited to the particular part of worship, and that is a right intention.

III. THIS SENSIBLE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE DUTIES OF THE GODLY AND THE WICKED IS OCCASIONED BY THE INFLUENCE AND EFFICACY OF FAITH. Here I shall state

(1) What this faith of Abel was;

(2) I shall handle the general ease. What this faith of Abel was.

1. There was a faith of his being accepted with God when his service was suited to the institution. Such a promise was intimated to them, as appears by God’s expostulation with Cain (Genesis 4:7).

2. It was a faith in the general rewards and recompenses of religion. Abel looked to the good things to come, and so his hopes had an influence upon his practice: Cain’s heart was altogether chained to earthly things, therefore he looks upon that as lost which was spent in sacrifice.

3. It was a faith in the Messiah to come.

For the reasons of the point, Why faith makes this difference between worship and worship, that it makes the duties and worship of believers to be so different from that of carnal men?

1. I answer, because it discerneth by a clearer light and apprehension. Faith is the eye of the soul. A beast liveth by sense, a man by reason, and a Christian by faith.

2. Faith receives a mighty aid and supply from the Spirit of God. Faith plants the soul into Christ, and so receives influence from Him; it is the great band of union between us and Christ, and the hand whereby we receive all the supplies of Jesus Christ. Christ lives in us by His Spirit, and we live in Him by faith.

3. As it receives a mighty aid, so it works by a forcible principle, and that is by love; for “Faith works by love” (Galatians 5:6). We live by faith, and we work by love. Where faith is, there is love; and where love is, there is work. Affection follows persuasion, and operation follows affection.

4. It discourseth and pleads with the soul with strong reasons and enforcements. Faith is a notable orator to plead for God; it pleads partly from the mercies, and partly from the promises of God. (T. Manton, D. D.)

Abel’s offering

I. THE NATURE OF ABEL’S OFFERING.

II. THE PRINCIPLE BY WHICH HE WAS ACTUATED IN PRESENTING IT.

III. THE TOKEN OF THE ACCEPTANCE OF ABEL’S SACRIFICE. Learn:

1. The value of religious observances.

2. In order to be accepted, our observances must proceed from right views.

3. It is not on the footing of innocence we are accepted, but of expiation.

4. Your services are not less acceptable because there may be others who engage in the same acts of worship whose character is such as God cannot approve.

5. However holy your character may be, it is hereafter, not here, that you are to look for your reward. (R. Brodie, M. A.)

Abel; or, man’s religion

I. THE RELIGION OF MAN HAS TO DO WITH SACRIFICE.

II. THE RELIGION OF MAN IS VALUABLE ONLY AS IT IS BASED ON EVANGELICAL FAITH.

III. THE RELIGION OF MAN HAS EVER BEEN OF IMMENSE WORTH. Paul speaks of faith as doing three things.

1. Giving Divine acceptableness to existence.

2. Giving moral righteousness to existence.

3. Giving an honourable and lasting significance to existence. (Homilist.)

The voice of Abel

I. ABEL’S FAITH SPEAKS. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Homage to the all-wise Creator, gratitude to the all-bountiful Benefactor, submission to the all-powerful Ruler, sacrifice to the all-loving Father, are not enough. The first and indispensable element in all acceptable service is faith in the Redeemer, and implicit confidence in “Him who justifies the ungodly.”

II. ABEL’S OFFERING TESTIFIES: “Without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). It was an embodiment of the truths which were afterwards more fully developed in the sacrificial system of the Mosaic economy, and which are now revealed in the gospel in all their clearness, simplicity, and fulness. Not that Abel understood them in all the height and depth, length and breadth of their spiritual significance. Abel looked upon the bud: we behold the flower. Christ having come, and having offered up Himself as a sacrifice for human sin, “a lamb without spot and blemish,” a light is reflected back upon all the sacrificial offerings of ancient days, which enables us to see that one grand truth was prefigured by them all, and that one solemn voice was uttered by them all. “‘Without shedding,” &c.

III. ABEL’S ACCEPTANCE HAS A VOICE: “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted unto righteousness” (Romans 4:5). The important point is, that God gave him evidence of his acceptance in response to his faith. And what was this but another version of the great gospel doctrine that “a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law,” yet not by a faith which is unaccompanied by works, but by a faith which reveals itself through works? Abel believed God’s promise, and complied with God’s prescription as to offering a bleeding sacrifice; and Abel’s faith was counted unto him for righteousness: that is, God, in justifying Abel, had regard to faith.

IV. ABEL’S DEATH CRIES: “They who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). The account of Abel’s untimely end is simply given (Genesis 4:8). It was an early and a bitter fruit of sin, a ghastly revelation, and a woeful foretaste of the promised enmity between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s. A decisive indication that these two seeds were to be found in two different sections of the human family. That fratricide was the first blow in the world-wide and time-long conflict that had already been predicted. The culmination of the battle was when Christ despoiled the principalities and powers of evil by His cross. Yet the enmity is not ended. In consequence of Christ’s death the victory of the seed of the woman is secure; but till the final triumph comes, they must suffer persecution. Just because they are the woman’s seed and Christ’s seed, the thing is inevitable.

V. ABEL’S GRAVE SHOUTS: “The Lord will avenge the blood of His servants” (Deuteronomy 32:43). God regards the saints as His peculiar possession, as the work of His hands. Christ esteems His people, not simply as His servants, disciples, followers, friends, but as members of His body, linked to His heart by the most tender ties of sympathy. Hence He watches over them with jealous care, protects them when in danger, feels for them and with them when they suffer, and avenges them when they are wronged. Sometimes in His wise but mysterious Providence He may suffer their liberties to be destroyed and their lives to be spilt; but “Vengeance is mine; I will repay!” saith the Lord. Witness Cain, Pharaoh, Ahab, Jezebel, Haman, Belshazzar, Herod, Nero, and others.

VI. ABEL’S MEMORY ECHOES: “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance” (Psalms 112:6). For sixty centuries at least the name of Abel has been enshrined in affectionate remembrance, not for great deeds done, but for simple faith cherished, and for bitter suffering endured. Worth observing that being and suffering are sometimes as sure passports to renown as doing. Not the great actors on time’s stage alone have their names transmitted to posterity, but the great sufferers as well. Not those alone who have lived brilliantly, but those also who have walked humbly. And this perhaps is right, for after all it may be questioned if to believe strongly, to live humbly, and to suffer patiently are not greater achievements than to act largely and to speak loudly. (Thomas Whitelaw, M. A.)

Accepted of God

I. EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE IN SUFFERING SHALL ADD TO THE GLORY OF THE SUFFERER; and those who suffer here for Christ without witness, as many have done to death in prisons and dungeons, have yet an all-seeing witness to give them testimony in due season. “The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance”; and nothing that is done or suffered for God shall be lost for ever.

II. WE ARE TO SERVE GOD WITH THE BEST THAT WE HAVE, the best that is in our power, with the best of our spiritual abilities; which God afterwards fully confirmed.

III. God gives no consequential approbation of any duties of believers, BUT WHERE THE PRINCIPLE OF A LIVING FAITH GOES PREVIOUSLY IN THEIR PERFORMANCE.

IV. OUR PERSONS MUST BE FIRST JUSTIFIED, BEFORE OUR WORKS OF OBEDIENCE CAN BE ACCEPTED WITH GOD; for by that acceptance He testifies that we are righteous.

V. THAT THOSE WHOM GOD APPROVES MUST EXPECT THAT THE WORLD WILL DISAPPROVE THEM, and ruin them if it can.

VI. Where there is a difference within, in the hearts of men, on the account of faith and the want of it, THERE WILL FOR THE MOST PART BE UNAVOIDABLE DIFFERENCES ABOUT OUTWARD WORSHIP. SO there hath been always between the true Church and false worshippers.

VII. GOD’S APPROBATION IS AN ABUNDANT RECOMPENSE FOR THE LOSS OF OUR LIVES.

VIII. THERE IS A VOICE IN ALL INNOCENT BLOOD SHED BY VIOLENCE.

Abel’s offering

I. ABEL’S OFFERING HAD REFERENCE TO A DIVINE COMMAND AND PROMISE. Abel acknowledged his sin, and believed what God had said in reference to pardon, hence his sacrifice was one of faith.

II. THE COMPARATIVE WORTH OF ABEL’S OFFERING. By faith he offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. The meaning is that it was a fuller sacrifice, it embraced more, it meant more than that presented by Cain. “Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.” The latter phrase evidently indicates that the life was taken before the sacrifice was offered. Hereby was admitted

1. The deadly nature of sin. Sin leads to destruction. The fact of atonement being necessary proves the enormity of sin.

2. The hope of pardon. To Abel it became apparent that there was a way by which man could rise, a plan by which he could become reconciled to God.

III. THE ASSURANCE OF ACCEPTANCE ABEL RECEIVED. “He obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” This assurance would probably be twofold, the outward and the visible, and the inward and spiritual. The witness from without would be given by fire descending and consuming the sacrifice. But there was also the inward testimony Abel receives. He obtained witness that he was righteous. His sins were blotted out, he was at peace with God, and the Spirit of God was his witness that he was accepted. He was made a partaker of the righteousness, which is by faith.

IV. ABEL, BECAUSE OF HIS FAITH AND SERVICE, IS YET SPOKEN OF. “He being dead, yet speaketh.” (Richard Nicholls.)

Abel’s sacrifice

I. WHAT WAS THE SPECIAL OCCASION OF THIS SACRIFICE? That may be gathered out of the phrase used (Genesis 4:3). God taught Adam by revelation, and he his son by instruction, that men should at the year’s end, in a solemn manner, sacrifice with thanks to God, when they had gathered in the fruits of the earth. This tradition was afterwards made a written law Exodus 22:29). These solemn sacrifices at the end of days had a double use.

1. To be a figure of the expiation promised to Adam in Christ.

2. To be a solemn acknowledgment of their homage and thankfulness to God.

1. The general use of these sacrifices was to remember the seed of the woman, or Messiah to come, as the solemn propitiatory sacrifice of the Church. And indeed there was a notable resemblance between those offerings and Jesus Christ: Abel offered a lamb; and Christ is the Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). And because of these early sacrifices, therefore is that expression used (Revelation 13:8). And He also is the first-fruits (Psalms 89:27). Though God had other children by creation besides Christ, yet He is the first-born. What shall we gather from hence? That in all our addresses to God we must solemnly remember and honour Christ. We must do duties to God, so as we may honour Christ in them. It may be you will ask, How do we honour Christ in doing of duties?

(1) When you look for your acceptance in Christ, as Abel comes with a lamb in faith.

(2) This is to honour Christ in duties, when you look for your assistance from the Spirit of Christ.

(3) When the aim of the worship is to set up and advance the mediator.

2. The special use of this worship was to profess their homage and their thankfulness to God. They were to come as God’s tenants, and pay Him their rent. Therefore God puts words into the Israelites’ mouths Deuteronomy 26:10). The note from hence is--That in the times of our increase and plenty we must solemnly acknowledge God. The best way to secure the farm, and keep it in our possession, is to acknowledge the great Landlord of the whole world--Lord, I have been a poor creature, and Thou hast blest me wonderfully. There is a rent of praise and a thank-offering due to God.

II. The second question is, WHAT WAS THE WARRANT OF THIS WORSHIP? Was it devised according to their own will, or was it commanded by God? The reason of the inquiry is because some say that before the law the patriarchs did, without any command, out of their private good intention, offer sacrifice to God; and they prove it, because the Gentiles that were not acquainted with the institutions of the Church used the same way of worship. But this opinion seemeth little probable

1. Because this is above the light of corrupt nature to prescribe an acceptable worship to God.

2. It was by some appointment; for no worship is acceptable to Him but that which is of His appointment.

3. There could have been else no faith nor obedience in it, if the institution had been wholly human; there is no faith without some promise of Divine grace, no obedience without some command.

4. The wonderful agreement that is between this first act of solemn worship and the solemn constitutions of the Jewish Church doth wonderfully evince that there was some rule and Divine institution according to which this worship was to be regulated, which, probably, God revealed to Adam, and He taught it, as He did other parts of religion, to His children: therefore it was done by virtue of an institution. Abel looked to the command of God, and promise of God, that so he might do it in faith and obedience.

The note from this--That whatever is done in worship must be done out of conscience, and with respect to the institution. But you will say, What is it to do a thing by virtue of an institution? For answer

1. I shall show you what an institution is. Every word of institution consists of two parts--the word of command, and the word of promise.

2. What is it to do a duty in respect to the institution? I answer, it is to do it in faith and obedience: faith respects the word of promise, obedience the word of command. But now how shall I know when I do duty in faith and obedience?

I answer

1. You come in obedience when the command is the main motive and reason upon your spirit to put you upon the duty. It is enough to a Christian to say, “This is the will of God” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

2. Would you know when you come in faith? when you look to the word of promise? You may know that by the earnest expectation and considerateness of the soul.

III. The third question is, WHEREIN LIES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO SACRIFICES?

1. In the faith of Abel. Abel’s principle was faith, Cain’s distrust.

2. In the willing mind of Abel. Cain looked upon his sacrifice as a task rather than a duty; his fruits were brought to God as a fine rather than an offering, as if an act of worship had been an act of penance, and religion was his punishment.

3. In the matter offered. It is said of Cain’s offering (Genesis 4:3), “That he brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.” The

Holy Ghost purposely omits the description of the offering. Being hastily taken, and unthankfully brought, it is mentioned without any additional expression to set off the worth of them; it should have been the first and the fairest. But for Abel, see how distinct the Spirit of God is in setting forth his offering (verse 4); not only the firstlings, that the rest might be sanctified, but he brought the best, the chiefest, the fattest. All these were afterwards appropriated to God (Leviticus 3:16-17).

Now observe from hence--That when we serve God, we must serve Him faithfully, with our best.

1. God must have the best of our time. Consider, we can afford many sacrilegious hours to our lusts, and can scarce afford God a little time without grudging. Is not there too much of Cain’s spirit in this?

2. With your best parts. You come to worship God not only with your bodies, but your souls, with the refined strength of your reason and thoughts (Psalms 108:1). (T. Manton, D. D.)

Abel:

The text carries us back to the world’s youngest days, and it introduces us to the world’s earliest brothers, the children of the first man. But how different the after history of the brothers who were thus named! Cain, the fondly imagined destroyer of the serpent, growing up into his slave; Abel, the first to experience death, and the first to triumph over it by a power that was mightier than his own. Cain, the first rebel--Abel, the first pardoned sinner; the one Divinely branded as “that wicked one who slew his brother,” the other bearing his appropriate and lasting surname of “righteous Abel.”

I. FIRST, HE IS BROUGHT BEFORE US AS OFFERING AN ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE. Perhaps the main difference will be found in the fact that Cain’s was a eucharistic, Abel’s an expiatory sacrifice. In the one there was a recognition, in the other there was a refusal of the ordinance of God, that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. Moreover, the apostle declares that the sacrifice of Abel was offered in faith. Now, faith must have respect to some revelation that has been previously given, as well as to some other blessing which the future will reveal. Some have wondered sometimes why, if sacrifice were of Divine origin, there should be no express enactment on record. But even if there be no record of it, it would be rash to conclude that there was therefore no revelation. There lurks in this supposition the fallacy of believing that the book of Genesis bore to the Jewish the same relation which the book of Leviticus bore to the Mosaic dispensation--that it was written not by the historian but by the law-giver. But we cannot imagine that the patriarchs knew no more of truth than is recorded in the historian’s narrative. Indeed, we know they did; for Abrabam had revelations of a future state, and Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, as we learn from the New Testament, concerning the coming of the Lord in judgment. Neither of these things is recorded in the book of Genesis. Whatever this promise is, it is a promise of spiritual blessing. You look into it further, and you discover that there is in it a promise of a Redeemer--a promise of a Redeemer of superior nature to the destroyer, and yet to be of the seed of the woman. You look further into the promise, and find that He is to be bruised. If His essential power is greater than the power of His adversary, then any suffering that comes upon Him must be endured by His own consent. If it be voluntary, then this leads you to another step in the argument--it must be vicarious; it must be undertaken for some one else; undertaken as a substitute for some one whom He has voluntarily pledged Himself to redeem. Then here comes the great idea of satisfaction--suffering endured by a Saviour in the room and in the stead of another. But if vicarious, you go further still. In such a Being--in a Being of such acknowledged power, it must be available; it must be efficacious for the destruction of the evils that were introduced by the adversary. Now, if you will just think of this argument, I fancy you will find that it will hold, and that it is not improbable that, in the absence of direct revelation our first parents discovered in the earliest promise the Divine nature of the Redeemer, the mystery of His incarnate life, and outlines of that grand and wonderful scheme of redemption by which He offered Himself, the Just, or the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Here, then, is the foundation of the rite of sacrifice; and you cannot wonder that the faith of Abel, resting upon the scheme of mediation, should find visible expression, analogous to the way in which the offering was to be wrought out, by the offering of the firstling upon the altar, nor that God attesting that sacrifice, and honouring the spirit which prompted it, should have accepted it in the consuming fire.

II. We find, in the second place, THE RESULTS OF THIS FAITH--THAT GOD GAVE HIM A TESTIMONY. He received a Divine testimony: “by it he obtained witness that he was righteous--God testifying of his gifts.” God is said to have testified to the acceptance of his offering, and to have witnessed to his own personal acceptance as well. The manner of this testimony is not distinctly stated, but the analogy would be that it was given by fire. God testified to his gifts and to his faith. God testified to his gifts; and those gifts were the gifts of blood. He was the first saved sinner, and he stands typal and exemplary of all the rest. God set His seal thus early upon the one method of reconciliation that all the ages might learn the lesson. Human nature, if it would be accepted in heaven, must not come and stand in its erectness, as if it had never sinned; it must be contrite in its trust; it must be firm in its reliance upon the sacrifice which has purged its sin away. Here is salvation costlier than human price can buy; here is salvation fuller than imagination can conceive; here is salvation lasting through all the ages of eternity; and it is offered--offered upon understood and easy terms. Here is a Redeemer gifted with every qualification, and infinite in His willinghood of love. And this Redeemer wills to save you; He has paid the price; He does not want any paltry price of yours.

III. Abel is presented in the text as EXERTING AN UNDYING INFLUENCE. “By it he being dead yet speaketh.” He is brought before us as an historical exemplification of the power of faith. He has gained by it an undying memory; he is thrown by it among the moral heroes of the olden times. There issues from him, because of it, an influence which spreads and grows for ages. He teaches to after generations many great lessons; he teaches the lesson of contrition, and of gratitude, and of humble hope, and of far-sighted reliance which fastens its gaze upon the Cross, and stays its spirit there! (W. M. Putxshort.)

Abel:

The great lesson we learn is this: there is one appointed way of approaching God, and only one; no other way devised by human cunning or human invention can or will bring us to God; and faith is the principle by which we do thus approach God. There are two classes which this speaks to

1. Those who are convinced of the right way to heaven, and willing to walk in it.

2. Those who are wholly mistaken as to the way of salvation. Of the latter first. There is an inclination in man to strike out a way of his own, and that, usually, exactly contrary to God’s appointed way to final happiness.

Thus here is God the Creator appointing a way for man to walk in, and man refusing to walk therein is therefore lost. The common occasion on which men will choose their own way is in the means of salvation being by Christ, in the necessity of the aid of the Spirit, in the necessity of showing forth that work of the Spirit by holy living; very often such men begin their whole scheme of contradiction by denying the doctrine of original sin. By this means men try to make their way to heaven, What in these particulars is God’s appointed way?

1. Man says he is not a sinner by birth and practice, root and branch a sinner, but he is only very weak, very various, some better than others, and so forth. God says, “There is none that doeth good; no, not one.”

2. Or again, some say, Your amiability and morality are so great you need not think of any means of salvation; you may deserve heaven by the beauty of your own character or the force of your own works.

3. Again, some men talk of their own unaided strength helping them to perform good works.

4. And again; some men tell us there is no need of good works at all, but that a man may live in the constant habit of sin, and yet please God, and consider himself a servant of God; what says the Word of God? “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” “We are His workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works.”

Thus, then, man’s way in the world greatly differs from God’s way of salvation. But again, the example of Abel speaks to Christians too. Do I speak to some such now--men who will not accept the means which God has appointed to bring them near to Himself? who wish to belong to Him, and try to be reconciled, and believe Christ only can do it, and yet will not go to the means ordered by God, but strike out ways of their own, and then wonder why they do not gain their end?

1. There are some such who will not receive the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, choosing to expect a fitness which the Bible does not speak of: and thus, though Christ has appointed this way of approaching Him, they persist in refusing to walk in it. How is it you dare thus to trifle with God? How can you hope to be better or happier while, like Cain, you will come to God in your own devised manner, however well arranged, and not in His revealed, appointed method of approach?

2. Or again; some men will not pray; they think hearing is enough, or knowing is enough, or feeling is enough, or thinking is enough. They will not pray, while prayer is the very life of the soul.

3. Or again; some men will not read the Bible; the call of business or domestic life is the excuse they plead against ever reading the Word of God; and yet we are told to “search the Scriptures.”

4. Again; some men will not come to church, thinking they can serve God as well at home, not seeing how it can matter, if they pray at home, whether they pray there or at church; not seeing that the whole consists in one being God’s appointed means, the other not. Thus do men, good on the whole, sin as Cain, by choosing their own ways, in certain particulars, to approach God, and despising and neglecting others. Remember, it is by faith you will follow Abel. Use God’s appointed means--faith. (E. Monro.)

Abel

I. ABEL AT THE ALTAR.

1. The principle of the offerer--“Faith.”

2. The material of the offering--“A more excellent sacrifice.”

(1) Select.

(2) Suitable.

(3) Surprising. “More excellent than Cain.”

(a) The privileges of both were the same.

(b) The mother esteemed Cain, but ignored Abel.

(c) Revelation was very meagre.

(d) The bad example of a constant associate. Wickedness is contagious. The religion of Abel was sin-proof. The Divine in him was mightier than the satanic in his brother.

II. ABEL THE RECIPIENT OF A DIVINE TESTIMONIAL. Previously we saw Abel giving to God; here we see him receiving from God. Those who give also get (John 1:12).

1. The testimonial. “Righteous”--justified--absolved from all wrong--accepted as one right in all his relationships--with conscience, the world, death, judgment, God.

2. The testifier, “God.” The authority is the highest and the truest. The keys of destiny hang at His girdle. His smile is heaven.

III. ABEL THE PROCLAIMER OF DIVINE TRUTH. “Being dead, yet speaketh.” Most men speak before death; many speak when dying; but Abel speaks after death. There is a peculiarity in the influence of Abel. He teaches

1. That fallen man may again approach God.

2. That worship must be through the medium of sacrifice.

3. That acceptance with God is the highest favour.

4. That a godly life is immortal in its influence. (B. D. Johns.)

Faith the secret of accepted worship:

Faith is spiritual sight. It is the apprehension of the unseen. It is the realisation of the Invisible. “By faith,” by an exercise of that soul’s sight which faith is, “Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” The Searcher of hearts saw in Abel, saw not in Cain, that sight of the Invisible which is the condition of worship. The difference lay not in the form of the offering, but in the spirit of the offerer. In vain we obtrude our poor human assistance for the discrimination of the two sacrifices. God required no outward sign, no visible or tangible material, to inform or to guide His judgment. His eye could pierce, at once and by intuition, to the discerning of soul and spirit. And here we read what He judged by--not the substance of the sacrifice, but the heart’s heart of the worshipper. “By faith”--by that soul’s sight of which the Omniscient alone can take knowledge--“Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” “By which” sacrifice--or, “by which “faith--for the relative is ambiguous in the Greek--“he obtained witness that he was righteous”--“he was attested as righteous”--the testimony of God, in Holy Scripture, was borne to him as being righteous--“God testifying of his gifts.” It was not the sacrifice which made him “righteous”--it was the “righteousness” which offered, and which consecrated the offering. “He was attested as righteous, God testifying of His gifts.” We know not how, by what visible or invisible token, the acceptance, the “ respect,” was evidenced to the one offerer, and its absence indicated to the other. The reference of the text is to the record in Scripture. “And by it he being dead yet speaketh.” The same ambiguity rests upon “by it” as upon “by which” above. “By the sacrifice”? or, “by the faith”? By the sacrifice offered in faith? or, by the faith in which the sacrifice was offered? It is a distinction without a difference as regards the doctrine. We have three lessons to learn.

1. “By faith Abel offered.” Faith has a province in the present. The past belongs wholly to her--the future belongs wholly to her--the present belongs to her in part. There are things present of which sight and sense can take notice. But the spiritual, the heavenly, the Divine, is ever present--and of this the senses tell nothing. There are two kinds of worship, asthere are two characters and classes of worshippers. There are those who come to worship with “earthly, sensual, diabolical “ minds. There are those who bring something in their hands--it may be a few herbs or flowers, it may be a sheaf of corn or a bag of money, it may be the bread and wine of a Sacrament, it may be the bended knee or the uttered liturgy of a Church calling itself Reformed, calling itself Evangelical--and who yet never “stir up themselves to lay hold of” the Invisible and the Eternal--come together with earthward eyes and earth-bound souls--do not speak one word to God Himself as Spirit and Life and Love--do not breathe really into His ear one syllable of deep heartfelt confession, praise, or prayer--go as they came, self-satisfied or else murmuring, earth-filled or else empty, giddy and trifling or else disconsolate--at all events, without that faith which is the realisation of God Himself--and therefore to them and to their offering He has not, cannot have, respect.

2. “God testifying of His gifts.” There is a worship to which God “has respect.” That worship varies in shape and form. Once it was embodied in ritual. A service of rule and ceremony, of incense and vestment, of gift and sacrifice. Now it is a service of greater simplicity--of words read from a book, of Psalms recited or chanted, of hymns sung and accompanied, of instruction and exhortation spoken and listened to. Yet the idea of worship is one and the same. Six thousand years ago Abel worshipped: we worship to-day. The idea, as the object, of worship, is unchanged. If it is effectual, if it is successful, God “testifies” of it still. Generally, in His Word--assuring us of its acceptance if it be this and this. Personally, in the soul--giving an answer of peace--calming, satisfying, strengthening, comforting, according to the need of each one.

3. Finally, “he being dead yet speaketh.” The immortality of faith is a voice also. Abel speaks still. He, you will say, has a place in the Bible--and the text is of course exceptionally true of Scripture saints. Those to whom God hath borne witness in that Book which hath immortality, of course share the immortality of the Book and of its Author. It is true even of the wicked--even of the bad immortality which a place in the Bible gives if it givenot the good. It is true of the Cains as well as the Abels--of the Ahabs as of the Elijahs--of the Gallios and the Demases as much as of St. Luke and of St. Paul. But we speak now of the undying voices of the faithful. Is it not true of them that they almost gain in audibility by distance? When did Paul himself ever speak as he spoke in the great Reformation, fifteen hundred years after he fell on sleep, quickening Luther and Calvin, quickening Germany and England, with that life which has carried mind and might with it across two hemispheres? Nor is it only of inspired men, or of Bible characters, that the words of the text are true. “Being dead he yet speaketh” has an application, not to heroes of faith alone, but to very common inmates of very obscure homes. This will be in exact proportion as they have been enabled to live and to die in the light of a Divine revelation which is no respecter of persons. It is not only where biographies have kept alive the memory, and made the example of some Brainerd or Swarz, some Martyn or Patteson, vocal for ever to Christian homes and Christian Churches. (Dean Vaughan.)

The sacrifices of Cain and Abel:

Both these sacrifices were in themselves acceptable to God, for under the Levitical institutions, wheat and barley were offered by the Divine command, as well as lambs, and bullocks, and goats. But the” faith” of Abel made his sacrifice” more excellent” than that of Cain; and “by his faith,” not by his sacrifice, “he obtained witness that he was righteous God” in some way, “bearing testimony” to him when he was presenting” his gifts.” (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

Abel’s faith

God is not taken with the cabinet, but with the jewel; He first respected Abel’s faith and sincerity, and then his sacrifice; He disrespected Cain’s infidelity and hypocrisy, and then his offering. (S. Charnock.)

He being dead, yet speaketh

Posthumous influence

1. It is a natural desire of the human heart to prolong its relations to the world after death. All expect to die, but no one desires to be forgotten. We want to get the better of death.

2. This is, in one sense, a strange desire. Can we not trust our fellows without stretching out one dead hand from the grave to guide? Would it not be better to be forgotten? Still, we do not love to think of sundering wholly our relations with this world.

3. The desire for posthumous influence is an instinct implanted by God, a sign of the grandeur of the human soul, and suggestive of its destiny.

4. This desire of posthumous influence can be realised in three ways.

(1) First, by our speech. It is not by the mastery of words alone that influence is perpetuated--by poet, scholar, or philosopher. You may lead a humble life, but your deliberate or casual speech will do a blessed or a baneful work ages hence.

(2) By what we do. While one may with his wealth found a hospital, endow a college, equip a library, or build a fountain in the central square of some city, it is possible that an inconspicuous life may become a perpetual fountain for good after that life on earth has closed.

(3) By what we are. Character is of all the most potent. Invisible as the wind and inaudible as the light, it is a real and enduring force. It is here that man exerts the greatest power for good or evil. It is here that a soul propagates influence on and through the ages for ever.

5. The influence that lives after us is not always what we intended it should be. In a moment of forgetfulness or passion we may speak that which will be remembered when all the good words we have uttered are forgotten.

Lessons:

1. We infer from these solemn facts the immense extension of responsibility. “Plant a tree, Jamie,” said Sir Walter Scott, “it will be growing while you are sleeping.” So with our acts.

2. Those who have left us are still with us by their posthumous influence.

3. Remember that this continued activity of the dead is not the whole of the idea of a future life. We have a grander goal. There is another shore beyond the blue horizon, which the ship will surely reach; another nest to which we fly, where our ears again shall be gladdened by songs from those we have known, and by those whom, not having known, we influence. Those whom God has taken, who were, still are. (E. B. Coe, D. D.)

The teaching of the dead

I. THAT ALL THOSE PROJECTS AND ANTICIPATIONS, THOSE PURSUITS AND ENJOYMENTS, WHICH HAVE NOT A REFERENCE TO OUR ETERNAL STATE, ARE

VAIN, FOOLISH, AND DELUSIVE. Ambitious men! some of these dead cry to you,--I have been surrounded by that glory which dazzles you; I have possessed those dignities for which you are struggling; I have been eulogised and applauded by men: but whither have all my honours conducted me? To the tomb! Whither will yours conduct you? To the tomb!” Covetous men! listen to what some of these dead cry to you: “I have accumulated riches; I have acquired revenues almost exhaustless. But of them all, what have I carried with me to the grave? A coffin and a shroud! What will you carry with you of the riches that you are amassing? A coffin and a shroud!” Sensualists! listen to what some of these dead cry to you: “I have indulged myself in every pleasure; I have refused nothing to my senses; I have rioted in sensual joys. But where did these joys terminate? In the tomb, in remorse, in perdition! What you are, I have been; what I am, you will shortly be.”

II. THAT LIFE IS BOTH SHORT AND UNCERTAIN, Visit the repositories of the dead, and learn that “ man that is born of a woman, is of few days: that he fleeth as a shadow, and continueth not.” Do you not there hear those who were most advanced in age saying to you: “My associates spoke of the length of my life, of the number of my years, but now that I compare this life with the eternity which for me has swallowed up all time, how does it appear? Less than an atom, compared to the immensity of the universe; less than a drop of water, compared to the extended ocean.” (H. Kollock, D. D.)

Influence after death

Those who spend their days on earth usefully and well, live after death by their example. A father’s worth, and a mother’s care, and a neighbour’s kindness, will be remembered long, and, in many cases, be imitated by those who come after. The upright live after death by their precepts. They may have been wholly disregarded by those to whom they were first addressed; but the good seed will take root, and, sooner or later, yield fruits of increase. On the other hand, we are told that “the name of the wicked shall rot” (Proverbs 10:7). Their influence may have been exceedingly great, but it shall become less and less, until it wholly dies away. If any one desires, then, that his name shall be remembered after death with feelings of gratitude and satisfaction, let him strive to be good.

I. A MOTHER’S influence after death. “When I was a little child,” says one, “my mother used to bid me kneel beside her, and place her hand upon my head while she prayed. Before I was old enough to know her worth, she died, and I was left too much to my own guidance. In the midst of temptations, whether at home or abroad, I have felt myself, again and again, irresistibly drawn back by the pressure of that same soft hand. A voice in my heart seemed to say: ‘ Oh, do not this wickedness, my child, nor sin against God! ‘ I did not dare to disregard the call.” Who has not heard of reprobate sons, after years of vice, stopped short in their course by remembrances of scenes of innocence and peace, in which a mother’s anxious concern, a mother’s reproving look, and a mother’s gentle voice, speaking from the dead, exerted an influence more powerful than she could possibly have possessed while sitting under her own roof, and by her own fireside? Let Christian parents use this influence well, and the effect of their instructions shall never die.

II. TEACHER’S influence after death. The instructor’s office is seldom estimated aright. How many difficulties to be overcome! How much discretion to be used! The tear of fond regret will glisten in the eye as the scholars, grown to adult age, make mention of their old teacher--the teacher in his grave. “He, being dead, yet speaketh.” Have not instructors a high incentive to prove themselves faithful?

III. The PHILANTHROPIST’S influence after death. Kind and compassionate ones, go on in your useful ways. You are purchasing for yourselves immortality.

IV. An AUTHOR’S influence after death. “Books,” says Addison, “are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind.” The author dies. Not so his works. He still speaks through many lands by many tongues. Though already entered into his rest, he is, in reality, vigorously at work. He is moulding the minds, and influencing the hearts of untold thousands.

V. The CLERGYMAN’S influence after death. His life may have passed noiselessly away. His spirit--the fragrant memory of his life--lingers with his flock, and “He, being dead, yet speaketh.”

VI. The influence of every GOOD PERSON after death. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)

The moral influence we exert after death:

Every man that plays a part in the great drama of human life, leaves, at his departure, an impress and an influence, more or less extensive and lasting. No fact is more self-evident, or more universally admitted, than the text; and no fact withal is more generally disregarded by the living. And, just in proportion to the width of the sphere in which the departed moved, and the strength of intellectual and moral character they possessed and developed, will be the duration and the plastic power of that influence they have left behind them. This is the fair side of the portrait; and were the influence left behind by the dead universally of this holy character, then would men be throughout their biography like visitant angels of mercy passing athwart our miserable world, distilling balm and scattering light among men’s sons; or as transient gales from the spicy lands of the East, or glorious meteors arising in rapid succession amidst the moral darkness of the earth, imparting light and fearlessness to its many pilgrims, and this would be bettered by every successive generation, till it arose and expanded to its millenial blessedness and peace. But alas! if many of the dead yet speak for God, and for the eternal welfare of humanity, many, many also speak for Satan, and ply after, as before their death, the awful work of sealing souls in their slumber, and smoothing and adorning the paths that lead to eternal death. Thus the departed sinner, as well as the departed saint, “being dead yet speaketh.” Thus our sins as well as our virtues survive. Thus we exert a posthumous influence which adds either an impulse upon the advancing chariot of salvation, or throws stumblingblocks and obstacles in its way. If any earth-born joys are admitted as visitants amid the celestial choirs, the joy that springs from having written saving and sanctifying works, is the sweetest that reaches the hearts of the saved. And I can fancy a Baxter, a Newton, a Scott, a Rutherford, rejoice with exceeding joy when the angels that minister to them that are to be heirs of salvation, bring word that, in consequence of the “Awakening Call to the Unconverted,” or “The Force of Truth,” or the “Letters from the Prison of Aberdeen,” some sinner has been aroused from his lethargy, and made a partaker of grace, and mercy, and peace. And if, as we believe, any poignant recollections from this side “the bourne whence no traveller returns,” roach the memories of the lost, not the least bitter will be the remembrance of having written volumes which are circulated by every library, and sold by every vender, in which the foundations of morality are sapped, and the youth of our world poisoned throughout the whole range of their moral economy. Oh, it will be the sorest sting of that worm which never dies, that their name, and their creed, and their principles after them, gather converts on earth, and carry fell desolation to homes that had otherwise been happy, and corruption to hearts that had else beat high with philanthropy and piety. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

A voice from the grave

I. THE FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN MINISTER “BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH” IN HIS WRITINGS.

II. A CHRISTIAN MINISTER “BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH” BY THE MOUTH OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN BORN AGAIN UNDER HIS MINISTRY.

III. THE FAITHFUL MINISTER OF CHRIST “BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH” THROUGH HIS EXAMPLE. It IS said of the virtuous and amiable Fenelon, that his life was even more eloquent than his discourses.

IV. A FAITHFUL MINISTER “BEING DEAD, YET SPEAKETH,” THROUGH THE MEMORY AND CONSCIENCE OF THEM THAT HEARD HIM. (M. Leishman.)

The speech of the dead

St. Paul seems to make it part of the recompense of Abel that he speaketh, though dead. The speaking after death appears given as a privilege or reward; and it will be both interesting and instructive to survey it under such point of view.

I. Let us, therefore, examine, in the first place, THE FACT HERE ASSERTED OF ABEL, and then consider it as constituting a portion of his recompense--a recompense which, if awarded to one of the righteous, may lawfullybe desired by all. We conclude that Adam was not left to invent a religion for himself when he carried with him from Paradise a prophetic notice of the seed of the woman. In the words which precede our text, the apostle states that “by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” It would be hard to define wherein the faith was exhibited, if not in the nature of the offering. Cain, as well as Abel, displayed faith in the existence of God, and owned in Him the Creator and Preserver. But Abel alone displayed faith in an appointed expiation, conforming himself, on a principle of faith, to what had been made a fundamental article in the theology of the guilty. So that, by and through his sacrifice and its consequences, was Abel the energetic preacher of the great scheme of redemption, the witness to our race, in the very infancy of its being, of a Mediator to be provided and a Mediator to be rejected. And not only then. He sealed his testimony with his blood, but he was not silenced by death. We still go to his sepulchre when we seek an eloquent and thrilling assertion of the peril of swerving from the revealed will of God. He rises up from the earth, which drank in the blood of his offering and then of himself, and warns the self-sufficient that their own guidance can lead them to nothing but destruction. I hear the utterances of this slaughtered worthy. They are utterances, loud and deep, against any one amongst us who is too philosophical for the gospel or too independent for a Redeemer. They denounce the rationalist who would make his theology from creation, the self-righteous who would plead his own merit, and the flatterer who would think that there may be a path to heaven which is not a path of tribulation.

II. And now let us consider the fact alleged in our text under THE LIGHT OF A RECOMPENSE TO ABEL. The manner in which the fact is introduced indicates that it was part of the reward procured to Abel by his faith, that he should be a preacher to every generation. But that with which a righteous man is rewarded must be a real good, and, as such, may justly be sought by those who copy his righteousness. This opens before us an interesting field of inquiry. If Abel were recompensed by the being appointed, as it were, a preacher to posterity, it seems to follow that it may fitly be an object of Christian desire to do good to after-generations, and that it is not necessarily a proud and unhallowed wish to survive dissolution and be remembered when dead. It cannot indeed become us as Christians to make our own fame or reputation our end; but it is another question whether Christianity afford no scope for the passion for distinction which beats so high and prompts to so much. Let it be, for example, a man’s ruling desire that he may be instrumental in spreading through the world the knowledge of Christ, and we may say of him that he is actuated by a motive which actuates the Almighty Himself, and that there is something in his ambition which deserves to be called god-like. It is not possible that a grander aim should be proposed, nor a purer impulse obeyed, by any of our race. And where this ambition is entertained--and it is an ambition in which every true Christian must share--can there lawfully be no consciousness of the worth, no desire for the possession of the recompense awarded to Abel? We believe of this worthy that, having his own faith fixed on a propitiation for sin, he must have longed to bring others to a similar confidence. Would it then have been no recompense to him had he been assured that the memory of his sacrifice was never to perish? Could it have been a recompense only on the supposition that he craved human distinction and longed, like candidates for earthly renown, to transmit his name with honour to posterity? Not so. It has been for the good of the Church that Abel has preached, and still preaches, to the nations. Many, in every age, have been strengthened by his example, many animated by his piety, many warned by his death. Thus the result of his surviving his dissolution has been the furtherance of the objects which we may suppose most desired by Abel. And the like may be declared of others. I take the case of some great champion of the faith, some bold confessor, who zealously published the truth and then sealed it with his blood. The place where this man preached, and that where he died, are hallowed spots; and the tomb in which his ashes sleep is an altar on which successive generations consecrate themselves to God. The martyr survives the stake or the scaffold, and leads on in after-ages the armies of the Lord. The, tyrant who crushed him made him imperishable, and he died that he might be life to the faith of posterity. And is it not reward to the worthies of an earlier time that they are thus instrumental in upholding the doctrines which they contended for as truth; that they still publish the tenets in whose support they lifted up their voices till the world rang with the message; and that districts or countries are so haunted by their memories, that the righteous seem to have them for companions and to be cheered by their counsels? And who further will doubt that a reputation such as this, thus precious and profitable, might be lawfully desired by the most devoted of Christ’s followers. There is something grand and ennobling about such ambition. It seems to me that the man who entertains and accomplishes the desire of witnessing for truth after death, triumphs over death in the highest possible sense. I could almost dare to say of such a man that he never dies. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Speech from the speechless:

These are strange words, are they not?--a dead man speaking. Yet they are true, although Abel has been dead a long time. But we must attend to what Abel is saying just now to us, for he being dead is yet speaking.

1. He says, “Take care how you worship God.” Do not be misled by bad examples. When you come to worship, come as Abel did, to worship before the Lord, and to hear what He says, and try to do it.

2. But Abel speaks this also--“Beware,” he says, “of envy.” The Bible tells us that Cain hated Abel, because Abel’s works were good, while his were evil. Bad people always hate good people, just because they are good, and so different from themselves. They begin with envy, then envy becomes prejudice, and prejudice grows into spite, and then spite becomes hatred.

3. Abel’s tone gets graver still when he says, “There are some things that can never be mended.” No, never I When once Cain had struck that blow at his brother, could he bring Abel back to life again? When you are ten years old, can you go back and become just nine? When a man is thirty years old, can he ever again become ten? No; you see there are some things that can never be undone. Now the Lord says, they that seek Him early shall find Him.

4. But Abel also says, There is not such a thing as a secret. Cain thought, maybe, he could easily hide his crime. But no! God saw it. (J. R. Howatt.)

Earthly immortality:

Very little is known of Abel, of whom this is spoken, except that he represented before God the spiritual element, while his brother represented the carnal and the secular. He must have been a man whose moral nature was impressive, mild, gentle. Yet he produced an effect, not only upon his own time, but upon after times. This living after a man is gone, may almost be said to be a universal aspiration. Almost all men, when they rise out of the savage state, begin to come under the influence of this ambition. We are not content, either, with our individual sphere. We desire to be known and felt outside of ourselves, outside of our household, outside of our neighbourhood. And our satisfaction grows if we find that our life affects the life of larger communities, and goes out through the nation and through the world. To a highly poetic nature, it seems as though it were a kind of earthly immortality. There is, however, a great difference in men’s ambitions for such prolonged life. There is a great difference in the moral values of this longing for extended being and influence. If it be the ambition of vanity; if men desire, while alive, to be felt in order that they may be praised; if their thought of other persons is simply how to draw from them revenue for themselves, or how they can make themselves idols, and make men believe that they are gods--if it be this, then it is a base and perverted form of that which is a very good thing in its nobler and higher form. And such men are very poor indeed, and contemptible, after death. Selfishness, by its own law, not only moves in simple circles, but is short-lived. What men do for themselves is soon expended, and is soon forgotten. Only that part of a man’s life which includes other men’s good, and especially the public good, is likely to be felt long after he himself is dead. The physical industries of this world have two relations in them--one to the actor and one to the public. Honest business is more really a contribution to the public than it is to the manager of the business himself. Who built that old mill which has ground the bread of two generations? Men do not know. His name may be on some mouldering stone in the graveyard. But it is the man who built it that is working in it still. It was his skill and engineering industry that put it up. The builders of stores, and warehouses, and shops, and dwellings, are not building them for wages merely. They build them upon contract, to be sure; but their interest in them does not expire with the fulfilment of that contract. It is not how much these things have done for them that limits their interest in them, but how much they were able, through these things, to make the brain work in the future, and so to incorporate their usefulness into the lower ranges and economies of human life. So not alone are those men benefactors who are warriors, and statesmen, and scholars, and poets. These other men, too, in a humbler way, but really, ought to have a share of our thought and credit. They who promote industry, and make it more prolific of profit, are benefactors. Oh! that men might know how much benefit there is in mechanical operations and in benevolent art! Oh! that men might take comfort in knowing that when they are dead they shall yet speak. Experience shows that these advances in physical things are more beneficently felt by the poor than by others. They are felt by the rich; but everything that contributes to the convenience and prosperity of the community, and so raises it in the scale, is, first or last, a greater benefit to the poor than to any others. It is not the selfish or personal element that prolongs one’s life. A man that is dead is not to be remembered simply because he invented something. He is to be remembered because that which he invented goes on working benefit after he is dead. And so long as it is doing good to men, so long he is to be remembered. It is that which we do for the public good that makes our physical industries virtuous and beneficent. Next, men who organise their money into public uses, live as long as the benefaction itself serves the public. There is many a man who, having money, says to his right hand, to which the Lord denied the sculptor’s art, “Thou shalt carve a statue”; and he takes some poor unfriended artist from the village, and endows him, and sends him to Rome, and brings him back, and puts him into life. Powers and Jacksons carve beauteous figures to last for generations; and it is the rich man who patronised them who is working through the men that he fashioned and formed. There is many a man who says, “Oh, tongue I thou art dumb; but thou shalt have tongues that shall speak.” And he searches out from among the poor those that are ambitious to learn, and that are likely to become scholars, and puts them forward, and sees that they are educated. And thereafter this worthy minister, this true statesman, that wise and upright lawyer, and this unimpeachable judge, become, as it were, an extension of its own self. A man has the gift of wealth-amassing; and he says to himself, “Selfish gains will die with me, and be buried with me so far as I am concerned.” And he thinks of the village where as a boy he played, and remembers its barrenness from want of taste and from poverty, and says, “I will go back there, and that village shall be made beautiful.” And not only does he build there, within moderation, and with taste and beauty, a dwelling, but his house becomes the measure and the mark of all the houses in the neigbourhood. It is his fence that set all the people in the village putting their fences right. And more generous ideas in regard to houses and grounds are instilled into the minds of the young. And the young men and maidens, when they get married and settle down in life, exercise better taste in fitting up their homes. Their houses, though small and plain, are more tastefully planned, and there are more trees about their grounds, and more flowers in their gardens. There springs up on every side an imitation of that rich man’s example. And in the course of twenty or twenty-five years, he will have generated the taste of the community. Or he goes beyond that. He inspires in all the neighbourhood a disposition for beauty by planting trees along the highway. And when he shall have been dead a hundred years, he will be remembered as the man who made that long walk of beauty. Not only may wealth be organised into institutions of secular pleasure and comfort and beauty, but it may be organised still more potently into institutions of mercy--into houses of refuge; into retreats for the unfortunate; into hospitals for the sick; into orphan asylums; into houses of industry and of employment. You will die in a score of years, perhaps; but not a score of centuries need slay the institution which you have reared. Oh I what a benefaction for any man that has money, and has faith to see how it can work after he has gone, and a heart to set it to work. Being dead, he speaks, and speaks chorally. But even more important are those institutions which go before society, march ahead, as it were, and by distributing intelligence and promoting virtue, prevent suffering. Take, for instance, that single foundation, the Bampton Lectures. A New England man, dying, left a fund the income of which every year was to be devoted to paying for a course of lectures which were to vindicate the authenticity of the Scriptures and the divinity of our Lord, and the evangelical religion. From that fund there has sprung a line of lectures that constitutes one of the most noble monuments of learning and piety that has been known in any language on the globe. Could money be made to work such important results in any other way? These endowments have in them immortality on earth. This is the reason why I say that men ought not to be poor if they can be rich. We may rise to a higher grade and to a more familiar ground, therefore, since it is more frequently inculcated in the pulpit. As virtue and spirituality are higher than physical qualities; as the wealth of society lies more in the goodness of Christian institutions and Christian men than in ease, or abundance, or pleasure, so he most wisely prolongs his life to after-days who so lives as to give form and perpetuity to spiritual influences. Whoever makes the simple virtues more honourable and attractive among men, prolongs his own life. The evil of untruth I need not expound to you. He who makes truth beautiful to men in his day; he who makes men want to be true, and seek after truth, and believe in it, becomes a benefactor. So that I think one single character in Walter Scott’s novels is worth more than all the characters put together of many more fashionable novels. All who have opened the Divine nature to men; all who have developed to men higher moral truths, and made them like their daily bread; all who have lifted the life of the world up into a higher sphere--they, although dead, yet speak. They may not be spoken of; but, what is more to the point, they themselves speak, and speak the same language; and all the better, because when a man is dead the prejudices and the imperfections that fingered about him are dead too. And then his voice becomes clearer, and his testimony is more widely received. Lastly, those who have the gift of embodying moral truths and noble experiences (which are the best truths that ever dawn on the world) in verse; those who have the power to give their higher thoughts and feelings the wings of poetry--they, being dead, speak far back. We hear Homer chanting yet, and chanting the best things that men knew in his day. And the world is still willing to listen to the oldest poet. And: he who has had permission to write one genuine hymn, to send forth one noble sonnet, to sing one stately epic, may well fold his wings and his hands, and say, “Now let Thy servant depart in peace.” What are you doing? Young man, what do you propose? Will you build pyramids of stone, or will yon build pyramids of thought? He that puts his life into doing good; he that would purify men; he that would suffer for the sake of suffering men; he that puts the enginery of feeling and the power of business into the work of beneficence in this world, though he may be subject to obloquy, though he may be under a cloud, though he may lose himself, will be remembered when he is dead. The time will come when his name will shine out brighter than the morning star. (H. W. Beecher.)

Abel, the model speaker:

From what the apostle says of Abel in our text, we may consider him as the model speaker. It may seem strange to take this view of him when we do not know a single word that he ever spoke. “Actions speak louder than words.”

I. THE MATTER OF ABEL’S SPEAKING, or what he spoke about. When a person is going to make a speech, it is very important for him to choose a good subject. Abel did this. The thing to which the apostle here refers, as that by which Abel speaks to us, is the sacrifice which he offered. Abel was a model speaker because, by what he did, he spoke about Christ and His death. And this is the most important thing that any one can ever speak about.

1. This is an important subject to speak about, because we cannot be good till we know about Jesus and His death.

2. We cannot be happy till we know about Christ and His death.

3. We cannot be safe till we know about Jesus and His death.

II. Abel was a model speaker also because of the MANNER of his speaking. He spoke by his life, or actions; and there are three ways in which this made him a model speaker.

1. In the first place, it made him a plain speaker. Everybody who has heard what the Apostle Paul says about Abel’s sacrifice, understands what it meant. When he spoke by that action, Abel was speaking plainly.

2. This made him a loud speaker. He spoke so loudly by that act, that all round the world, wherever the Bible has gone, the voice of what he did has been heard. And if we wish to speak so loudly, that we may be heard for a long time and to a great distance, we must speak by our actions, by doing what God tells us to do.

3. Abel was a model speaker, because the action by which he spoke made him an effectual speaker. The action of Abel in offering his sacrifice spoke very effectually to the Apostle Paul. And nothing that Abel could have said by words about the sacrifice of Christ would have had so much effect in making people feel the importance of that sacrifice as his quiet action in standing by his altar and presenting on it the sacrifice which God had commanded to be offered. (R. Newton, D. D.)

The dead speaking

There is a double solemnity in the life that we lead. We believe we are to be judged at God’s bar for the deeds done in the body; but by those same deeds we are doomed to help or hurt all with whom we are or shall be connected here below. This is not an arbitrary decree: it is the necessary condition of human life. It is a monitory, and at the same time a cheering doctrine. One might think the joyful side of the alternative would alone suffice to make every man good and faithful. As the tree dies, but in its very decay nourishes the roots of a new forest; as the little silkworm dies, but his fine fabric does not perish; as the coral-insect dies, but his edifice breaks the angry wave that has traversed the ocean, and becomes the foundation of greenness and future harvests: so, when you die, be your place lofty or lowly, your self-sacrificing endeavours shall leave enduring riches and a moral bulwark. With what new interest does this thought clothe all the relations of human life! It speaks to you, parents. The dead speak, however brief the term of the moral career, and even though that career be closed while the moral nature still sleeps in God’s own charge. The little child, fading like a tender plant, has not wholly perished even from the earth. Though it came but to smile and die, yet has it left an influence not fleeting, but long abiding. That gentle image of innocence, that strange power of patience, shall soften your heart, and make it move with tender sympathy to the distresses of your kind, even to the end of your own days. But a peculiar power belongs to those who have been wayfarers upon earth, who have fought the battle of life, and gained the victory over temptation. They encourage me in my toils; they say to me, “Here is the end of thy griefs”; they warn me against the indulgence of my errors and sins

“Soft rebukes in blessings ended,

Breathing from their lips of air.”

What, then, are we doing, what principles cherishing, what dispositions manifesting? How shall we reappear to the contemplative eye of those who shall here outlive us? How would you return in the survivor’s memory, were you now to receive from God your summons? As a faithful father who let slip no opportunity to train up his offspring in the way of virtue, who never sacrificed the welfare of his family to his own pursuit of profit and pelf, but sought for them the treasure that is better than gold? And how would it be with you, children, were you called out of the world? You would not utterly vanish. Your parents, at least, would still behold you? Would it be with unmingled satisfaction that your reappearing images would inspire them? But the appeal is to every mortal. “No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” Place thyself in thought on the other side of the grave, and, with reverted eye, mark how it will be. From that position, dost thou look back, and see selfishness, meanness, pride, envy, lust, passion, absorbing love of the world, all from thy life working ruin according to their nature, on thy associates and fellow-men? God forbid! (C. A.Bartol.)

Posthumous influence:

Who can estimate the influence of the great departed on successive generations? Achilles, the Grecian hero, as described by Homer, is said to have formed Alexander, and Napoleon had the Macedonian conqueror ever before his mind. Julius Caesar was the hero of Wellington, and the Commentaries of that Roman general were, like the Iliad to Alexander, his constant text-book. Socrates and Plato, Aristotle and Euclid, have long held sway in the schools of the learned, and continue to form the minds of modern youth as they did those of old. Moses moulded Hebrew legislation, and David gave to his nation a character. Luther breathed his ardent spirit into the piety and church of his fatherland, and Calvin’s clear intellect and systematic thought pervaded a large portion of Christendom. The myriad-minded Shakespeare, the sententious Bacon, the translators of the Bible in their expressive Saxon, moulded English literature, while the galaxy of illustrious statesmen, warriors, and merchants of bygone days, made England what it has become. Wallace and Bruce, Knox and Melville, are the representative men of Scotland, and the fathers of their country. (S. Steel.)

Dead, yet living:

“The cedar,” says a Christian writer, “is the most useful when dead. It is the most productive when its place knows it no more. There is no timber like it. Firm in the grain, and capable of the finest polish, the tooth of no insect will touch it, and Time himself can hardly destroy it. Diffusing a perpetual fragrance through the chambers which it ceils, the worm will not corrode the book which it protects, nor the moth corrupt the garment which it guards; all but immortal itself, it transfuses its amaranthine qualities to the objects around it. Every Christian is useful in his life, but the goodly cedars are the most useful afterwards. Luther is dead, but the Reformation lives. Bunyan is dead, but his bright spirit still walks the earth in his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ Baxter is dead, but souls are quickened by the ‘Saints’ Rest.’ Elliot is dead, but the missionary spirit is young. Howard is dead, but modern philanthropy is only commencing its career. Raikes is dead, but the Sunday-schools go on.”

Infuence lost in form but not in force

The Amazon, the River Plata, Orinoco, Mississippi, Zaire, Senegal, Indus, Ganges, Yangtsee, or Irawaddy, &c., &c.
these, and such like stupendous rivers, extend their influence to a considerable distance from the coast, and occasionally perplex and delay the navigator in open sea, who finds himself struggling against a difficulty wholly unconscious of the cause. The River Plata, at a distance of six hundred miles from the mouth of the river, was found to maintain a rate of a mile an hour; and the Amazon, at three hundred miles from the entrance, was found running nearly three miles per hour, its original direction being but little altered, and its water nearly fresh. We are reminded by this of other influences which also lose their form, but not their force. Though the man dies, his influence still lives. He no longer acts upon the world in the capacity of public speaker, writer or statesman, but his influence has gone forth and joined the great ocean of thought. The sect or party changes its form and loses its individuality, but its influence has gone forth and is felt in the current of opinion. All the separate and distinct influences of men and sects become universalised in the great sea of eternity. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

The ministry of the dead to the living:

When, says Louis Figuier, the leaves have performed their functions, when the fruits have appeared, matured, ripened, vegetation has entered into a new phase; the leaves lose their brilliant green and assume their autumnal tint. A certain air of sadness pervades these ornaments of our fields which proclaims their approaching dissolution. The leaves, withered and deformed, will soon cumber the ground to be blown hither and thither by the wind. But when separated from the vegetable which has given birth to and matured them, they are not lost to the earth which receives them. Everything in nature has its use, and leaves have their uses also in the continuous circle of vegetable reproduction. The leaves which strewed the ground at the foot of the trees, or which have been disseminated by the autumn winds over the country, perish slowly upon the soil, where they are transformed into the humus, or vegetable moulds, indispensable to the life of plants. Thus the debris of vegetable purposes for the coming and formation of a new vegetation. Death prepares for new life; the first and the last give their hands, so to speak, in vegetable nature, and form the mysterious circle of organic life which has neither beginning nor end. When man has performed his functions here and ended his labours, he too fades like the leaf, and is borne away by the cold breeze of death. But like the leaf in death, so man, though dead, ministers to the living. He has not merely consumed so much of the productions of the earth, leaving nothing in return. He has left behind him his thoughts, his act, his example, his experiences, written or unwritten, and these will all perform their valuable ministration to the living, as do those leaves of autumn to the younger life which grows over their graves. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols)

Dead, yet speaking:

About the middle of the seventeenth century, the venerable John Flavel was settled at Dartmouth, where his labours were greatly blessed. On one occasion he preached from these words: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha.” The discourse was unusually solemn. At the conclusion of the service, when Mr. Flavel arose to pronounce the benediction, he paused, and said, “How shall I bless this whole assembly, when every person in it who loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ is anathema, maranatha?” The solemnity of this address deeply affected the audience, and one gentleman, a person of rank, was so much overcome by his feelings, that he fell senseless to the floor. In the congregation was a lad named Luke Short, then about fifteen years old, a native of Dartmouth, who, shortly after the event just narrated, entered into the seafaring line, and sailed to America, where he passed the rest of his life. Mr. Short’s life was lengthened much beyond the usual term; and when a hundred years old, he had sufficient strength to work on his farm, and his mental faculties were very little impaired. Hitherto he had lived in carelessness and sin; he was now a “sinner a hundred years old,” and apparently ready to “die accursed.” But one day, as he sat in his field, he busied himself in reflecting on his past life. Recurring to the events of his youth, his memory fixed upon Mr. Flavel’s discourse, already alluded to, a considerable part of which he was able to recollect. The affectionate earnestness of the preacher’s manner, the important truths which he delivered, and the effects produced on the congregation, were brought fresh to his mind. The blessing of God accompanied his meditations; he felt that he had not “loved the Lord Jesus Christ”; he feared the dreadful “anethema”; conviction was followed by repentance, and at length this aged sinner obtained peace through the blood of Christ, and was found “in the way of righteousness.” He joined the Congregational church in Middleborough, and till the period of his death, which took place in his one hundred and sixteenth year, he gave pleasing evidence of true piety. (K. Arvine.)

Posthumous influence:

Da Vinci’s famous painting of “The Lord’s Supper,” originally adorning the dining-room of a convent, has suffered such destruction from the ravages of time, war, and abuse, that none of its original beauty remains. Yet it has been copied and engraved; and impressions of the great picture have been multiplied through all civilised lands. Behold a parable of posthumous influence. (New Cyclopaedia of Illustrations.)

Posthumous influence:

Some stars are so distant that their beams may have occupied thousands of years in journeying to the earth, and yet these bodies, if suddenly annihilated, would still continue to shine upon us for thousands of years to come. So, too, there are great men whose existence has long since terminated, but the influence of whose spirit still irradiates our world. Milton, Shakespeare, and Christ, though gone from our sphere, still shine upon it as spiritual stars of the first magnitude. (Scientific Illustrations and Symbols.)

Influence seen after many days:

Between the sowing and the reaping there may be a long interval. The hand that gave either the rich man’s abundance or the poor widow’s farthing for the spread of the gospel, and the lip that either falteringly or eloquently spoke for Christ, may lie cold in the grave; but the good seed sowed in God’s husbandry shall yet yield a glorious harvest. I have seen a little four-paged tract, written half a century ago, that recently found its way into a heathen hamlet, and converted a whole household. There lives on yonder Pacific coast a faithful follower of Jesus whose youthful waywardness brought down a parent’s grey head in sorrow to the grave. But the while her weeping words of prayer had buried themselves deep in the boy’s bosom; and when they told him of her death it was as if a spirit had come back from eternity to glide through his chambers of imagery, breathing again her tender words, and looking on him with her eyes of weeping love--and the strong man was a child again, a child of grace--yea, a child of glory. (C. Wadsworth.)

The after-glow of life:

When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind much of himself. Being dead he speaks. (H. W. Beecher.)

Enoch was translated.

Enoch:

I. A CAREER DISTINGUISHED FOR ITS GODLINESS. “Walked with God.” His life was an embodiment of the Divine.

1. Devoted to God.

(1) Intimately acquainted with God.

(2) In constant fellowship with God.

(3) Full of confidence in God.

(4) Engaged in active service for God.

2. Satisfactory to God.

3. Commended by God.

II. A CAREER REMARKABLE IN ITS TERMINATION. “Translated.”

1. Exempted from the great trial of life. He was too full of the living God to die.

(1) A special honour for his extraordinary holiness.

(2) An intimation how all might have been taken out of the world, had there been no sin.

(3) A prophecy of victory over death for all the good at the resurrection.

2. Removed from the world in a unique manner.

(1) Pleasant.

(2) Mysterious.

(3) Final.

(4) Suggestive. Proving

(a) That there is a future state.

(b) That the body and soul exist hereafter.

(c) That the departed good dwell with God for ever. (B. D. Johns.)

Enoch, one of the world’s great teachers

1. It is strange that so little is said about Enoch.

2. The comparative shortness of his stay upon earth.

3. The manifest singularity of the life he lived.

I. HE TAUGHT THE WORLD BY HIS LIFE.

1. He walked with God. This implies

(1) An abiding consciousness of the Divine presence.

(2) Cordial fellowship.

(3) Spiritual progress.

2. He pleased God. As the loadstar seems to beam more brilliantly in the firmament the darker grow the clouds that float about it, so Enoch’s life must have been a luminous power in his age of black depravity.

II. HE TAUGHT THE WORLD BY HIS TRANSLATION

1. That death is not a necessity of human nature.

2. That there is a sphere of human existence beyond this.

3. That there is a God in the universe who approves of goodness.

4. That the mastering of sin is the way to a grand destiny.

III. HE TAUGHT THE WORLD BY HIS PREACHING.

1. The advent of the Judge.

2. The gathering of the saints.

3. The conviction of sinners. (Homilist.)

Faith the secret of holy life and triumphant death

I. THE FAITH BY WHICH THIS HOLY LIFE WAS MAINTAINED.

1. It was a belief in the nature of God. Enoch believed Him to be real, with a belief which reverenced, obeyed, trusted, loved Him.

2. It was also a belief in God’s gifts to all who seek them.

II. THE HOLY LIFE WHICH RESULTED FROM THIS FAITH.

1. Faith led him to please God.

2. This pleasing God was accompanied with the testimony that he pleased Him.

3. This testimony enabled him to walk with God.

III. THE TRIUMPHANT DEATH WHICH RESULTED FROM THIS HOLY LIFE.

1. This death is promised to faith.

2. It is the natural consequence of a holy life.

3. It is assured by the Divine love to those who please God. (C. New.)

God’s testimony to the faith of Enoch:

I. By WHAT AGENCY THIS STATE OF EXISTENCE IS SECURED. It must always be regarded as of the first consequence to ascertain the sources of human characters and human habits, and to what supports they are indebted for their permanence. For many purposes it is important to ascertain and to acquire information with respect to what we may call the secondary virtues of man--that is, those virtues which do not affect his relation towards God; but infinitely more important respecting those dispositions of mind which tend towards futurity. It is, then, above all things important to know how men are led to please God.

1. And here, it must be observed, that men never attain to the state of existence which is now to be described, whilst they are left to the ordinary operation of their own faculties, and governed by the ordinary impulses of their own passions and desires. While men remain in their original condition, under the government of the primitive tendencies of their nature, they are in fact the uniform and positive objects of Divine disapprobation.

2. This fact having been established, we are prepared to advert to a corresponding fact, which may also be scripturally established, namely, that men are brought into a state of existence that is pleasing to God, they are placed in it, and continued in it, solely and entirely by the exertion of the power of the Spirit of God Himself.

II. BY WHAT CHARACTERISTICS THIS STATE OF EXISTENCE IS DISTINGUISHED.

1. It comprehends faith in the Divine testimony. Faith has a peculiar connection with the approbation of God, in consequence of its being the ordained means of imputing to man the merit of a justifying righteousness, that in itself is sufficient to secure his final acceptance as the Judge of the universe.

2. This state of existence also comprehends obedience to the Divine commandments. It cannot be justly questioned by any one that the pleasure of God in man is connected with the conformity of man in heart and in life to the laws of God. The Being who, by the necessity of His moral nature, abhors iniquity, by the same necessity of His moral nature must delight in holiness. But one thing must be remarked by the way of caution. God is not pleased with men’s holiness because there is anything of original or independent merit in it; He is pleased with it because He contemplates in it His own work; just as He was pleased when, after the Creation, He is said to have looked on it, and pronounced that it was all “very good”: He is pleased with it, because it sheds His own lustre, and reflects back the beauty of His own perfections: He is pleased with it, because it advances the revenue of His glory, because it secures the happiness of those in whom it dwells.

3. This state of existence comprehends gratitude for the Divine goodness. The offering of praise by believing men to God cannot but be pleasing in His sight; it is so with the gratitude which is offered in heaven, and At cannot but be so with the gratitude offered on earth.

III. BY WHAT ADVANTAGES THIS STATE OF EXISTENCE IS COMMENDED.

1. Those who exist in a state that is pleasing to God are privileged with near and intimate communion with God.

2. Those who exist in this state possess also the consolations and supports of God in all times of difficulty and of danger.

3. Those who exist in the state which is now described have the security of eternal and perfect happiness in heaven. Pleasing God has an especial connection with the joy of God. (J. Parsons.)

Enoch’s translation

I. THAT THE END AND THE GREAT PRIVILEGE OF FAITH IS TO BE “TRANSLATED OUT OF THE WORLD INTO THE HAPPINESS OF THE ETERNAL STATE.

1. I shall prove the point by Scripture: “Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:9). Heaven is there proposed as the chief reward of faith; all that we do, all that we suffer, all that we believe, it is with an aim at the hope of the salvation of our souls. The last article of our creed is everlasting life.

2. I shall by a few reasons prove the interest of believers in eternal life, and why faith gives a title to glory.

(1) Because by faith we are made sons; all our right and title is by adoption. Children may expect a child’s portion.

(2) These are the terms of the eternal covenant between God and Christ, that believers should have a right to heaven by Christ’s death; therefore, whenever the Father’s love and Christ’s purchase are mentioned, faith is the solemn condition.

(3) Because faith is the mother of obedience, which is the way to eternal life; faith gives a title, and works give an evidence.

(4) By faith that life is begun which shall only be consummated and perfected in glory. The life of glory and the life of grace are the same in substance, but not in degree. Here faith takes Christ, and then life is begun, though in glory it is perfected (1 John 5:12).

Use 1. To press you to get faith upon this ground and motive, it will give you an interest in heaven.

Use 2. It serves to direct you how to exercise and act faith in order to the everlasting state. Five duties believers must perform.

(1) The first work and foundation of all is to accept of Christ in the offers of the gospel; there is the foundation of a glorious estate.

(2) It directs you to exercise your faith to believe the promise of heaven which God hath made.

(3) Get your own title confirmed; lay claim to your inheritance.

(4) Let us often renew our hopes by serious and distinct thoughts. This is the way to anticipate heaven, by musing upon it (Hebrews 11:1).

(5) Another work of faith is earnestly to desire and long after the full accomplishment of glory. Faith bewrayeth itself by desires as well as thoughts. All things hasten to their centre.

Use 3. To exalt the mercy of God to believers; once sinners, and by grace made believers. Observe the wonderful love and grace of God in three steps

(1) That He hath provided such an estate for believers. What a miracle of mercy is this that God should think of taking poor despicable dust and ashes, and planting them in the upper paradise, that they should be carried into heaven and made companions of the angels.

(2) That this state is provided freely, and upon such gracious terms.

(3) That God should send up and down the world to offer this salvation to men.

Use 4. Comfort to God’s children against wants, and against troubles and persecutions, and against death itself.

II. THOSE THAT WOULD LIVE WITH GOD HEREAFTER MUST LEARN TO PLEASE GOD ERE THEY DEPART HENCE.

1. What it is to please God. It implies both coming to God, and walking with God.

2. The necessity of pleasing God.

(1) Because this is the means and condition without which we shall never come to enjoy God; it is the way to fit the sons of God for glory, though not the cause of glory (Hebrews 12:14).

(2) There is a necessity of it by way of sign, and as a pledge of our living with God hereafter--“Before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

(3) It is necessary by way of preparation. Those that walk with God are meet to live with God; they change their place, but not their company; here they walk with God, and there they live with Him for ever.

3. The necessity of pleasing God in the present life--“For before his translation,” it is said, “he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” There is a time for all things, and the time of pleasing God is in the present life.

(1) Because this is the time of grace. Here we are invited to walk with God: now we have the means, then we have the recompenses; here Christ Matthew 11:28).

(2) This is the time of our exercise and trial.

4. The sooner we begin the better.

(1) Because you make a necessary work sure, and put it out of doubt and hazard. The time of this life is uncertain (James 4:14).

(2) In point of obedience, God presseth to “now.” God doth not only command us to please Him, but to do it presently (Hebrews 3:7-8). It were just with God, if you refuse Him, never to call you more.

(3) In point of ingenuity. We receive a plenteous recompense for a small service. When a man thinketh what God hath provided for them that love Him and serve Him, he should be ashamed that he should receive so much and do so little; and therefore he should redeem all the time that he can, that he may answer his expectations from God.

(4) It is our advantage to begin betimes, both here and hereafter.

(a) Here. The sooner you begin to please God, the sooner you have an evidence of your interest in His favour, more experience of His love, more hopes of being with Him in heaven; and these are not slight things.

(b) The sooner you begin with God, the greater will your glory be hereafter; for the more we improve our talents here, the greater will be our reward in heaven (Luke 19:16-19).

Use 1. If there be such a necessity of pleasing God, and giving up ourselves to the severities of religion, then it serves for reproof of divers sorts of persons; as

(1) Those that, though they live as they list, as if they were sent into the world for no other purpose but to gratify their carnal desires, yet lay as bold a claim and title to heaven as the best; they doubt not but glory belongs to them, though they cannot make good their title.

(2) It reproves them that think that every slight profession of the name of God will serve the turn; no, you must walk with God and please God.

(3) It reproves those that would please God, but with a limitation and reservation so far as they may not displease men or displease the flesh.

(4) It reproves those that adjourn and put off the work of religion from time to time, till they have lost all time; that use to put off God to the troubles of sickness or the aches of old age.

Use 2. If there be no hope of living with God without pleasing God, oh, then make it the aim and scope of your lives to please the Lord!

(1) Look to the commandments as your rule (Micah 6:8).

(2) Let the promises of God be your encouragement.

(3) You should make the glory of God your chiefest end, or you will be very irregular, and cannot keep pace with God in a constant course of duty. Look, as a man that hath a nail in his foot may walk in soft ground, but when he comes to hard ground he is soon turned out of the way, so when a man hath a perverse aim, he will soon be discouraged with the inconveniences that will trouble him in religion. The spiritual life is called “ a living to God” (Galatians 2:19). The end must be right, otherwise the conversation will be but a vain pretence, that will please men but not God Proverbs 16:2). (T. Manton, D. D.)

Faith exceptionally rewarded

I. WHATEVER BE THE OUTWARD DIFFERENT EVENTS OF FAITH IN BELIEVERS IN THIS WORLD, THEY ARE ALL ALIKE ACCEPTED WITH GOD, approved by Him, and shall all equally enjoy the eternal inheritance.

II. GOD CAN AND DOTH PUT A GREAT DIFFERENCE AS UNTO OUTWARD THINGS, BETWEEN SUCH AS ARE EQUALLY ACCEPTED BEFORE HIM. Abel shall die, and Enoch shall be taken alive into heaven.

III. THERE IS NO SUCH ACCEPTABLE SERVICE UNTO GOD, NONE THAT HE HATH SET SUCH SIGNAL PLEDGES OF HIS FAVOUR UPON, AS ZEALOUSLY TO CONTEND AGAINST THE WORLD IN GIVING WITNESS TO HIS WAYS, HIS WORSHIP, AND HIS KINGDOM, OR THE RULE OF CHRIST OVER ALL.

IV. IT IS A PART OF OUR TESTIMONY TO DECLARE AND WITNESS THAT VENGEANCE IS PREPARED FOR UNGODLY PERSECUTORS and all sorts of impenitent sinners, however they are and may be provoked thereby.

V. The principal part of this testimony CONSISTS IN OUR OWN PERSONAL OBEDIENCE, OR VISIBLE WALKING WITH GOD IN HOLY OBEDIENCE, according to the tenor of the covenant (2 Peter 3:11; 2 Peter 3:14).

VI. As it is an effect of the wisdom of God to dispose the works of His providence, and the accomplishment of His promises, according to an ordinary established rule declared in His Word, which is the only guide of faith; so SOMETIMES IT PLEASES HIM TO GIVE EXTRAORDINARY INSTANCES IN EACH KIND, BOTH IN A WAY OF JUDGMENT AND IN A WAY OF GRACE AND FAVOUR. Of the latter sort was the taking of Enoch into heaven; and of the former was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire from heaven. Such extraordinary acts, either the wicked security of the world, or the edification of the Church, do sometimes make necessary.

VII. FAITH IN GOD THROUGH CHRIST HATH AN EFFICACY IN THE PROCURING OF SUCH GRACE, MERCY, AND FAVOUR IN PARTICULAR, AS IT HATH NO GROUND IN PARTICULAR TO BELIEVE. Enoch was translated by faith; yet did not Enoch believe he should be translated, until he had a particular revelation of it. So there are many particular mercies which faith hath no word of promise to mix itself withal, as unto their actual communication unto us; but yet keeping itself within its bounds of reliance on God, and acting by patience and prayer, it may be, and is, instrumental in the procurement of them.

VIII. THEY MUST WALK WITH GOD HERE WHO DESIGN TO LIVE WITH HIM HEREAFTER; or they must please God in this world who would be blessed with Him in another.

IX. THAT FAITH WHICH CAN TRANSLATE A MAN OUT OF THIS WOULD, CARRY HIM THROUGH THE DIFFICULTIES WHICH HE MAY MEET WITHAL, IN THE PROFESSION OR FAITH AND OBEDIENCE IN THIS WORLD. Herein lies the apostle’s argument. And this latter the Lord Jesus Christ hath determined to be the lot and portion of His disciples. So He testifies (John 17:15). (John Owen, D. D.)

The translation of Enoch:

After the testimony borne to the life of Enoch, his translation scarcely surprises us. We almost look for some such apotheosis of his exalted virtues. Already he has more of the celestial than the earthly in his character; and is more fit to be the companion of angels than to associate with an apostate race. Even the outer nature has experienced the transforming influence of a long course of faith and devotion. Refined and purified beyond the ordinary state of a mortal body, we can conceive of it as fitly entering on immortality without undergoing the purification which death effects. Through a less trying ordeal it may soar to its place among the sons of God; and our moral sense is not shocked when such a superhuman reward is granted to one possessed of such superhuman excellence. Heaven must attract towards itself that which so much resembles itself. And what if the attraction be so strong, that the process of dying and the long waiting for the resurrection be dispensed with, and Heaven at once takes to itself that which is so manifestly its own? Although permitted to enter heaven by a path different from that which ordinary mortals tread, his body would no doubt undergo the change necessary to fit it for the kingdom into which flesh and blood cannot enter--a change in all probability similar to that which takes place in the bodiesof the saints who are alive at the coming of the Lord. We have no account of how or where Enoch’s translation took place. Perhaps it was promised before as the reward of his holiness, and that his faith in the promise might sustain him under his trials. In that case it would be a long-expected, much desired event. Or, perhaps, it was unexpected, and he was ignorant of what was taking place until the glories of heaven burst upon his view. But the conjecture most pleasing to us is that it was while he was entranced in devotion. When his soul left the world for awhile and soared upward to hold intercourse with God, when loth to disturb the vision and return to battle with the cares, and to be pained with the wickedness of the world, his body rises too, caught up by an invisible power, changing as it ascends, until it becomes pure as the home to which it hastens. Whether it came thus, or otherwise, is of small consequence. Come when and how it might, the transition must have been unspeakably glorious. His translation must have been designed to serve some important purposes. To him it was at once a dispensation of mercy and a mark of honour. A dispensation of mercy, because it severed him from the scenes of wickedness, which had vexed his righteous soul. God took him: properly, took him away. Away from the society of ungodly men, from their taunts and persecutions. Away from the wickedness over which he mourned. Away from the privations of this wilderness state. Away from the many ills to which flesh is heir, and the peculiar troubles which afflict the just. God had tested the fidelity of His servant. He took him away to be with Himself, and the weary one had rest. A mark of honour--for had not God sought to honour him, He might have removed him from all occasions of suffering in the ordinary way. To his neighbours his translation was a testimony to the truth of his prophecy. That prophecy (Jude 1:14-15) was addressed, without doubt, to the ungodly men of his own generation, and predicted the punishment which awaited them because of their ungodliness. And when even this terrible prediction failed to check them in their downward career, how fitted was his translation to make them pause and consider. From the apostle’s words “he was not found,” we suppose that the event was known, as if he had been missed by the men of his neigh-bourhood from his accustomed haunts. Doubtless there were eye-witnesses of the event, by whom the manner of his removal would be made public. And thus his absence would be a standing testimony to the truth of his prediction. Most forcibly would it say--Death is not the end of man; for Enoch, though not dead, has departed. As regards ourselves it is fitted most powerfully to commend to us the principle which produced in him such remarkable results. His character was a noble testimony to the power of faith; but his translation shows more impressively what wonders faith can achieve. See in this mighty work the evidence and illustration of the truth that all things are possible to him that believeth. And remember that a faith like Enoch’s can only be acquired through fellowship with God. While there must be faith in order to fellowship, fellowship fosters and strengthens faith. (W. Landels, D. D.)

The translation of Enoch

Did you ever witness the transit of a planet across the disc of the sun? Ah! but the transit of a soul from truth to truth, by what glass shall we notice that? By what glass shall we tell how the mind marches in its orb--how the spirit advances in its sphere? By what chronology shall we estimate the translation of the soul? But here we have that wonderful fact in the history of man--the history of a soul’s translation. On this world God will never allow His children to be found longer than they can be useful, either for His glory or their own growth. Even on earth, amidst all the blunders of our most imperfect sociology, what the man is after his translation, is, in more sensible circles, to be inferred from what he was before. There is a young man in my chapel who, to-morrow, will vacate an old inferior seat, held for many years at his desk, and mount to that envied and coveted place--first in the office; second only to that confidential post in the second room. Yesterday, in the office of the principal of the firm, his vigilance, his conscientiousness, his disposition, were all subjects of praise; and before this translation he has had this testimony--that he has pleased his employer. Among the long dun wolds of Kent there was great and unusual merry-making, on the farm of Henry Gibbons, this Christmas; for, although he was leaving his farm of one hundred and fifty acres, he was going to one of five hundred acres. To him, six months since, said his landlord, “Henry, you know at Christmas the farm of Beechy Hollow will be vacant, and I love that farm. I was born and brought up there, and I must have somebody there I can trust. Now, that farm you shall have, for I can trust you.” Thus in all the translations that are exemplary on earth, and which are removed from the influences of corruption and error, in every state of the advance the progressive spirit has this testimony--that he has pleased before his translation. What right have we to expect a higher rank before we have filled our present duty? You covet more. You have, I assure you, as much honour as you can bear. You have as many duties as you can fulfil. Believe me, there is an exact relation between your power of profitable possession and your power of expenditure. “He had this testimony, that he pleased God.” It was the testimony of faith. “By faith Enoch was translated.” In the scale of greatness, by which we rise to please God, the first place is assigned to faith, because it interprets the life; amidst abounding iniquity and hardness of heart, he yielded himself to God, to God’s pleasure and will. “He pleased God.” He walked with God. By this sublime phrase, I believe something more is intended than we can understand. Amidst the sublime scenes of those primeval woods and vales, what secret communings he held! There were then few illustrious progenitors: kings, statesmen, seers, and poets--he could not walk with those; he could only walk with God, With him now, the simple, poor man, to whom the Bible unfolds its treasures and prayer its armoury, and meditation its sacred refectory, and paradise its distant gleaming palace--with him may this man compare. Like Enoch, he walks alone with God in his simplicity and holy dignity. “He pleased God”--he was a preacher of righteousness, and part of his sermon has come down even to our own age. Very dreadful are the words of a man who comes from intimate fellowship with Divine holiness, to pour his pathos and his pity and his indignation over a lost world. Like Jonathan Edwards, a soul--a pity--a heart of holiness--a hermit existence--and a speech of fire. And then God took him--after three hundred and sixty-five years had been given to him, God took him; to show to the ungodly world that he was not limited to the ordinary operations of the laws of Nature, and to proclaim to the race of giants, the children of Cain, His authentication of His servant’s life--He translated him. (E. P. Hood.)

Walking up to our ascension

There may be a little difficulty in seeing how the “translation,” or “ascension” of Enoch, was the result of Enoch’s “faith.” Did he believe in an “ascension”? and was it given to his trust and expectation of that very thing? Where did he learn it? Yet, “by faith Enoch was translated.” We must enlarge the question. It is not always necessary, in order to secure a blessing, that we have “a faith” in that particular gift. No doubt a special “ faith,” in a special thing, is often given and sometimes required. But “faith” goes to a certain level, while God goes far beyond the level of the “ faith.” And it is a comfort to know that a general trust in God commands and secures individual mercies. You east yourself universally upon God’s faithfulness: and, beyond a doubt, God will fill in the details, which you never thought of, and which details He sees that you want. And death is a solemn thing. Death may be bitter, even to a child of God! Else, it would not have been said, as a part of the mercy, to Enoch, that he was ,, translated that he should not see death.” Nor would it be made the running over of the cup of Jesus’s sorrow, that “He tasted death for every man.” Nevertheless, if it please my heavenly Father to order otherwise, and that I should pass through my grave and gate of death to my body, it will be all well! There is no danger! there is nothing to fear! no real solitude! but only just enough to draw out my Saviour’s love! It very little matters whence I ascend, or how: I only care for the whither. But “who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” Pray for the gift of the “faith” in your ascension. See the degrees of “faith” as they are laid out in the opening of this chapter of “faith’s” triumphs. The understanding “faith” in the Omnipotence of creation (Hebrews 11:3). Then the justifying “faith” in sacrifice (Hebrews 11:4). And then, in the third degree, translating “ faith”--the faith of glory (Hebrews 11:5). “Walk” the walk of faith higher and higher--above the things that are seen. “Walk,” as Enoch walked--“walk,” as Elijah walked--“walk,” as Jesus walked--“walk” up to your ascension! (J. Vaughan, M. A.)

Enoch opposing the current opinions of the day:

The mare and grand distraction between the child of God and the servant of sin is, that the one lives by faith and the other by sight.

1. A man is sometimes dishonest because the object which he sees engrosses his attention beyond the fear of punishment, which is a matter of faith; and he defrauds or steals. Again, in their judgments men of sin act by sight, not by faith, though men who do these things are compelled sometimes to declare them wrong, and to pronounce a judgment against their actions. They settle those things to be sins which appear to do the most immediate harm, and those to be less sins, or none at all, which do not cause so much immediate perceptible harm. Again, in their religion men of sin act on sight, and men of God on faith. See the worldly man in his religion, as he calls it. It is all the sight parts of religion, none of the faith parts.

(1) They come to church, that is something to be felt. There is the doing something that worse people do not do; therefore they hope by the irksomeness of the act to clear away some sins; they can realise the religion of that.

(2) They read the Bible sometimes; there is a little trouble in that, and it is something they can lay hold of.

(3) They give money in aims; this is something seen and felt; they are doing something more than others.

(4) They speak respectfully of the Church of the land and the ministers of the Church, because there is something easy in it, and by doing so they throw a garb of devotion over themselves, which they see many others have not got. So much is their religion, and here it ends. Men of sin act on sight, not on faith; they are only religious when they see and feel the good of it. Now turn to the religious man influenced by faith.

1. He judges sin by the law of God; he knows coveting is as bad as stealing, because it leads to it; and he knows God condemns the evil thought as well as the evil action.

2. In his duties he acts on faith. He foregoes the indulgence of angry passion, remembering the greater happiness and peace of a loving spirit and the favour of the Saviour who has declared the peacemaker blessed.

3. Above all, in his religion behold the man of faith. What he does is not to be seen of men, but of his Father in heaven, who shall reward him openly.

1 Thessalonians 1:11 Thessalonians 1:11th chapter of Hebrews is, as it were, a bright roll, unfolding to us the men who, in days gone by, have lived by faith and not by sight; they shine like fixed stars in the dark expanse of human life. Let us contemplate the character of Enoch, as showing forth a character influenced by faith, and behold in him another fruit of faith.

1. It seems to mean he knew God, had a just knowledge of God.

2. But it seems to mean, too, that he was intimate and familiar with God.

3. And again, “he pleased God.” His religion was not only feeling, taken up to-day, put down to-morrow; his religion influenced his practice, altered his conduct, helped him to stand forth the bold supporter of truth in the midst of a wicked generation. Such was his character. Now how was this the result of faith? This character, through a coming Saviour, procured for him translation to glory. He lived above the present world, and apart from the present people, by faith; that is, the tastes, the conversation, the occupation of all around would naturally have made his mind the same with theirs, had it not been for the exercise of the principle of faith. This was Enoch’s character, and this is the way it was affected by faith. Now let us apply this to ourselves. The fruit or working of faith, which Enoch’s character shows, consists in living separate from the opinions and practices of the day we live in, and protesting against the errors of that day by word or example; and this by faith.

But, in matters of practice, there are false opinions about in the world, which are against God’s revealed Word, and which consequently are to be rebuked and opposed by the man of faith.

1. Men tell us all devotion is enthusiasm. If a man spend much time in prayer; if a man give up the world’s society; if he be cheerful under affliction; if he have his happiness fixed in another world, not this, the world calls him an enthusiast pursuing a phantom, a dreamer, wholly mistaken as to what religion is, not a soberminded man. Now what does the man of faith answer? what does Enoch answer to the false report of an undiscriminating world? Behold the man of faith. He reads such passages as these, “He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”

2. But again, it is a prevailing error of the day that men need not give up the world; that the doing so is gloomy, melancholy and unnecessary. The man who is directed by faith, whose eye is looking for the unseen hereafter, who is not dazzled by the lamps of present pleasure and excitement, answers the erroneous opinion of the world by an appeal to the Bible.

(1) He may demand, What is the world, and what does the Bible mean by the world, if the utmost excess of gaiety--gaiety dissipating devotion, gaiety and pleasure inviting the support of infamous characters, gaiety ruining the health and wasting the time, company where God is never mentioned, where religion is never introduced, and where its introduction would be misplaced--if this is not the world, what is?

(2) He may show that the Bible plainly declares that “the friendship of the world is enmity with God”; “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

(3) He may show that while such pleasure and such society is given up, we need not be gloomy; far, very far from it. Thus the man influenced by faith may answer and refute, like Enoch, the current opinions of the day, that the world need not be given up, and that those who withdraw from it are morose and gloomy. (E. Monro.)

The man that is missed when he is gone:

The suggestion is very beautiful as to the way in which he was wanted and missed when he was gone. It seems to point to some scene, veiled in one of God’s august silences, when Methuselah and the other sons and daughters found the tent or the chamber empty, sought the saintly father everywhere and found him not--found not even the body--could but infer, till God inspired and wrote it down, that which had happened--namely, that the life was so full of God, the walk with God so close and so intimate, the sight of God by faith so constant and so intuitive, that it had pleased the Divine Companion to “make a new thing in the earth,” to “send down a hand from above” and deliver His servant “out of the waters” of time, from the surrounding of the “strange children” of an “untoward generation,” and to carry him by a short and direct passage to the land of an everlasting rest and peace. We who know what one righteous man may be, in a house or in a city--how dear to his own, how necessary to a wider circle, whose counsellor, whose oracle, probity and wisdom and piety have made him--can faintly picture that sorrowful morning, when “Enoch was not found, because God had translated him; “ when the life of that household, that neighbourhood, that country, must henceforth be lived without him--without his help, without his example, without his sympathy, without his prayers. I know not that we ought to desire to be missed when we are gone; but I know that, whether desiring this or no, we ought all so to live as that we shall be wanted when we are “not found.” There is no replacing, on earth, of the really missed one. That house, that town, that Church must learn to do without him. If the loss really leads any one to inquire into the secret of it--to ask why he was so much to others and to his own--to discover the royal road, which honest prayer is, into the sanctuary which he frequented, and into the companionship which was his strength; then the life, and the “translation,” will together have explained the mystery of the Divine purpose in ordaining both. (Dean Vaughan.)

Enoch:

He changed his place, but not his company, for he still walked with God, as in earth, so in heaven. (J. Trapp.)

Enoch’s translation:

Referring to the translation of Enoch, Rev. J. Chalmers, M.A., spoke of the two ways by which men have been taken from this world: the one, “the golden bridge “ of translation, which only a few have been privileged to cross: the other, the” dark tunnel” of death, by which way the majority have had to go. But whether by the one way or the other, all who walked with God reach their glorious end--are with God. (King’s Highway.)

He pleased God

He pleased God

I. THE NECESSITY FOR PLEASING GOD. There is a God to please--a living God, who takes a continual interest in all human things; who thinks, feels, loves, and is grieved; and whose great endeavour, by all this complicated world-work that He carries on, is to educate human spirits, that they may, like Him, hate the wrong and love the right, and do it. There is a God who is pleased always when the least cause for pleasure is presented to Him. Just as we are glad when a child succeeds in a lesson; when a boy takes a prize; when a young man does some difficult work in a noble way; when a girl is like her mother in goodness; so God is glad when His children do well. All this shows, surely, that there is a necessity for pleasing God; that no man can be right, safe, happy, who does not aim to do this; and, in a measure, succeed in doing it. If God is not pleased with us, we cannot be right. Some say that the attempt to please God is an inferior aim, and that the real end we ought to keep in view is, to be right in everything. Let a man try to be right without any regard to God, and how far will he go? How do we know fully and clearly what is right without God’s gracious information? A little we know by our native moral sense, but for the perfect ideal of goodness we are indebted solely to Him. Therefore we must try to please Him. God, being God, is an infinite, absolute, all-perfect Being; holding in Himself all principles, all relations, all truth, order, and beauty; to please Him must, in the very nature of the case, be to do right.

II. NOW, as to THE METHOD of this; of course I do not pretend to give a full description of the method. That would be to describe the whole Christian life; for all duty, service, and suffering are with a good man parts of the one grand endeavour to please God. But I will say this, that it is not difficult to please God if only we take the right way of it. He is not a hard master. I believe we have no idea how simple, how natural, how human-like in the best sense is the joy of God in the obedience of His children. We have only to attain a simple, purified sincerity as to the motive, and then put a glow into the action, when God, beholding, will say, “It is well.” “I am pleased; pleased with the action--with the worker--above all, because I can now give the reward.” But we shall suppose the case of one who has not yet pleased God at all. How must he begin to do Song of Solomon 7:1-13 I should say that to him the first feeling, if he is now wishing to do the will of God, would be a feeling of regret that he has not done it, a feeling of unfeigned sorrow; in other words, repentance. Then faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as representing the will of the Father, as communicating the Father’s grace, as crucified for our offences, and raised again for our justification. He is the propitiation for our sins, and the rectifier of our lives, and the guide of our steps, Redeemer from sin, and death, and hell. Then, after repentance and faith, there comes the whole process of practical obedience, filial and loving. When the yoke is taken in this spirit, it is easy; when the burden is lifted so, it is light. And life then is simple. It is but to “ walk with God” and “please” Him so. It is but to see Him where He is; to hear Him when He speaks; but to serve and enjoy Him with a loving heart. That God will be pleased with such a course is just as certain as that a good father or mother will approve a loving obedience in a child. Just as certain as it is that God loves order and beauty, and goodness and truth.

III. THE RESULTS of doing this will be manifold, and very good.

1. We shall in this way please ourselves as we never can do in any other. It is well when a man brings himself up to the bar of his better self. There is something of God in a good man; the enlightened conscience is the echo of the Divine authority and will. A noble ideal is surely to be cherished, a generous purpose is to be held fast, and the soul is to be encouraged in doing this in every possible way. Now there is no way so direct and sufficient as the way of pleasing God; by a loving obedience to Him we reach and please and satisfy our better self.

2. Then, further, if we please God, we shall ourselves have pleasure in life and the world. He can make our enemies to be at peace with us, and He will, if we please Him. In the world we are to have tribulation, and yet we may be of good cheer, for we are victors.

3. Finally, come what may in this life, that always is sure. “He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” He is the great rewarder even in this life.

Do but a little service heartily to Him, and He will come to you with His rewarding love. You cry in wonder of so much munificence, “My cup runneth over.” All this will God give into your bosom and pour about your life, even here and now. Then what will He do hereafter to those who love and please Him? Earth does not hold the secret. It is “reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” (A. Raleigh, D. D.)

The duty of pleasing God

I. If we ask WHOM WE ARE TO PLEASE, reason, uninstructed by revelation or experience, would immediately say ourselves, or if reason did not say so, feeling would. We accordingly find that man, as soon as he begins to act, acts solely with a view to his own gratification. It would never enter his mind to act otherwise were he left alone. But then none of us are left alone. We are mixed up with our fellow-men, and are trained from our earliest infancy more or less to please them. And these two things, pleasing ourselves and pleasing our fellow-men, we contrive to carry on together. We please the world, and in doing so, we please ourselves, for we gain something that we desire from the world by pleasing it--if nothing more, its good opinion. But God comes in and disturbs all this. “Please me,” says self. “Please me,” says the world; and while we are striving to obey both, there is a voice from heaven which says,” Neither must be obeyed: you must approve yourselves to Me.” There appears before us a third competitor for our powers of pleasing; one of whom we never thought, and to whom not a feeling or principle of our nature inclines us to listen. So perverse are we that we cannot do it. “They that are in the flesh,” says the Scripture, “cannot please God.” You see then that we have no merely moral, half-heathen duty before us; it is a Christian duty.

II. How WE ARE TO PLEASE GOD.

1. We must begin with accepting the offers of His grace. We know that in order to please a fellow-creature we must fall in with his disposition and character. If he is a man of a kind disposition, we must on no account repulse his kindness, but yield ourselves up to it, and let him do us all the good he will. Now the great God of heaven is a God of infinite kindness towards us. “Here is pardon for you,” He says; “here is peace; here is My love for you, My presence, My likeness, My joy, My kingdom. Look through My universe--there is everything for you that is worth your having.” Now to please Him is to accept these offers. It is to let Him see that we value His kindness and care for His blessings.

2. To please God, we must conform ourselves to His mind and will. And this will show itself by our ceasing to be angry and discontented with His dealings with us; and still more clearly by our efforts to do His will. He pleases God the most who places himself entirely in God’s hands, and who strives the most after the holiness which God loves.

3. To please God we must aim to please Him supremely, far above all. Our first, supreme desire must be to approve ourselves in God’s sight.

III. WHY WE SHOULD THUS SEEK TO PLEASE GOD RATHER THAN ANY ONE ELSE.

1. It is easier to please Him. Only let us once accept the offers of love He has made us in His Son, and we can please Him; anything that we offer will be acceptable in His sight; the mere desire to please will give Him pleasure. Is it difficult for a child to put pleasure into a father’s heart? Does a mother require much from her infant to afford her delight? But what is a father’s or a mother’s love to the love of the great God for us? As a shadow to a substance. His mighty love for us then makes it easy for us to please Him. But turn to the world. It is hard work to please that. What a multitude there is in it to gratify! every one wanting to be gratified in his own way, regarding you as nothing but the mere instrument of his pleasure. We may sacrifice ourselves on the world’s altar, but, alas! we shall gain nothing; the greater part of the world will be angry because the sacrifice has not been made for them only or as they would have it made. And then what a weathercock is the mind of man! How light and mutable! What pleases him today, he is tired of to-morrow, and offended with the day after. He who seeks to please God, has only one to please instead of multitudes; and He One who is considerate and merciful, and never requires us to hurt ourselves in order to please Him, and is always of one mind. That which pleases Him once will please Him for ever.

2. It is better to please God than any one else, more for our advantage. Think how little man can do for us, even if he is disposed and continues so, to do his best. Our greatest sorrows he can do little indeed to lighten, and our heaviest wants he car do nothing at all to supply. We cling to him as though he were all in all to us; an hour will come when we shall feet him to be a shadow. But think what God is. He is that God who made heaven and earth, and who could in a moment unmake them, bring them all into nothing again. He governs all things. He can give us whatsoever He will, and withheld from us whatsoever He will.

3. It is more ennobling to please God than to please any one else. The effort to please Him elevates the soul; seeking to please others debases it. We become like God by seeking to please Him. By keeping Him constantly before us we are changed into His image. This is not theory. I may appeal to every-day facts. Take the poor cottager whose heart God has touched, and taught to seek His favour. Apparently with everything around him to depress him, there is often an elevation in that man’s mind which constrains us to wonder at him. He has risen to a loftiness of thought and feeling which we can scarcely understand. And it is his piety alone which has raised him, his simple and earnest desire to please his Lord. And then look at some of the world’s great men, men who live on the world’s favour and applause. How low do we frequently see them sink! We marvel at the littleness they betray.

4. Hence we may observe that a supreme desire to please God conforms us more than anything else to Christ our Lord. He “pleased not Himself,” the Scripture says. As we read His history we never suspect Him of having done so. It was not His own gratification that brought Him out of His Father’s world and kept Him in our world amid pollution and sorrow. He sought not His own honour here, He did not His own works, He would not speak even His own words. And a careful reader of His history will never suspect Him of having been a pleaser of men. He points upwards to His Father, and says, “I do always those things that please Him.” Now there is a blessed resemblance between Christ and His people. They have the same spirit that He had, and it is their joy and delight to have it. We say that it forms their character, they feel that it is a main part of their happiness. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

Pleasing God

I. HE WHO WOULD BE HAPPY MUST PLEASE GOD.

1. God is a pleasable Being.

2. God is pleasable by man.

II. HE WHO WOULD PLEASE GOD MUST COME TO HIM. Christ is the way into the loving presence of the Great Father. Man pleases Him by trusting in His Son, cherishing His Spirit, and following His example.

III. HE WHO WOULD COME TO HIM MUST BELIEVE ON HIM.

1. In the fact of His existence.

2. In the fact of His retributive ministry. (Homilist.)

Pleasing God

I. THE PRE-REQUISITES TO THAT STATE IN WHICH WE SHALL ACTUALLY PLEASE GOD.

1. A principle of faith in the revealed testimony of God.

2. A distinct faith in Jesus Christ, as Mediator, Advocate, and

Redeemer.

3. The Divinely-formed elements of a new character within us.

II. THE COURSE OF THOSE PERSONS WHO ACTUALLY PLEASE GOD.

1. Righteousness predominating.

2. Devotion accompanying.

3. Zeal inflaming and animating.

III. THE TESTIMONY GIVEN OF THIS FACT.

1. The inspired declarations of Holy Writ.

2. Conscience divinely aided and corroborated.

3. The outward events of life, as proved from the ordinary history, and from the experience and lives of God’s people. (J. Leifchild.)

What makes men please God?

There are four things which must concur to please God--all which are accomplished by faith, and by nothing else.

1. The person of him that pleaseth God must be accepted of God (Titus 1:15). God had respect unto Abel (Genesis 4:4).

2. The matter that pleaseth God must be agreeable to His will (chap. 13:21; Romans 12:2).

3. The manner of doing that which pleaseth God must be with due respect to God, and that is in these and other like particulars

(1) In obedience to God: because He has demanded it. In this case we must say as Peter did, “At Thy word I will do it” (Luke 5:5).

(2) In humility, denying of ourselves, as he that said, “Not I, but the grace of God which is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

(3) In sincerity, as having to do with Him that searcheth the heart. Thus did Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:3).

(4) With sedulity: like the two faithful servants with whom the Lord was well pleased; but not like the slothful servant (Matthew 25:20, &c.).

(5) With alacrity and cheerfulness: for God loveth a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7).

(6) Within compass of our Calling (1 Corinthians 7:17).

(7) With constancy. If any draw back, God’s soul will have no pleasure in Hebrews 10:38).

(8) In assurance that God, who accepteth the person, accepteth also the work that is done. Hereby did Manoah’s wife infer that God was pleased with that which they did (Judges 13:23).

4. The end, which is God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31). The foresaid four general points are those four causes whereby everything is made perfect. Faith is the means whereby all of them may be effected and accomplished.

(1) By faith in Christ the person is accepted of God (Ephesians 1:6).

(2) Faith makes men subject themselves to God’s will.

(3) Faith makes men have respect, even to the manner of what they do to Godward; that it be done in obedience, in humility, in sincerity, with sedulity, with alacrity, orderly, constantly, and with assurance of God’s acceptance. All these may be exemplified in Enoch.

(4) Faith, of all graces, most aimeth at God’s glory. (W. Gouge.)

Enoch’s religion:

His religion was not a speculation or a theory, which he took up to-day and laid down to-morrow. It was not the vain dream of enthusiasm, which is founded on no steady and tried principles of reason, by which he was actuated. It was not the momentary impulse which induced him to take God’s side to-day and which left him at liberty to desert it to-morrow. It was rather a religion of reason and deliberation; a religion of faith in the Divine character and promises; a religion which influenced, and guided, and sustained him, at one moment as at another. It was the allegiance of the heart, flowing from the decisions of the understanding. It was the obedience and homage of the soul. It was the tribute of dependence, gratitude, and love. It was the sacrifice of the whole man, a reasonable and acceptable service. Probity, and truth, and righteousness were its bright results. Hence Enoch pleased God--God graciously owned his allegiance and accepted his intercourse. His aim was to please God, and it was accepted as such. He was the child of mercy, the disciple of truth and charity. Whatever might be the judgment which men formed of his character, God was ready to avow, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord.” (G. T. Noel, M.A,)

Without faith it is impossible to please Him

The nature and importance of faith

I. THIS NATURE OF FAITH IN GENERAL. NOW the term, faith, “expresses a confidence or persuasion of the truth of anything not self-evident, received upon the testimony of another.” To have faith in the subjects of human testimony, requires a certain comprehension of the nature of the subjects, and a confidence in the credibility of the testimony under which those subjects are presented to our knowledge. Precisely the same circumstances appear to take place in reference to Divine testimony. We are satisfied as to the credibility of the testimony--that it comes from God. But the objects presented to us upon that testimony will become the actual objects of our faith, exactly to the extent and no further in which we understand them. Our comprehension of the object will always be the limit of our faith; and this faith will diminish or augment in the very degree in which our perception is clear or confused. But it is needful here to remark that the Divine testimony, though depending upon precisely the same process of mind as to its existence, and growth, and contraction, is far more difficult of acquirement and of retention than faith in human testimony. Is it inquired wherefore? The answer is that sin has crippled our power of judgment--that sin has deadened the spiritual sensibility which is absolutely essential to the perception of Divine truth. Supposing, therefore, the powers of understanding and of imagination to be equal in any two persons, he will comprehend the Christian revelation the most clearly who has the purest affections, who is in the highest degree detached from human objects, and who is the most conversant with the objects of the heavenly world. The purity of God; the evil of sin; the love of Christ; the manifestation of that Jove to the human soul; the hidden and holy intercourse of the heart with God; the necessity for atonement; the freeness of Divine grace; the renovation of the heart by the power and compassion of the great Comforter; the value of prayer; the fervour of gratitude; the desire to be with Christ; the secret calm of confidence in His eternal love--these, and many other subjects embodied in the testimonies of God, aresubjects with which an unholy, earthly heart cannot come into full contact. There may be a distant perception, indeed, even of these; but the affections that are low and sensual cannot perceive them so as to taste their value. And such is essential to their perception. The value which the Scriptures attach to faith, is hence no ground of surprise to him who has felt Christianity to be dear and healing to his heart. It has been by a Divine influence that he has come into contact with the spiritual meaning of Christianity; and his faith in that spiritual meaning has been the medium through which he came into such contact. He is therefore aware that no language can do justice to the worth of faith. It will thus appear that to faith belong all the essential blessings of Christianity. We come into intercourse with God; we rest under the shelter of the atonement; we are renewed in our tastes and inclinations; we acquire a home, a refuge; we regard the future as serene and bright; these blessings we acquire by faith, and by faith only. Nor is there any other conceivable way of embracing all the great and consoling realities of the gospel. Faith is, hence, the confidence of the penitent, and devout, and affectionate heart, as it reposes its weary sensations amidst the gracious assurances of God! It is farther evident from these statements, that faith will be often progressive, and often retrograde. Let the true Christian become unduly eager about earthly emoluments; let him diminish voluntarily the time he passes in secret converse with God; let him call away his thoughts from the character and friendship of his Saviour; let him thwart the precious influences of the Holy Spirit--and his faith will necessarily contract its operations; the finer and more ethereal parts of Christianity will begin to grow indistinct; his affections will be disordered; he will believe less, in reference to God and eternity, than he did before; his faith will shrink, or will vacillate as to real good and evil. On the other hand, let him grow more familiar with the lofty thoughts and aspirations of the gospel; let him discover more of the glory of Christ; let him derive from Him larger accessions of holy peace and joy; let the earth remove farther from his interior fellowship--and heaven, with all its bright anticipations, come into closer union with his understanding and his affections; and he will necessarily believe more of Christianity than he did before--he will know more of its hidden worth, as the increased purity of his affections is throwing down more of the barrier which sin had interposed between his soul and God; or, which is the same thing, between him and the richer parts of Christianity.

II. THE MORE LIMITED SENSE OF THE TERM FAITH, in the passage of Scripture before us. Faith in this chapter has special reference to those tenets of Christianity which unveil the future world--the triumph and the” rest” of the righteous; and in the text it seems to refer more specially to the confidence of the soul as to God’s intentions to render it eternally happy. The man who thus confides believes that God is, not simply that He exists, but that He exists as a kind, compassionate, generous God, to the soul that seeks Him.

III. THE INFLUENCE OF THIS FAITH UPON OUR HABITUALLY PLEASING GOD. NO one can read the Scriptures with attention without being struck by the intense anxiety of God to produce and perpetuate confidence in His mercy and grace. The whole of God’s intercourse with man is to excite his gratitude and attachment; to prove to him that God’s thoughts, in reference to generosity and Compassion, are far higher than the thoughts of men; and to rectify the fatal mistake that happiness lies in external objects, and in the emoluments of earth. Christianity is the exhibition of the Divine character. Its chief feature is holy mercy. Hence faith is essential to our intercourse with God. He who doubts God’s goodness, he who voluntarily severs himself from God’s care, and casts himself as an orphan upon his own resources, thus forces back the hand which is lifted up in his defence, and rejects the succours of omnipotence. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Is it then presumption to believe God’s assurances, and to rest the full burden of our hopes upon His promises? Shall we still cling to the deceptive assurances of the world, and rest upon the poor broken reeds of earth? Earthly blessings, moderately enjoyed and gratefully received, may embellish and smooth in part the rugged journey of life; but they cannot build up a final dwelling-place; they cannot occupy the place of God in the heart; they cannot fill up the deep void which sin has left in the human soul. They can have no fellowship with all its inner necessities. They can carry no balm to the wounds of conscience; they can draw out no sting from death; they can achieve no victory over the grave. This is the work of God; this is the victory of Jesus Christ! Thrice happy those whom God has made willing to confide in His power. “Their defence is the munition of rocks.” The outward walls may crumble to decay; but nought can touch “their citadel of peace in Jesus’s blood.” (G. T. Noel, M. A.)

Of the nature of faith in general

I. WE WILL CONSIDER THE CAUSE OF FAITH, OR THE ARGUMENT WHEREBY IT IS WROUGHT.

1. Sense; hence it is commonly said that “seeing is believing,” that is, one of the best arguments to persuade us of anything. That faith may be wrought by this argument appears both from the nature of the thing, nothing being more apt to persuade us of anything than our senses, and from several expressions in Scripture. I will instance in one for all (John 20:8).

2. Experience, which, though it may be sensible, and then it is the same argument with sense, yet sometimes it is not, and then it is an argument distinct from it. As for example, a man may by experience be persuaded or induced to believe this proposition--that his will is free, that he can do this, or not do it; which is a better argument than a demonstration to the contrary, if there could be one.

3. Reasons drawn from the thing; which may either be necessary and concluding, or else only probable and plausible.

4. The authority and testimony of some credible person. Now two things give authority and credit to the relation, or testimony, or assertion of a person concerning anything; ability and integrity.

II. The second thing to be considered is THE DEGREES OF FAITH, AND THE DIFFERENCE OF THEM. NOW the capacity or incapacity of persons are infinitely various, and not to be reduced to theory; but supposing a competent capacity in the person, then the degrees of faith or persuasion take their difference from the arguments, or motives, or inducements which are used to persuade. Where sense is the argument, there is the firmest degree of faith, or persuasion. Next to that is experience, which is beyond any argument or reason from the thing. The faith or persuasion which is wrought in us by reasons from the thing, the degrees of it are as the reasons are: if they be necessary and concluding, it is firm and certain in its kind; if only probable, according to the degrees of probability, it hath more or less of doubting mixed with it. Lastly, the faith which is wrought in us by testimony or authority of a person takes its degrees from the credit of a person, that is, his ability and integrity. Now because “all men are liars,” that is, either may deceive, or be deceived, their testimony partakes of their infirmity, and so doth the degree of persuasion wrought by it; but God being both infallible and true His testimony begets the firmest persuasion, and the highest degree of faith in its kind. But then it is to be considered, that there not being a revelation of a revelation in infinitum, that this is a Divine testimony and revelation we can only have rational assurance; and the degree of the faith or persuasion which is wrought by a Divine testimony will be according to the strength of the arguments which we have to persuade us that such a testimony is Divine.

III. For the efficacy or operation of faith we are to consider, THAT THE THINGS WE MAY BELIEVE OR BE PERSUADED OF ARE OF TWO SORTS. Either,

1. They are such as do not concern me; and then the mind rests in a simple belief of them, and a faith or persuasion of such things has no effect upon me; but is apt to have, if ever it happen that the matter do concern me: or else,

2. The thing I believe or am persuaded of doth concern me; and then it hath several effects according to the nature of the thing I am persuaded of, or the degree of the persuasion, or the capacity of the person that believes or is persuaded. If the thing believed be of great moment the effect of the faith is proportionable, and so according to the degree of the persuasion; but if the person be indisposed to the proper effects of such a persuasion by the power of contrary habits, as it often happens, the effect will be obtained with more difficulty, and may possibly be totally defeated by casting off the persuasion; for while it remains it will operate, and endeavour and strive to work its proper effect.

IV. FOR THE KINDS OF FAITH, THEY ARE SEVERAL, ACCORDING TO THE VARIETY OF OBJECTS OF THINGS BELIEVED. I shall reduce them all under these two general heads.

1. Faith is either civil or human, under which I comprehend the persuasion of things moral, and natural, and political, and the like; or,

2. Divine and religious; that is, a persuasion of things that concern religion. I know not whether these terms be proper, nor am I very solicitous, because I know none fitter, and tell you what I mean by them. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Of a religious and divine faith:

I. A PERSUASION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL RELIGION, such as the light of nature could discover; such are the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and a future state.

1. Whether it may truly and properly be called faith or not? If the general notion of faith which I have fixed before, viz., that it is a persuasion of the mind concerning anything, be a true notion of faith, then there is no doubt but this may as properly be called faith, as anything can be; because a man may be persuaded in his mind concerning these things that there is a God, that our souls are immortal, that there is another state after this life. But besides this, if the Scripture speaks properly, as we have reason to believe it does, especially when it treats professedly of anything as the apostle here does, then this question is fully decided; for it is evident to any one that will but read this verse that the apostle doth here in this place speak of this kind of faith; that is, a belief or persuasion of the principles of natural religion.

2. What are the arguments whereby this faith, or the persuasion of these principles of natural religion, is wrought? They are such reasons as may be drawn from things themselves to persuade us hereof; as either from the notion and idea which we have of a God, that He is a being that hath all perfections, whereof necessary existence is one, and consequently that He must be; or else from the universal consent of all nations, and the generality of persons agreeing in this apprehension, which cannot be attributed reasonably to any other cause than to impressions stamped upon our understandings by God Himself; or (which is most plain of all) from this visible frame of the world, which we cannot, without great violence to our understandings, impute to any other cause than a Being endowed with infinite goodness, and power, and wisdom, which is that we call God. As for the other two principles of natural religion, the immortality of the soul, and a future state, after we believe a God we may be persuaded of these from Divine revelation; and that doth give us the highest and firmest assurance of them in the resurrection of Christ from the dead.

3. Whether this faith or persuasion of the principles of natural religion admit degrees or not? And what differences are observable in them? That it does admit degrees, that is that a man may be more or less persuaded of the truth of those principles, is evident from the heathens, some of whom did yield a more firm and unshaken assent to them; others entertained them with a more faint persuasion of them, especially of the immortality of the soul and a future state, about which most of them had many qualms and doubts. Of all the heathens Socrates seems to have had the truest and firmest persuasion of these things; which he did not only testify in words, but by the constancy, and calmness, and sedate courage which he manifested at his death. So that this faith and persuasion admits of degrees the difference whereof is to be resolved partly into the capacity of the persons who believe, and partly into the strength, or at least appearance of strength, in the arguments whereby it is wrought.

4. What are the proper and genuine effects of this faith or persuasion? Now that, in a word, is natural religion which consists in apprehensions of God suitable to His nature, and affections towards Him suitable to these apprehensions, and actions suitable to both.

5. In what sense this faith or persuasion of the principles of natural religion may be said to be Divine? In these two respects:

(1) In respect of the object of it, or matters to be believed, which are Divine, and do immediately concern religion, in opposition to that which I call a civil and human faith, which is of such things as do not immediately concern God and religion.

(2) In respect of the Divine effect of it, which are to make men religious, and like God.

II. The second sort of faith, which I call A PERSUASION OF THINGS SUPERNATURALLY REVEALED, OF THINGS WHICH ARE NOT KNOWN BY NATURAL LIGHT, BUT BY SOME MORE IMMEDIATE MANIFESTATION AND DISCOVERY FROM GOD. Thus we find our Saviour (Matthew 16:15-17), opposeth Divine revelation to the discovery of natural reason and light.

1. Whether this may truly and properly be called faith? And that it may is evident, because the general definition of faith agrees to it; for a man may be persuaded in his mind concerning things supernaturally revealed; and the Scripture everywhere calls a persuasion of these matters by the name of faith. Bat besides this, it seems this is the adequate and only notion of faith as it hath been fixed by the schools, and is become a term of art. For the definition that the schools give of faith is this, that it is an assent to a thing credible, as credible. Now, say they, that is credible which relies upon the testimony of a credible person; and consequently a human faith is that which relies upon human testimony; and a Divine faith that which relies upon the testimony or authority of God.

2. What is the argument whereby this faith or persuasion of things supernaturally revealed is wrought in us? And this, by the general consent of all, is the testimony or authority of God some way or other revealing these things to us; whose infallible and unerring knowledge, together with His goodness and authority, gives us the highest assurance that He neither can be deceived Himself, nor will deceive us in anything that He reveals to us.

3. As to the degrees of this faith. Supposing men sufficiently satisfied that the Scriptures are the Word of God, that is, a Divine revelation; then all those who are sufficiently satisfied of this do equally believe the things contained in the Scriptures. Supposing any man be unsatisfied, and do make any doubt whether these books called Holy Scriptures, or any of them, be the Word of God, that is a Divine revelation; proportionably to the degree of his doubting concerning the Divine authority of the Scriptures, there will be an abatement of his faith as to the things contained in them. And upon this account I think it is that the Scripture speaks of degrees of faith; of growing and increasing in faith; of a strong faith; and of a weak faith, that is such a faith as had a great mixture of doubting; by which we are not to understand that they doubted of the truth of anything of which they were satisfied by a Divine revelation; but that they doubted whether such things were Divine revelations or not.

4. What are the proper and genuine effects of this faith? The proper and genuine effects of the belief of the Scriptures in general is the conformity of our hearts and lives to what we believe; that is, to be such persons and to live such lives as it becomes those who do heartily believe, and are really persuaded of the truth of the Scriptures. And if this be a constant and abiding persuasion it will produce this effect; but with more or less difficulty according to the disposition of the subject, and the weakness or strength of contrary habits and inclinations. More particularly the effects of this faith are according to the nature of the matter believed. If it be a history or relation of things past, or prophecy of things to come, it hath an effect upon men so far as the history or prophecy doth concern them. If it be a doctrine, it hath the effect which the particular nature and tendency of such a doctrine requires.

5. In what sense this faith of things supernaturally revealed may be said to be a Divine faith? blot only in respect of the matter and object of it, which are Divine things, such as concern God and religion and in respect of the Divine effects it hath upon those who believe these things (for in these two respects a persuasion of the principles of natural religion may be said to be a Divine faith); but likewise in respect of the argument whereby it is wrought, which is a Divine testimony. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Of the faith or persuasion of a Divine revelation

I. WHAT WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND BY A DIVINE REVELATION. A supernatural discovery or manifestation of things to us. I say supernatural because it may either be immediately by God, or by the mediation of angels; as most if not all the revelations of the Old Testament were; a supernatural discovery or manifestation, either immediately to our minds and inward faculties, or else mediately to our understandings, by the mediation of our outward senses; as by an external appearance to our bodily eyes, or by a voice and sound to the sense of hearing.

II. WHETHER A PERSUASION OF A DIVINE REVELATION MAY PROPERLY RE CALLED FAITH? To this I answer, that according to the narrow notion of faith which the schools have fixed, which is an assent to anything grounded upon the testimony and authority of God revealing it, a persuasion of a Divine revelation cannot properly be called faith, because it is irrational to expect that a man should have another Divine revelation to assure him that this is a Divine revelation; for then, for the same reason, I must expect another Divine revelation to assure me of that, and so without end. But according to the true and general notion of faith, which is a persuasion of the mind concerning anything, a persuasion of the mind concerning a Divine revelation may as properly be called faith as anything else, if men will but grant that a man may be so satisfied concerning a Divine revelation, as verily to believe and be persuaded that it is so.

III. How WE MAY COME TO BE PERSUADED OF A DIVINE REVELATION THAT IT IS SUCH; or by what arguments this persuasion is wrought in us?

1. As to those persons to whom the revelation is immediately made, the question is by what arguments or means they may come to be assured that any revelation which they have is really and truly such, and not a delusion or imposture.

(1) God can work in the mind of man a firm persuasion of a thing by giving him a clear and vigorous perception of it; and if so, then God can accompany His own revelations with such a clear and overpowering light as shall discover to us the divinity of them, and satisfy us thereof beyond all doubt and scruple.

(2) God never persuades a man of anything that contradicts the natural and essential notions of his mind and understanding. For this would be to destroy His own workmanship, and to impose that upon the understanding of a man which, whilst it retains its own nature and remains what it is, it cannot possibly admit.

(3) Supposing the thing revealed do not contradict the essential notions of our minds, no good and holy man hath reason to doubt of anything, whether it be revelation from God or not, of which he hath a clear and vigorous perception, and full satisfaction in his own mind that it is such.

(4) A good and holy man reflecting upon this assurance and persuasion that he hath may be able to give himself a reasonable account of it, and satisfy himself that it is not a stubborn belief and an obstinate conceit of things without any ground or reason.

2. What assurance can other persons, who have not the revelation immediately made to them, have of a Divine revelation? To this I shall answer by these propositions:

(1) That there are some means whereby a man may be assured of another’s revelation that it is Divine.

(a) Otherwise it would signify nothing, but only to the person that immediately had it; which would make void the chief end of most revelations, which are seldom made to particular persons for their own sakes only, but, for the most part, on purpose that they may be made known to others, which could not effectually be done unless there be some means whereby men may be assured of revelations made to another.

(b) None could be guilty of unbelief but those who had immediate revelation made to them. For no man is guilty of unbelief that is not obliged to believe; but no man can be under any obligation to believe anything, who hath not sufficient means whereby he may be assured that such a thing is true.

(2) The private assurance and satisfaction of another concerning a revelation made to him can signify nothing at all to me, to assure me of it. For what satisfaction is it to me that another may say he hath a revelation, unless I have some means to be assured that what he saith is true? For if I must believe every spirit, that is every man that says he is inspired, I lie open to all possible impostures and delusions, and must believe every one that either foolishly conceits or falsely pretends that he hath a revelation.

(3) That miracles wrought for the confirmation of any Divine testimony or revelation made to another are a sufficient means whereby those who have not the Divine revelation immediately made to them may be assured that it is Divine; I say these are sufficient means of assurance in this case. But here we must distinguish between doubtful and unquestionable miracles.

IV. WHETHER THIS FAITH CONCERNING A DIVINE REVELATION MADE TO OTHERS NO ADMIT OF DEGREES? That it doth is evident from these expressions which the Scripture useth, of “increasing faith,” of “growing in it,” of “a weak and strong faith,” all which plainly supposeth degrees. And here it will be proper to inquire what is the highest degree of assurance which we can have concerning a Divine revelation made to another, that it is such; whether it be an infallible assurance, or only an undoubted certainty.

1. That infallibility is not essential to Divine faith, and necessarily included in the notion of it; which I prove thus. Divine faith admits of degrees, as I have showed before; but there can be no degree of infallibility. Infallibility is an impossibility of being deceived; but there are no degrees of impossibility, one thing is not more impossible than another; but all things that are impossible are equally so.

2. That the assurance which we have of the miracles wrought for the confirmation of the gospel is not an infallible assurance.

3. That an undoubted assurance of a Divine revelation that it is such, is as much as in reason can be expected. No man pretends to a Divine revelation that there is a God; but only to have rational satisfaction of it, such as leaves no just or reasonable cause to doubt of it. And why then should any desire greater assurance of a Divine revelation than he hath of a God?

4. An undoubted assurance is sufficient to constitute a Divine faith. Do not men venture their estates in traffic to places they never saw, because they have it from credible persons that there are such places, and they have no reason to doubt their testimony; and why should not the same assurance serve in greater matters if an undoubted assurance of a lesser benefit and advantage will make men venture as much? Why should any man desire greater assurance of anything than to have no just reason to doubt it; why more than so much as the thing is capable of? I shall only add this: that nothing hath been more pernicious to Christian religion than the vain pretences of men to greater assurance concerning things relating to it than they can make good; the mischief of which is this--that when discerning and inquisitive men find that men pretend to greater matters than they can prove, this makes them doubt of all they say, and to call in question Christianity itself. Whereas if men would be contented to speak justly of things, and pretend to no greater assurance than they can bring evidence for, considerate men would be apt to believe them.

V. WHAT IS THE PROPER AND GENUINE EFFECT OF THIS FAITH OF A DIVINE REVELATION? I answer, a compliance with the design and intention of it.

VI. IN WHAT RESPECT THIS MAY BE CALLED A DIVINE FAITH. TO this I answer, not only in respect of the object of it, and the argument whereby it is wrought, and the effect of it; but, likewise, in respect of the author and efficient of it, which is the Divine Spirit. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Of the testimony of the Spirit to the truth of the gospel

I. IN RESPECT OF THE OUTWARD EVIDENCE WHICH THE SPIRIT OF GOD GIVES US TO PERSUADE US TO BELIEVE. And if this be not that which divines mean by the testimony of the Spirit in this matter, yet I think it is that which may most properly be so called. Now the Spirit of God did outwardly testify concerning Jesus, that He was the Messias, and came from God; and that the doctrine which He taught was Divine.

1. In the voice from heaven, which accompanied the descending of the Spirit upon Him (Matthew 3:17).

2. In those miracles which Christ Himself wrought by the Spirit of God, which were so eminent a testimony of the Spirit of God, that the resisting of the evidence of those miracles, and the attributing of them to the devil, is by our Saviour called a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

3. In the great miracle of His resurrection from the dead.

4. In the effusion of the Spirit upon the apostles, who were to preach Christ and His doctrine to the world; and that it might carry its evidence along with it.

II. FAITH IS IN A PECULIAR MANNER ATTRIBUTED TO THE SPIRIT OF GOD, IN RESPECT OF THE INWARD EFFICACY AND OPERATION OF THE DIVINE SPIRIT UPON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THOSE WHO SINCERELY AND EFFECTUALLY BELIEVE AND ENTERTAIN THE GOSPEL.

1. By strengthening the faculty, that is, raising and enabling our understanding to yield assent to the gospel. God is said, in Scripture, to “enlighten the eyes of our understandings,” which we may, if we please, understand in this sense; although that may be done by propounding such truths to us as we were ignorant of before, and could not have discovered, unless they had been revealed.

2. By enlightening and discovering the object, or thing to be believed. In the case we are speaking of, the object or thing to be believed is the gospel: now we may imagine the Spirit of God may work a faith or persuasion of this in us, by revealing or discovering to us this proposition, that the gospel is true.

3. By propounding and offering to us such arguments and evidence as are apt to persuade us of the truth of the gospel. And this, the Spirit of God, which inspired the writers of the Scripture, doth mediately by the Scriptures, and those characters of Divinity which are in the doctrines contained in them; and by those miracles which are there credibly related to be wrought by the Spirit of God, for the confirmation of that doctrine. And besides this, the Spirit of God may, when He pleaseth, and probably often doth, immediately suggest those arguments to our minds, and bring them to our remembrance.

4. By holding our minds intent upon this evidence, till it hath wrought its effect upon us.

5. By removing the impediments which hinder our effectual assent to the gospel. And in this and the last particular I conceive the work of the Spirit of God, in the producing of faith, principally to consist.

6. By furthering and helping forward the efficacy of this persuasion upon our hearts and lives, in the first work of conversion and regeneration, and in the progressive work of sanctification afterward, both which the Scripture doth everywhere attribute to the Spirit of God, as the author and efficient cause.

Lessons:

1. We may learn from hence to attribute all the good that is in us, or that we do in any kind, to God.

III. THOUGH “FAITH” BE “THE GIFT OF GOD,” YET THOSE THAT BELIEVE NOT ARE FAULTY UPON THIS ACCOUNT, THAT THEY QUENCH AND RESIST THE BLESSED MOTIONS OF GOD’S SPIRIT, and the influence and operation of the Spirit of God, which accompany the truth of the gospel to the minds of men, and produce their effect wherever they are not opposed and rejected by the prejudice and perverseness of men.

IV. Let us depend upon God for every good gift, and EARNESTLY BEG THE ASSISTANCE AND INFLUENCE OF HIS HOLY SPIRIT, WHICH IS SO NECESSARY TO US TO BEGET FAITH IN US, AND TO PRESERVE AND MAKE IT EFFECTUAL UPON OUR HEARTS AND LIVES. Bread is not more necessary to the support of our natural life, than the Holy Spirit of God to our spiritual life. For our encouragement to ask this gift of God’s Holy Spirit, our Saviour hath told us that God is very ready to bestow it upon us (Luke 11:11-13). (Abp. Tillotson.)

The efficacy, usefulness, and reasonableness, of Divine faith

I. WITHOUT FAITH THERE CAN BE NO RELIGION. And this will appear by inquiring into the nature of all human actions, whether civil or religious; and this is common to both of them, that they suppose some kind of faith or persuasion. For example, husbandry, or merchandise; no man will apply himself to these, but upon some belief or persuasion of the possibility and necessity, or at least usefulness and convenience, of these to the ends of life. So it is in Divine and religious things; nothing is done without faith. No man will worship God unless he believe there is a God; unless he be persuaded there is such a being, which, by reason of his excellency and perfection, may challenge our veneration; and unless he believe the goodness of this God, that “He will reward those that diligently serve Him.” So likewise no man can entertain Christ as the Messias and Saviour of the world, and yield obedience to His laws, unless he believes that He was sent of God, and ordained by Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. So that you see the necessity of faith to religion.

II. THE INFLUENCE THAT A DIVINE FAITH HATH UPON MEN TO MAKE THEM RELIGIOUS.

1. A true Divine faith supposeth a man satisfied and persuaded of the reasonableness of religion. He that verily believes there is a God, believes there is a being that hath all excellency and perfection, that is infinitely good, and wise, and just, and powerful, that made and preserves all things. Now he that believes such a Being as this, cannot but think it reasonable that He should be esteemed and adored by all those creatures that are sensible and apprehensive of these excellences; not only by constant praise of Him, but by a universal obedience to His will, and a cheerful submission to His pleasure. For what more reasonable than gratitude? And seeing He is truth itself, and hath been pleased to reveal His will to us, what can be more reasonable than to believe all those discoveries and revelations which “ God, who cannot lie,” hath made to us, and to comply with the intention of them? And seeing He is the original pattern of all excellency and perfection, what can be more reasonable than to imitate the perfections of the Divine nature, and to endeavour to be as like God as we can? And these are the sum of all religion.

2. A true Divine faith supposeth a man satisfied and persuaded of the necessity of religion; that is, that it is necessary to every man’s interest to be religious; that it will be highly for our advantage to be so, and eminently to our prejudice to be otherwise; that if we be so we shall be happy, if we be not we shall be miserable and undone for ever.

(1) From the nature and reason of the thing. Every man that believes a God, must believe Him to be the supreme good; and the greatest happiness to consist in the enjoyment of Him; and a separation from Him to be the greatest misery. Now God is not to be enjoyed but in a way of religion. Holiness makes us like to God, and likeness will make us love Him; and love will make us happy in the enjoyment of Him; and without this it is impossible to be happy.

(2) Every man who believes the revelations which God hath made, cannot but be satisfied how much religion is his interest from the promises and threatenings of God’s Word. APPLICATION:

1. This shows why there is so little of true religion in the world; it is for want of faith, without which it is impossible for men to be religious. If men were verily persuaded that the great, and holy, and just God looks continually upon them, and that it is impossible to hide from Him anything that we do, they would not dare to commit any sin in His sight, and under the eye of Him who is their Father and Master, their Sovereign and their Judge, their Friend and Benefactor; who is invested with all these titles, and stands to us in all these relations, which may challenge reverence and respect. Did men believe that they shall live for ever, and that after this short life is ended they must enter upon eternity; did men believe this, would they not with all possible care and diligence endeavour to attain the one and avoid the other? Did men believe the Scripture to be the Word of God, and to contain matters of the highest importance to our everlasting happiness, would they neglect it and lay it aside, and study it no more than a man would do an almanac out of date.

2. If faith have so great an influence upon religion, then the next use shall be to persuade men to believe. No man can be religious that doth not believe these two things:

(1) The principles of natural religion--that there is a God; that His soul is immortal; and that there are future rewards.

(2) That the Scriptures are the Word of God; or, which comes all to one, that the doctrine contained in them is a Divine revelation. Therefore whoever would persuade men to be religious, he must begin here; and whoever would improve men in religion and holiness, he must labour to strengthen this principle of faith. (Abp. Tillotson.)

Faith

The old Assembly’s Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” and its answer is, “To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” The answer is exceedingly correct; but it might have been equally truthful if it had been shorter. The chief end of man is “to please God”; for in so doing he will please himself. He that pleases God is, through Divine grace, journeying onward to the ultimate reward of all those that love and fear God; but he who is ill-pleasing to God must, for Scripture has declared it, be banished from the presence of God, and consequently from the enjoyment of happiness. If then, we be right in saying that to please God is to be happy, the one important question is, how can I please God? And there is something very solemn in the utterance of our text: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” That is to say, do what you may, strive as earnestly as you can, live as excellently as you please, make what sacrifices you choose, be as eminent as you can for everything that is lovely and of good repute, yet none of these things can be pleasing to God unless they be mixed with faith.

I. First, for the EXPOSITION. What is faith?

1. The first thing in faith is knowledge. “Search the Scriptures,” then, “for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of Christ”; and by reading cometh knowledge, and by knowledge cometh faith, and through faith cometh salvation.

2. But a man may know a thing, and yet not have faith. I may know a thing, and yet not believe it. Therefore assent must go with faith; that is to say, what we know we must all agree unto, as being most certainly the verity of God.

3. But a man may have all this, and yet not possess true faith; for the chief part of faith lies in the last head, namely, in an affiance to the truth; not the believing it merely, but the taking hold of it as being ours, and in the resting on it for salvation. Recumbency on the truth was the word which the old preachers used. You will understand that word. Leaning on it; saying, “This is truth, I trust my salvation on it.” Now, true faith, in its very essence rests in this--a leaning upon Christ. It will not save me to know that Christ is a Saviour; but it will save me to trust Him to be my Saviour.

II. And now we come to the ARGUMENT--why, without faith, we cannot be saved.

1. “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” And I gather it from the fact that there never has been the case of a man recorded in Scripture who did please God without faith.

2. But the next argument is, faith is the stooping grace, and nothing can make man stoop without faith. Now, unless man does stoop, his sacrifice cannot he accepted. The angels know this. When they praise God, they do it veiling their faces with their wings. The redeemed know it. When they praise God, they cast their crowns before His feet.

3. Faith is necessary to salvation, because we are told in Scripture that works cannot save. To tell a very familiar story, and even the poorest may not misunderstand what I say: a minister was one day going to preach. He climbed a hill on his road. Beneath him lay the villages, sleeping in their beauty, with the cornfields motionless in the sunshine; but he did not look at them, for his attention was arrested by a woman standing at her door, and who, upon seeing him, came up to him with the greatest anxiety, and said, “Oh, sir, have you any keys about you? I have broken the key of my drawers, and there are some things that I must get directly.” Said he, “I have no keys.” She was disappointed, expecting that every one would have some keys. “But suppose,” he said, “I had some keys, they might not fit your lock, and therefore you could not get the articles you want. But do not distress yourself, wait till some one else comes up. But,” said he, wishing to improve the occasion, “have you ever heard of the key of heaven?” “Ah! yes,” she said, “I have lived long enough, and I have gone to church long enough, to know that if we work hard and get our bread by the sweat of our brow, and act well towards our neighbours, and behave, as the catechism says, lowly and reverently to all our betters, and if we do our duty in that station of life in which it has pleased God to place us, and say our prayers regularly, we shall be saved.” “Ah!” said he, “my good woman, that is a broken key, for you have broken the commandments, you have not fulfilled all your duties. It is a good key, but you have broken it.” “Pray, sir,” said she, believing that he understood the matter, and looking frightened, “What have I left out? … Why,” said he, “the all-important thing, the blood of Jesus Christ. Don’t you know it is said, the key of heaven is at His girdle; He openeth, and no man shutteth; He shutteth, and no man openeth”? And explaining it more fully to her, he said, “It is Christ, and Christ alone, that can open heaven to you, and not your good works.” “What, minister,” said she, “are our good works useless, then?” “No,” said he, “not after faith. If you believe first, you may have as many good works as you please; but if you believe, you will never trust in them, for if you trust in them you have spoilt them, and they are not good works any longer. Have as many good works as you please, still put your trust wholly in the Lord Jesus Christ, for if you do not, your key will never unlock heaven’s gate.”

4. Again: without faith it is impossible to be saved, and to please God, because without faith there is no union to Christ. Now, union to Christ is indispensable to our salvation. If I come before God’s throne with my prayers, I shall never get them answered, unless I bring Christ with me.

5. “Without faith it is impossible to please God,” because it is impossible to persevere in holiness without faith.

III. And now in conclusion, THE QUESTION, the vital question. Have you faith?

1. He that has faith has renounced his own righteousness.

2. True faith begets a great esteem for the person of Christ.

3. He that has true faith will have true obedience. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith essential to pleasing God

I. THE APOSTLE ASSERTS THAT FAITH IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL TO THE PLEASING OF GOD.

1. For, first, without faith there is no capacity for communion with God at all. The things of God are spiritual and invisible; without faith we cannot recognise such things, but must be dead to them.

2. Without faith the man himself is not pleasing to God. Faith in Christ makes a total change in our position towards God--we who were enemies are reconciled; and from this comes towards God a distinct change in the nature of all our actions: imperfect though they be, they spring from a loyal heart, and they are pleasing to God.

3. Remember that, in human associations, want of confidence would prevent a man’s being well-pleasing to another. When the creature dares to doubt his Creator, how can the Creator be pleased?

4. Unbelief takes away the common ground upon which God and man can meet. According to the well-worn fable, two persons who are totally different in their pursuits cannot well live together: the fuller and the charcoal-burner were obliged to part; for whatever the fuller had made white, the collier blackened with his finger. If differing pursuits divide, much more will differing feelings upon a vital point. It is Jesus whom Jehovah delights to honour; and if you will not even trust Jesus with your soul’s salvation, you grieve the heart of God, and He can have no pleasure in you.

5. Want of faith destroys all prospect of love.

6. Want of faith will create positive variance on many points.

7. By what means can we hope to please God, apart from faith in Him? By keeping all the commandments? Alas! you have not done so. If you do not believe in Him you are not obedient to Him. We are bound to obey with the mind by believing, as well as with the hand by acting. Remember the impossibility of pleasing the Lord without faith, and do not dash your ship upon this iron-bound coast.

II. THE APOSTLE MENTIONS TWO ESSENTIAL POINTS OF FAITH. He begins by saying, “He that cometh to God must believe that He is.” Note the key-word “must”: it is an immovable, insatiable necessity. Before we can walk with God, it is clear that we must “come to God.” Naturally, we are at a distance from Him, and we must end that distance by coming to Him, or else we cannot walk with Him, nor be pleasing to Him. Believe that God is as truly as you are; and let Him be real to you. Believe that He is to be approached, to be realised, to be, in fact, the great practical factor of your life. Hold this as the primary truth, that God is most influential upon you; and then believe that it is your business to come to Him. But there is only one way of coming to Him, and you must have faith to use that way. Yet all this would be nothing without the second point of belief. We must believe that “He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” We seek Him, first, when we begin by prayer, by trusting to Jesus, and by.calling upon the sacred name, to seek salvation. Afterwards we seek God by aiming at His glory, by making Him the great object for which we live.

III. WE WILL NOW GATHER A FEW LESSONS FROM WHAT THE APOSTLE HAS TAUGHT US.

1. First, then, the apostle teaches us here by implication that God is pleased with those who have faith The negative is often the plainest way of suggesting the positive.

2. Learn, next, that those who have faith make it the great object of their life to please God.

3. Next, note, the apostle teaches us here that they who have faith in God are always coming to God; for He speaks of the believer as “He that cometh to God.” You not only come to Him, and go away from Him, as in acts of prayer and praise; but you are always coming; your life is a march towards Him.

4. God will see that those who practise faith in Him shall have a reward. God Himself is enough for the believer.

5. Those who have no faith are in a fearful case. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Trust gratifies

The “Cottager and Artisan” gives the following anecdote of the late Lord Shaftesbury:--“I was one day,” he said, “about to cross the street in one of the great thoroughfares of London. It was very crowded, and a little girl all alone was much puzzled as to how she was to get over. I watched her walking up and down, and scanning the faces of those who passed to see if there were any whom she could trust, but for a long time she seemed to scan in vain. At last she came to me, and looking timidly up in my face, whispered, ‘Please, sir, will you lift me over?’ And,” Lord Shaftesbury adds, “that little child’s trust was the greatest compliment I ever had in my life.”

Value of faith

A New-Year’s wish of Romaine for his people and for himself was: “God grant that this may be a year famous for believing.” That is a wish that the most advanced century will never outgrow. Such a year will be famous indeed. Mighty works and mighty men are found where there is famous faith. The measure of the possibility of a year great in believing is the measure of the Infinite God Himself. (Sword and Trowel.)

He that cometh to God

Access to God:

It is a wonderful idea, the idea of the infinite, almighty, eternal Being, as to be approached and communicated with by man. If we might allow ourselves in such an imagination, as that the selected portion of all humanity, the very best and wisest persons on earth, were combined into a permanent assembly, and invested with a sovereign authority--the highest wisdom, virtue, science, and power thus united--would not a perfectly free access for the humblest, poorest, most distressed, and otherwise friendless, to such an assemblage, with a certainty of their most kind and sedulous attention being given--of their constant will to render aid--of their wisdom and power being promptly exercised--would not this be deemed an inestimable privilege to all within the compass of such an empire? But take a higher position, and suppose that there were such an economy that the most illustrious of the departed saints held the office of being practically, though unseen, patrons, protectors, assistants, guides, to men on earth; that the spirits of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, could be drawn, by those who desired it, to a direct personal attention, and to an exercise of their benignity and interference--would not this appear a resource of incalculable value? But there is another far loftier ascension. We are informed of a glorious order of intelligences that have never dwelt in flesh; many of whom may have enjoyed their existence from a remoteness of time surpassing what we can conceive of eternity; with an immense expansion of being and powers; with a perpetual augmentation of the goodness inspired by their Creator; and exercising their virtues and unknown powers in appointed offices of beneficence throughout the system of unnumbered worlds. Would it not seem a pre-eminent privilege, if the children of the dust might obtain a direct communication with them; might invoke them, accost them, draw them to a fixed attention, and with a sensible evidence of their indulgent patience and celestial benignity? Would not this seem an exaltation of felicity, throwing into shade everything that could be imagined to be derived to us from the benevolence and power of mortal or glorified humanity? Now, here we are at the summit of created existence; and up to this sublime elevation we have none of these supposed privileges. What, then, to do next? Next, our spirits have to raise their thoughts to an awful elevation above all subordinate existence in earth and heaven, in order to approach a presence where they may implore a beneficent attention, and enter into a communication with Him who is uncreated and infinite; a transition compared to which the distance from the inferior to the nobler, and then to the noblest of created beings, is reduced to nothing; as one lofty eminence on an elevated mountain--and a higher--and the highest--but thence to the starry heavens! But think, who is it that is thus to “come to God?” Man! little, feeble, mortal, fallen, sinful man! He is, if we may speak in such language, to venture an act expressly to arrest the attention of that stupendous Being. The purpose is to speak to Him in a personal manner; to detain Him in communication. The approaching petitioner is to utter thoughts, for God to admit them into His thoughts! He seeks to cause his words to be listened to by Him whose own words may be, at the very time, commanding new creations into existence. But reflect, also, that it is an act to call the special attention of Him whose purity has a perfect perception of all that is evil in the creature that approaches Him; of Him whom the applicant is conscious he has not, to the utmost of his faculties, adored or loved: alas! the very contrary! What an amazing view is thus presented of the situation the unworthy mortal is placed in, the position which he presumes to take, in “coming to God.” A sinful being immediately under the burning rays of Omnipotent Holiness! The idea is so fearful, that one might think it should be the most earnest desire of the human soul that there should be some intervention to save it from the fatal predicament. No wonder, then, that the most devout men of every age of the Christian dispensation have welcomed with gratitude the doctrine of a Mediator, manifested in the person of the Son of God, by whom the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man are, as it were, kept asunder; and a happy communication can take place through the medium of One who stands before the Divine Majesty of Justice, in man’s behalf, with a propitiation and a perfect righteousness. Thus far, and too long, we have dwelt on the wonderfulness of the fact and the greatness of the privilege of “coming to God.” We have to consider, a little, with what faith this is to be done. “Must believe that He is.” Must have a most absolute conviction that there is one Being infinitely unlike and superior to all others; the sole Self-existent, All-comprehending, and All-powerful; a reality in such a sense that all other things are but precarious modes of being, subsisting simply in virtue of His will;--must pass through and beyond the sphere of sense, to have a spiritual sight of “Him that is invisible”; and, more than merely a principle held in the understanding, must verify the solemn reality in a vitally pervading sentiment of the soul. And what a glory of intellect and faith thus to possess a truth which is the sun in our mental sphere, and whence radiate all the illuminations and felicities that can bless the rational creation! And what a spectacle of debasement and desolation is presented to us, when we behold the frightful phenomenon of a rational creature disbelieving a God! But how easily it may be said, “We have that faith; we never denied or doubted that there is such a Being.” Well; but reflect, and ascertain in what degree the general tenor of your feelings, and your habits of life, have been different from what they might have been if you had disbelieved or doubted. The effectual faith in the Divine existence always looks to consequences. In acknowledging each glorious attribute, it regards the aspect which it bears on the worshipper, inferring what will therefore be because that is. It is not a valid faith in the Divinity, as regarded in any of His attributes, till it excite the solicitous thought, “And what then?” He is, as supreme in goodness; and what then? Then, how precious is every assurance from Himself that He is accessible to us. Then, is it not the truest insanity in the creation to be careless of His favour? Then, happy they who obtain that favour, by devoting themselves to seek it. Then, let us instantly and ardently proceed to act on the conviction that He is the “rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” This faith is required in consideration of the intention (might we presume to say, reverently, the sincerity of the heavenly Father in calling men to come to Him. “I have not said, Seek ye Me in vain.” To what purpose are they thus required to make His favour the object of their eternal aspiration; to forego all things rather than this. Why thus summoned, and trained, and exercised, to a lofty ambition far above the world? Not to frustrate all this labour, not to disappoint them of the felicity to which they continually aspire! They “must believe that He is a rewarder”; that He is not thus calling them up a long, laborious ascent, only that they may behold His glorious throne, come near to His blissful paradise, do Him homage at its gate, and then be shut out. Consider again: it is because there is a Mediator, that sinful men are authorised to approach to God, seeking that--no more than that--which the mysterious appointment was made, in Divine justice and mercy, for the purpose of conferring on them. Then they must believe that this glorious office cannot but be availing to their success. What has been appointed, in the last resort, in substitution and in remedy of an antecedent economy, because that has failed, must be, by eminence, of a nature not itself to fail. They that “ come to God” in confidence on this new Divine constitution, will find that He, in justice to His appointment of a Mediator, will grant what is promised and sought in virtue of it; in other words, will be a “ rewarder “ for Christ’s sake. And what is that in which it will be verified to them “ that He is a rewarder”? For what will they have to adore and bless Him as such? For the grandest benefits which even He can impart in doing full justice to the infinite merits of the appointed Redeemer. But the important admonition, to be repeated here in concluding, is, that all this is for them “ that diligently seek”; so habitually, importunately, perseveringly, that it shall in good faith be made the primary concern of our life; so that, while wishes and impulses to obtain are incessantly springing from the busy soul in divers directions, there shall still be one predominant impulse directed towards heaven. And, if such representations as we have been looking at be true, think what might be obtained by all of us, who have them at this hour soliciting our attention, on the supposition that we all should henceforward be earnest applicants to the Sovereign Rewarder. Think of the mighty amount of good, in time and eternity, as our collective wealth; and of the value of every individual share. (John Foster.)

Postulates of prayer

“He that cometh to God”--this is a special characterisation of prayer. It seems to localise the omnipresent God. To come to Him is to be vividly conscious of Him, and to realise His goodness and grace; to touch Him, and speak to Him.

I. The first postulate of prayer is BELIEF IN THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. If I think of God as a universal ether, as a highly-sublimated steam which pervades and works the machine of the universe, I can no more pray to Him than I could pray to the steam of the locomotive to put me down at such and such a station. If I think of God as an unconscious something, idea, or what else, which is necessarily and unconsciously developing itself into the universe, I can no more pray to that than I can to the principle of evolution. If God be not a person, if He be a mere force, as pray to that I might as well say to gravitation, which has broken my head, “Heal me,” or to time, which has left me behind, “Wait for me.”

II. We must not only believe that God is, but also that He is the rewarder of them that seek after Him, which involves as a second postulate of prayer that GOD HAS POWER TO HEAR AND ANSWER PRAYER. Prayer, it is said, has a great reflex action. It certainly has. Going over and giving thanks for God’s mercies excites my gratitude, even though there be no God to receive my thanks. But I would not so befool myself as to give thanks, if I did not believe God is to reward my thanks by receiving them. A celebrated scientific lecturer, while insisting on the operation of law, once said: “The united voice Of this assembly could not persuade me that I have not at this moment the power to lift my arm if I wished to do so.” And if, in spite of gravitation, man has this power, surely we cannot deny a corresponding power to God. In answer to my child’s prayer I can lift my arm, though gravitation operates to keep it down. And in answer to my prayer, God my Father, being no less personal than I, can do what is analogous to my lifting my arm. He can subordinate, combine His laws according to His mighty power and wisdom, so that, without dishonouring, but rather honouring them in using them, He brings about the result, which is the reward of my prayer.

III. But to reward, there must be something more than the power; there must be the grace. We note, then, as the third postulate of prayer, GOD’S WILLINGNESS TO REWARD. Some, learning that this earth is but a small part of the solar system, and the solar system but a mote in the sunbeam of the universe, say, with more than the psalmist’s meaning: Well, what is man that God should be mindful of him, or the son of man that God should visit him? Why should God answer the prayers of one so insignificant? The question would have force if man were nothing more than matter. But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of God hath given him understanding; we are His offspring. A solar system, therefore, might expire, but it would touch God less than the cry of one of His children. Insignificant man is materially, but not spiritually. He has a quality transcending all matter; he has a life which shall flourish with immortal energy when the fires of the sun are sunk into cold ashes. God will hear His child, though the child be small. Ah, but we are sinful, and He is holy; will He suffer us to come near Him? Verily, God is willing that the sinful, being penitent, should draw near to Him. Why, has He not drawn near to them in every inviting word and gracious deed of prophet and saint? Has He not drawn near to them in Christ Jesus? Yea, does He not draw near to us sinful now? What is that loathing of sin which sometimes comes upon the sinner? What is that sense of shame and feeling of disgust which sometimes fills him? What is that longing for good, that wistful looking back to the days when the heart was pure? What are these but God coming to the sinner? What are our hungerings for righteousness, our longings for truth, our aspirations for goodness, but God in us, working in us to will and to do of His good pleasure? To meet, then, such operations is to fulfil His own desires; to reward such feelings is to satisfy Himself. If God has come thus to us, how can we doubt that He will reward us coming to Him? How can He deny our prayer, when to fulfil it is to fulfil His own will? (A. Goodrich, D. D.)

The existence of God

1. First, the belief in His existence is universal, and what is a universal belief has the force of a law of nature. This belief we see alike in the savage and the highly civilised. The soul has it sunk into itself that it is an uncompounded spiritual substance. But this impersonalness in the soul implies a personalness in Him who made it.

2. Our moral nature attests the same thing. Conscience in every man says: “Thou shalt and thou shalt not.” We are conscious of responsibility, and this implies a personal being to whom we are responsible. This is the testimony of the moral nature. Besides, there is an instinct of the infinite in every mind. This, indeed, is the highest part of our nature. Unless there is an answering reality in God, that part is an enigma--eyes without light, lungs without air.

3. We see, thirdly, a progress in history. It is absurd to suppose that all the tangled elements of early European history--Greek, Phoenician, Roman, Scythian--of themselves made Europe’s present civilisation, as to suppose that a combat of Arctic and Tropic winds could have made the Yale College of now.

4. We see, fourthly, the Scriptures coming to assert a God, not proving Him, but bringing Him to light; affording an explanation of all things in Him, and it is in a sense a proof.

5. We have, fifthly, evidence that God is of the highest purity and holiness. We must have that answering fact in Him, for it is in us. This leads us to ask how we may find Him? Discern Him? It is the greatest of questions, for all of our highest living depends on it.

(1) We cannot find Him by the senses. We cannot see gravitation steady the mountains; we cannot hear light drop on the world, with its vivifying power. We can see the jewel, but not the crystallising power. Life shows itself in the flushing cheek, the beaming eye, the bounding step, but we cannot see it. We could not see it go if it should fly away from our dearest one. It eludes us, and so does God.

(2) We cannot find Him by physical analysis. In Shakespeare’s brain, the knife finds no Othello; in Raphael’s, no mother and child; in Angelo’s, no high poised dome; in Napoleon’s, no moving armies, as if they were but fingers. That scientists cannot find God thus must grieve them, till they can pull out genius with a pair of forceps, or showy character and probe.

(3) We cannot find Him by metaphysical analysis. We are to find Him rather through our highest part; through that in us which accords with Him. Love finds love. “The pure in heart shall see God.” We see now why scientists do not find God. They do not use the right instruments. We cannot find love with a microscope, nor sweep up music with a broom. We see why the failures of scientists to find God do not discourage believers. It matters not to him who has seen them that a man pronounce Naples a dream of the fancy; Venice, that dream in stone, reposing ever in blessed stillness on its lagoons, a myth; Merit Blanc, as seen from Geneva, gleaming like the very throne of God on earth, a speculation. We see what a magnificent democracy God has set up on earth to come to this sublimest knowledge in the universe. No university lore, and no grand diploma are essentials. The poorest, the humblest, may have it. We see the sphere of the Church. The objective point is to bring to the world the capability of so seeing God, and then by all good ordinances and methods to develop this seeing of Him and growth toward Him. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)

On coming to God

I. IT IS THE NATURE OF FAITH TO MAKE A MAN COME TOWARDS GOD, AND TO GET COMMUNION WITH HIM THROUGH CHRIST.

1. “What it is to come to God. Coming to God notes three things, for it is a duty always in progress.

(1) The first address of faith. To come to God is to desire to be in His favour and covenant--to be partakers of His blessings in this life, and of salvation in the life to come (Hebrews 7:25).

(2) Our constant communion with Him in holy duties. In all exercises of religion we renew our access to Christ, and by Christ to God; in hearing, as a teacher; in prayer, as an advocate for necessary help and supply; in the Lord’s Supper, as the Master of the feast (Proverbs 9:2).

(3) Our entrance into glory (Matthew 25:34).

2. There is no coming to God but by Christ (John 10:9), “I am the door”; there is no entrance but through Him (John 14:6).

(1) By His merit. As paradise was kept by a flaming sword, so all access to God is closed by His justice; there was no pressing in till Christ opened the way, God became man, drawing near to us by the veil of His flesh Hebrews 10:19-20).

(2) By His grace.

II. THAT THE FIRST POINT OF FAITH, IF WE WOULD HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH GOD, IS TO RELIEVE THAT THERE IS A GOD. This is the primitive and supreme truth, therefore let me discuss it a little; the argument is not needless.

1. Partly because the most universal and incurable disease of the world is atheism; it is disguised under several shapes, but it lies at the root, and destroys all practice and good conscience.

2. Because supreme truths should he laid up with the greatest certainty and assurance. Christians are mistaken very much, if they think all the difficulty of religion lies in affiance, and taking out their own comfort, and in clearing up their own particular interest. Oh, no; a great deal of it lies in assent; there is a privy atheism at the root, and therefore doth the work of God go on so untowardly with us--therefore have we such doubtings and so many deformities of life and conversation.

3. I would handle this argument, that there is a God, because it is good to detain the heart a little in the view of this truth, and to revive it in our souls.

(1) That there is a God may be proved by conscience, which is as a thousand witnesses.

(2) As conscience shows it, so the consent of all nations. There are none so barbarous, but they worship some God.

(3) It may be evident also by the book of the creatures. Surely there is a God, because these things are made in such exactness and order.

(4) Providence also discovers a God. (T. Manton, D. D.)

How to seek God

1. Only: “Aut Caesar, aut nullus”--Him only shalt thou serve. We must not with Ahaziah seek to Beelzebub, the god of Ekron: but to Jehovah, the God of Israel.

2. We must seek Him diligently, as Saul did his father’s asses, the woman her lost groat: there must be no stone unrolled, as the Ninevites, who cried with all their might.

3. At all times. In health, in wealth, in honour (Hosea 5:1-15.). “In their affliction they will seek Me diligently: in health as well as in sickness.” We will seek to a man so long as we need him: we need God at all times, therefore at all times let us seek unto Him.

4. In time, not as the five foolish virgins, who sought too late, and could have no admittance into the marriage feast. (W. Jones, D. D.)

Believe that He is

Faith in God:

The apostle commences this chapter by defining the nature of faith; and then proceeds to adduce, from the narratives of the Old Testament, a variety of instances wherein this grace had been prominently exhibited. But he pauses in his enumeration, that he may indicate, in the words of the text, that, apart from the possession of this qualification, it can be to no purpose that men use the language of prayer. And yet, when immediately afterwards he comes to explain what the measure of that faith is, without which we cannot acceptably betake ourselves to the footstool of our Maker; it seems certainly, at first sight, as though exceedingly small demands were made upon us in this direction. The first requisite, in “ coming to God,” is stated to be, that we are to “believe that He is.” Now, might it not have been supposed that the specifying of such a condition as this would have been altogether superfluous? You will notice, however, that the thing demanded was not that there should be belief in the existence of some Supreme Intelligence, who presides over the affairs and movements of the universe; but that the Deity Himself was to be the object of faith. Now, you cannot believe that “God is,” without bringing your conceptions of His character into accordance with the delineations of it given in the Inspired Volume. And, when this is borne in mind, can it be affirmed with certainty that Christians, in the present day, stand in need of no caution in relation to this very point? One man, for instance, lets his mind be wholly occupied with impressions Of the love of God. He cannot think that the Being who has stored the universe with such abundant demonstrations of His benevolence, will eventually, on the score of transgressions unrepented of, consign any to the abode of the fire and of the worm. Now, is it not evident that the man fails to recognise the Deity of the Scriptures, in the Being concerning whose future proceedings he thus conjectures?--and that, so long as he confines himself to this one-sided view he cannot “come to God,” since “he that cometh to God must believe that He is,”--must recognise Him in all the comprehensiveness of His revealed character,--must beware of the substitution of an idol of the fancy, for the Lord of heaven and earth. But another man is thoroughly persuaded that he is walking along the road which will conduct him to eternal life: and this, simply, because he bears a fair character for morality, and is not chargeable with any flagrant crime. He may devote little or no attention to those religious exercises, public and private, which can with safety be neglected by none; but still it seems not to occur to him that he is endangering the interests of his soul. Now, remembering that “they that worship God, must worship Him in spirit and in truth”; and that “there is none other name given among men, whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus”; you will perceive that the individual who unhappily abandons himself to spiritual indifference, must be necessarily, meanwhile, far from the kingdom of heaven. And if he believes not, therefore, in the God of the Bible, in what terms shall we address him, and what course shall we mark out for his guidance? Oh! the man must indeed be directed to “come to God”; but nothing beyond what is essential will be uttered, when, at the same time, he is informed that before he can “come to God,” he “must believe that God is.” And how frequently is it the case, that the most solemn words of prayer are repeated by the lips, and yet quite unfelt by the heart! Now, is it not so manifest as scarcely to require to be dwelt upon, that if God have connected a large amount of efficacy with earnest prayer, then they who, notwithstanding the proclamation, persist in disbelieving, either wholly or in part, the fact, do not recognise, in the object of their nominal adoration, the prayer-hearing “Lord of all power and might”; that imagination has created an unfaithful representation of Him; that thus the Divine reality is kept out of view; and that, accordingly, before they can “come to God,” they must, in the first place, “believe that He is.” Such, as you will perceive, is the doctrine of our text; wherein the apostle, who had, in the preceding verses, given two instances of the happy results of faith, remarks parenthetically, ere continuing his list, that, if destitute of this gift, man cannot possibly find acceptance; since, in order to his doing so, he must recognise the Deity--recognise Him, of course, as described in His holy Word; and must thus approach Him as “a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (H. B. Moffat, M. A.)

Two things presupposed in coming to God:

“He that cometh to God”--and that is religion; “he that is perpetually approaching God,” as aworshipper, as an applicant, as one who would live with Him and walk with Him, and that continually; “must believe”--must (the phrase is) “have believed,” first of all and once for all--“that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” There are two parts, then, in this primary, this preliminary belief. First the existence of God. A man cannot “come to “ a phantom, to an idea, to a non-entity. It is self-evident. ‘The very phrase here used for religion implies the reality of the Object. “He that cometh to God”--and that is religion--must know and feel that he comes to some one. He that would “walk with” God--and that is religion--must know and feel that that desired Companion exists. The other part of the belief is less obvious, but no less instructive. It is the certainty of blessing for the seeker. “That He is a rewarder,” a recompenser, “to them that diligently seek Him.” It is no humility, it is an irreverence, to doubt God’s will to bless. It is one thing to be conscious of a want of “diligence “ in “seeking”--it is another thing, altogether, to mistrust the willingness of God to be found. To suppose Him reluctant to bless, is to paint Him in a repulsive form; is to make Him less gracious, less merciful, less bountiful, than any very ungracious, unmerciful, ungenerous, and churlish man; is to deny to Him one of those attributes which make Him God. (Dean Vaughan.)

Faith in God

What an odd conceit was that of the Cretians, to paint their Jupiter without either eyes or ears I And what an uncertainty was she at that prayed, “O God, whoever thou art, for whether thou art, or who thou art I know not” (Medea). This uncertainty attending idolatry caused the heathens to close up their petitions with that general “Hear, all ye gods and goddesses!” And those mariners (John 1:5), every man to call upon his god; and lest they might all mistake the true God, they awaken Jonah to call upon his God. (J. Trapp.)

Faith in God’s personality

A certain famous German, at a certain stage of his spiritual life, though he was at the time a critical writer on the side of Christianity, said to one of us, “Oh that I could say Thou to my God, as you do!” (C. Stanford, D. D.)

Faith and prayer

Prayer is the voice of faith. (J. Home.)

Belief in God and prayer

It is worthy of note that the very day after M. Renan wrote that the God of Victor Hugo was a God to whom it may be useless to pray, Victor Hugo himself, with one stroke of his pen, from the shadow of the grave, overturned this laboured and subtle rhetoric. “I ask,” he wrote, “for prayers from all souls. I believe in God.”

God and atheism

God’s character, as portrayed in the Bible, is the most beautiful and perfect conceivable. He is there represented as at once righteous and merciful, a just God and a Saviour. I admire this character as one worthy of the Creator of the world; so much so, that if, when in another state I were assured that the God of the Bible was nowhere to be found, I should ask, with amazement, Who, then, is God? If, instead, there were pointed out to me any other, such as Heathen, Mohammedan, or Papist gods, I should not find it possible, in my nature, to render the homage required, even at the peril of my life. The atheist is so foolish and blind, that he can no more than a mole discern the eternal power and Godhead in the wonderful structure of his own frame, in the curious formation of leaf and flower, or in the marvellous glory of all created things; therefore he comes to the conclusion that there is no God. So may the mole, who has never seen them, make sure there is neither king nor palace. Thou atheistic mole, who hast never travelled nor inquired enough to decide there is no God, all thou canst say is, that thou hast not yet seen Him, and hast no desire to see. How knowest thou that His existence is not so manifest beyond the river of death, and throughout the whole realm of eternity, that denial or even doubt is impossible. The mole may, of course, maintain that there is no Grand Lama in Thibet, because he has never been so far in his travels; but his testimony would have no sort of value. So the atheistic worm must have been through all the regions of death, misery and destruction, and explored all the realms of happiness through the Heaven of heavens, embracing in the circuit of his travels the whole of time and eternity, and able also to comprehend all the modes and forms in which it is possible for Deity to exist, before he can successfully deny the existence of a God. (Christmas Evans.)

Believing prayer:

Is it not a sad thing that we should think it wonderful for God to hear prayer? Much better faith was that of a little boy in one of the schools in Edinburgh, who had attended a prayer-meeting, and at last said to his teacher who conducted it, “Teacher, I wish my sister could be got to read the Bible; she never reads it.” “Why, Johnny, should your sister read the Bible?” “Because if she should once read it, I am sure it would do her good, and she would be converted and be saved.” “Do you think so, Johnny?” “Yes,! do, sir, and I wish the next time there’s a prayer-meeting, you would ask the people to pray for my sister that she may begin to read the Bible.” “Well, well, it shall be done, John.” So the teacher gave out that a little boy was very anxious that prayer should be offered that his sister might begin to read the Bible. John was observed to get up and go out. The teacher thought it very rude of the boy to disturb the people in a crowded room, and so the next day when the lad came, he said, “John, I thought it was very rude of you to get up in the prayer-meeting and go out. You ought not to have done so.” Oh, sir,” said the boy, “I did not mean to be rude; but I thought I should just like to go home and see my sister reading her Bible for the first time.” Thus we ought to believe, and watch with expectation for answers to our prayer. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Faith in prayer:

Prayer is the bow, the promise is the arrow: faith is the hand which draws the bow, and sends the heart’s message to heaven. The bow without the arrow is of no use; and the arrow without the bow is of little worth; and both, without the strength of the hand, to no purpose. Neither the promise without prayer, nor prayer without the promise, nor both without faith, avail the Christian anything. What was said of the Israelites, “They could not enter in, because of unbelief”; the same may be said of many of our prayers: they cannot enter heaven, because they are not put up in faith. (H. G. Salter.)

God answers prayer:

Canon Wilberforce, referring to the struggle preceding the abolition of the slave trade, said he was in a position to state that the leaders in that great movement never took a single step in it without earnest and constant communion with their Lord. On the very night when the leader went down to the House of Commons to plead with silver voice and tender eloquence for the abolition of the evil, on that very night in a little chamber there was gathered a band of praying men; and that night was the night of victory in the House of Commons. (Proctor’s Gems.)

Confidence in prayer

A negro slave in Virginia, whose name we will call Jack, was remarkable for his good sense, knowledge of the leading truths of the gospel, and especially for his freedom from all gloomy fears in regard to his future eternal happiness. A professing Christian, a white man, who was of a very different temperament, once said to him, “Jack, you seem to be always comfortable in the hope of the gospel. I wish you would tell me how you manage to keep steadily in this blessed frame of mind.” “Why, massa,” replied Jack, “I just fall fiat on the promise, and I pray right up.” We recommend Jack’s method to all desponding Christians, as containing, in substance, all that can be properly said on the subject. Take ground on the promises of God, and plead them in the prayer of faith--pray “right up.” (K. Arvine.)

A Rewarder

God a rewarder:

This God taketh upon Him.

1. That every one might have a reward. No creature can be too great to be rewarded of Him, and the greatest needs His reward. On the other side,

God is so gracious, as He accounteth none too mean to be rewarded of 1 Samuel 2:8; Luke 16:21-22).

2. That believers might be sure of their reward. For God is faithful Hebrews 10:23; Ephesians 6:8).

3. That the reward might be worth the having. For God in His rewards con-sidereth what is meet for His Excellency to give, and accordingly proportions His reward. (W. Gouge.)

Rewards in religion

The Christian religion holds out rewards to encourage our obedience. Now how far should rewards and punishments be motives of action? The man of reason immediately informs us, that goodness derived from such motives is no goodness at all--that it is merely the desire of happiness, and the fear of misery. He will add perhaps, as the devil said formerly with regard to Job, that the Christian does not serve God for nought: but that proper rewards are judiciously set before him, to keep his disinterested virtue from swerving. Had the rewards, which the Christian religion places before its worshippers, been such as the Arabian impostor promised--sensual pleasure in all its full-bloom delights--the objection might have weight. The expectation of such rewards iscalculated certainly to debase the mind. But if the reward be holy, the expectation of it, or, if you please, the making it a motive of action, must be virtuous likewise. Now it is the excellence of the object that elevates the pursuit. We put youth on the acquirement of learning, and have no conception that the attainment of knowledge, which is the reward annexed, can debase his mind. It has a contrary effect. In the same manner, with regard to the rewards of another world, the very pursuit of them is health to the soul; as the attainment of them is its perfection. They are pursued through the exercise of these great principles of faith and trust in God. These virtues, which have nothing earthly about them, tend to purify the mind in a high degree. They abstract it from earthly things, and fix it on heavenly. It might also be shown that the fear of future punishment is a just motive of action. To the wicked, indeed, it is the natural dread of those consequences which attend guilt; and serves merely to rouse them to a sense of their wickedness. But when it acts upon a well-disposed mind, it consists in the fear of displeasing God. A just, rational, and religious motive of action. (W. Cilpin, M. A.)

Noah

Faith moving to obedience

I. IT IS A HIGH COMMENDATION TO FAITH, TO RELIEVE THINGS ON THE WORD OF GOD, THAT IN THEMSELVES AND ALL SECOND CAUSES ARE INVISIBLE, AND SEEM IMPOSSIBLE (Romans 4:17-21).

II. No OBSTACLE CAN STAND IN THE WAY OF FAITH WHEN IT FIXETH ITSELF ON THE ALMIGHTY POWER OF GOD AND HIS INFINITE VERACITY Romans 11:23; Titus 1:2).

III. IT IS A GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT AND STRENGTHENING UNTO FAITH WHEN THE THINGS WHICH IT BELIEVES AS PROMISED OR THREATENED, ARE SUITABLE UNTO THE PROPERTIES OF THE DIVINE NATURE, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, HOLINESS, GOODNESS, AND THE LIKE; SUCH AS IT BECOMETH GOD TO DO. Such was the destruction of the world when it was filled with wickedness and violence.

IV. WE HAVE HERE A PLEDGE OF THE CERTAIN ACCOMPLISHMENT OF ALL DIVINE THREATENINGS AGAINST UNGODLY SINNERS AND ENEMIES OF THE CHURCH, THOUGH THE TIME OF IT MAY BE YET FAR DISTANT, AND THE MEANS OF IT MAY NOT RE EVIDENT. Unto this end is this example made use 2 Peter 2:5).

V. A REVERENTIAL FEAR OF GOD, AS THREATENING VENGEANCE UNTO IMPENITENT SINNERS, IS A FRUIT OF SAVING FAITH, AND ACCEPTABLE UNTO GOD.

VI. IT IS ONE THING TO FEAR GOD AS THREATENING WITH A HOLY REVERENCE; ANOTHER TO BE AFRAID OF THE EVIL THREATENED, MERELY AS IT IS PENAL AND DESTRUCTIVE, WHICH THE WORST OF MEN CANNOT AVOID.

VII. FAITH PRODUCETH VARIOUS EFFECTS IN THE MINDS OF BELIEVERS ACCORDING TO THE VARIETY OF OBJECTS IT IS FIXED ON; SOMETIMES JOY AND CONFIDENCE, SOMETIMES FEAR AND REVERENCE.

VIII. THEN IS FEAR A FRUIT OF FAITH WHEN IT ENGAGETH US UNTO DILIGENCE IN OUR DUTY, AS IT DID HERE IN NOAH: “BEING MOVED BY FEAR, HE PREPARED AN ARK.”

IX. THAT ALL THESE THINGS TEND TO THE COMMENDATION OF THE FAITH OF NOAH. Neither the difficulty nor length of the work itself, nor his want of success in preaching, nor the scorn which was cast upon him by the whole world, did discourage him in the least from going on with the work whereunto he was divinely called. A great example it was to all that may be called to bear testimony for God in times of difficulty.

X. WE HAVE HERE AN EMINENT FIGURE OF THE STATE OF IMPENITENT SINNERS, AND OF GOD’S DEALING WITH THEM IN ALL AGES.

1. When their sins are coming to the height, He gives them a peculiar space for repentance, with sufficient evidence that it is a season granted for that end.

2. Dining this space, the long-suffering of God waits for their conversion, and He makes it known that it doth so.

3. He allows them the outward means of conversion,, as He did to the old world in the preaching of Noah.

4. He warns them in particular of the judgments that are approaching them, which they cannot escape, as He did by the building of the ark. And such are the dealings of God with impenitent sinners in some measure in all ages. They, on the other side, in such a season

(1) Continue disobedient under the most effectual means of conversion.

(2) They are secure as unto any fear or expectation of judgments, and shall be so until they are overwhelmed in them (Revelation 18:7-8).

(3) There are always amongst them scoffers, that deride all that are moved with fear at the threatenings of God, and behave themselves accordingly, which is an exact portraiture of the present condition of the world.

XI. THE VISIBLE PROFESSING CHURCH SHALL NEVER FALL INTO SUCH AN APOSTASY, NOR BE SO TOTALLY DESTROYED, BUT THAT GOD WILL PRESERVE A REMNANT FOR A SEED TO FUTURE GENERATIONS (Isaiah 6:11-13; Romans 9:27; Revelation 18:4).

XII. LET THOSE THAT ARE EMPLOYED IN THE DECLARATION OF GOD’S PROMISES AND THREATENINGS TAKE HEED UNTO THEMSELVES TO ANSWER THE WILL OF HIM BY WHOM THEY ARE EMPLOYED, WHOSE WORK IT IS WHEREIN THEY ARE ENGAGED.

XIII. IT OUGHT TO BE A MOTIVE UNTO DILIGENCE IN EXEMPLARY OBEDIENCE THAT THEREIN WE BEAR TESTIMONY FOR GOD AGAINST THE IMPENITENT WORLD WHICH HE WILL JUDGE AND PUNISH. (John Owen, D. D.)

The wicked warbled of judgment:

When we look around us on the world, there seems to be in it a great deal of disorder; and yet it is all under the direction of Him who does everything with the most perfect wisdom. Study, for instance, the science of botany, and you will perceive how correctly He has classified the boundless variety of plants and flowers and trees that spring out of the earth. Read over the pages of natural history, and you will observe the same order existing amongst the equally astonishing diversity of birds and beasts and creeping things. And as it is in the natural so it is also in the moral world. To a mere superficial observer there seems to be a great deal of confusion--a promiscuous mingling of truth and error, of virtue and vice, of pious and wicked people; and yet they are all classified by God. “The Lord knoweth them that are His,” and the Lord knoweth them that are not His; for “His eyes go to and fro in the earth, beholding the evil and the good”; and all the attributes and perfections of His nature have been employed from generation to generation, in rewarding the righteous and in punishing the wicked. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary judgments of this kind which ever was inflicted upon the earth, was that universal deluge by which it was once visited.

I. THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WAS MADE OF THIS THREATENED CALAMITY. “Noah” was “warned of God”; whether by a dream or by a vision, or by an audible voice, is not stated. He was “ warned of God of things not seen as yet”--quite different from anything which had previously transpired in the world. Prior to his receiving this intimation, rain had descended in genial showers, fructifying the earth and causing it to bring forth and bud, and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; and every stream and every rill and every river had flowed back again to the great ocean from whence they had proceeded, and yet it kept within the limits assigned it, when God said, “Hitherto shall thou go, but no farther.” But, at length, this regularity was to suffer interruption. The cause was this: … The sons of God had intermarried with the daughters of men”--the professors of the true religion had united themselves with those who made no pretension to religion; the consequence was a speedy and universal degeneracy of morals--and hence God determined that He would sweep them away with therod of extermination. What is this intended to typify to us? There seems to be something of a similarity between our circumstances and those in which Noah was placed. We also have been “ warned of God of things not seen as yet.” Since we have known the world, it has continued much the same as it was at the beginning of our existence. That sun has regularly risen in the morning and set in the evening, and risen in the eastern and set in the western sky; these heavens have continued to present much the same serene or cloudy aspect, according to the state of the weather; and every hill and mountain and valley present the same appearance to-day as when we first saw them. It is true that other things have been more fragile; that tree has been withered and stripped of its luxuriant foliage; death, too, has made a vast change in our family circles, and amongst our friends and acquaintances. This, however, is only as it has been always. No interruption has been given by all this to the general course of the world; that still goes on as if nothing of the kind had occurred. But a period is coming when you will see, in those heavens and upon this earth, an entirely different spectacle--when you will see these mountains and hills and valleys becoming victims of fire. Now, when Noah was “warned of God of things not seen as yet,” he believed; he gave credence to it immediately; and so ought we, when we look for these still more solemn events which are shortly to come to pass. And yet, alas! how many are there over whom these truths have no practical influence whatever? If an astronomer tells them, as the result of his calculations, that a comet will appear, they mount their observatories, and get ready their telescopic instruments, and they anxiously wait for the extraordinary luminary; and yet, when we tell them of “ signs in heaven and signs on earth,” the sign of the Son of Man coming to judge the world in righteousness, they regard it as “a cunningly-devised fable.” Noah’s faith influenced his passions--he was “ moved with fear,” his mind was solemnly impressed with awe while contemplating the approaching judgments of the Almighty. And yet there are many in our days who are neither moved by fear nor charmed by love. Noah’s faith influenced his actions; he “ prepared an ark,” God having given him directions how it was to be made. Now, this would require considerable expense and considerable labour; and it would expose him to the ridicule of his surrounding neighbours; but he commenced, and he carried on until it was completed. We are not required, it is true, to build an ark; but we are required to repair to one--to “fly for refuge, and lay hold on the hope set before us.” And in order to this, we must cherish a lively apprehension of our danger. We observe, further, that Noah, by his conduct, “condemned the world.” How did he do this? He was a preacher of righteousness; and he gave them line upon line, precept upon precept, and expostulation upon expostulation. He condemned them, too, by preparing the ark; for every time they saw it rise from one stage to another, and every time they heard the sound of his implements they were warned. Precisely in the same way is the world condemned now. Thank God! there are preachers of righteousness still; and there is no blessing which you ought more highly to appreciate. And then there are righteous people still; and whenever you come into contact with a believer in Jesus Christ, you hear a warning addressed to you; and if you continue in a state of impenitence, this will be one ground of your condemnation--that you saw people living in the same world, living in the same neighbourhood, living to God and getting ready for heaven, when you were walking on in your trespasses. Oh, there is something irresistibly convincing in an holy life!

II. THE BLESSEDNESS WHICH RESULTED FROM NOAH’S BELIEVING GOD. Upwards of a century--nearly a hundred and twenty years--had elapsed, and no interruption whatever had been given to their sensual delights, and they ate and they drank, and they married wives and they were given in marriage. But though the deluge came slowly, it came surely; AND at length the hour arrived when God said to Noah, “Come, thou and all thy house, into the ark; and the Lord shut him in”--He who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth. And then the ancient landmarks of the sea were taken away, and then the windows of heaven were opened and the rain came down, not in gentle and genial showers, but in appalling torrents. Oh, what a scene was this! Parents weeping for their children, and children weeping for their parents; husbands lamenting for their wives, and wives lamenting for their husbands; and the sound of music, and the voice of social converse, and all the delights of companionship subsiding in a moment into the dismal howlings of death! And still the waters continue to prevail, until the summits of the everlasting hills were overtopped; but the ark arose majestically above. Still the beautiful vessel floated on the surface of the great deep, till at length it had landed all its inhabitants in safety upon Mount Ararat. And thus you see, by believing God, Noah and his house were preserved safe from the deluge, and he became heir of righteousness which is by faith--entitled to all the blessedness and privileges of a true believer. Thank God there is no difference in religion now! Noah was saved by faith then, and we are saved by faith now. What, then, are we to learn from this? You have heard that a day of judgment is to come. There is no appearance of it at present. The destruction of the old world by water, was a specimen or emblem of the destruction that now is, by fire. There are not; only reservoirs of water beneath the earth, but there are also magazines of flame. What mean those subterraneous fires that issue from Mounts Etna and Vesuvius? They bear testimony to this fact. And then there are fires in these heavens as well as water. What mean those vivid flashes of lightning which you sometimes see gleaming through the vast expanse, and menacing you with ruin? They bear testimony to this fact. And hence the apostle Peter very properly argues “ The heavens and the earth that are now, by the same word” that announced the destruction of the antediluvian world, “are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Oh, what a day will that be to the wicked! Parents will again be seen weeping for their children, and children weeping for their parents. Oh, what a day it will be to the righteous! You will see them in the ark completely safe! (John Watson.)

Noah’s faith and ours

The creed of these Old Testament saints was a very short one, and very different from ours. Their faith was the very same. And that is a principle well worth getting into our minds, that the scope of the creed has nothing to do with the essence of the faith.

I. Look FIRST AT NOAH’S FAITH IN REGARD TO ITS OBJECT. His faith grasped the invisible things to come, only because it grasped the Invisible Person, who was, is, and is to come, and who lifted for him the curtain and showed him the things that should be. So is it with our faith, whether it lays hold upon a past sacrifice on Calvary, or upon a present Christ dwelling in our hearts, or whether it becomes telescopic, and stretches forward into the future, and brings the distant near, all its various aspects are but aspects of one thing, and that is personal trust in the personal Christ that speaks to us. What he says is a matter of secondary importance in this respect. The contents of God’s revelations vary; the act by which man accepts them is always the same. So the great question for us all is--do we trust God? Do we believe Him, and therefore accept His words, not only with the assent of the understanding, which of all idle things is the idlest, but do we believe Him, revealing, commanding, promising, threatening, with the affiance of our whole hearts? Then, and then only, can we look with quiet certainty into the dim future, which else is all full of rolling clouds, that sometimes shape themselves to our imaginations into the likeness of stable things, but alas! change and melt while we gaze. Only then can we front the solemn future, and say: “I do not expect only, I know what is there.”

II. Still further, notice NOAH’S FAITH IN ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS. If faith has any reality in us at all, it works. If real and strong, it will first effect emotion. By “ fear” here we are not merely to understand, though possibly it is not to be excluded, a dread of personal consequences, but much rather the sweet and lofty emotion which is described in another part of this same book by the same word: “Let us serve Him with reverence and with godly fear.” Such holy and blessed emotion, which has no torment, is the sure result of real faith. Unless a man’s faith is warm enough to melt his heart, it is worth very little. A faith unaccompanied by emotion is, I was going to say worse, at any rate it is quite as bad, as a faith which is all wasted in emotion. It is not a good thing when all the steam roars out through an escape pipe; it is perhaps a worse thing when there is no steam in the boiler to escape. I am very sure that there is no road between a man’s faith and his practice except through his heart, and that, as the apostle has it in a somewhat different form of speech, meaning, however, the same thing that I am now insisting upon, “faith worketh by love.” Love is the path through which creed travels outward to conduct. So we come to the second and more remote effect of faith. Emotion will lead to action. “Moved with fear, he prepared and ark.” If emotion be the child of faith, conduct is the child of emotion.

III. AND SO, LASTLY, LET ME POINT TO NOAH’S FAITH, IN REGARD TO ITS VINDICATION. “He condemned the world.” And so the faith of the poor, ignorant, old woman that up in her garret lives to serve Jesus Christ, and to win an eternal crown, will get its vindication some day, and it will be found out then which was the “ practical” man and the wise man. And all the witty speeches and smart sayings will seem very foolish even to their authors, when the light of that future shines on them. And the old word will come true once more, that the man who lives for the present, and for anything bounded by Time, will have to “leave it in the midst of his days,” and “ at his latter end shall be a fool.” Whilst the “foolish “ man that lived for the future; when the future has come to be the present, and the present has dwindled away into the past, and sunk beneath the horizon, shall be proved to be the wise, and shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever. (A Maclaren, D. D.)

Noah’s faith, fear, obedience, and salvation

I. First, notice that in Noah’s case FAITH WAS THE FIRST PRINCIPLE. The text begins, “By faith Noah.” We shall have to speak about his being “ moved by fear”; we shall also remember his obedience, for he “ prepared an ark to the saving of his house.” But you must take distinct note that at the back of everything was his faith in God. His faith begat his fear: his faith and his fear produced his obedience. Nothing in Noah is held up before us as an example, but that which grew out of his faith. To begin with, we must look well to our faith.

1. Notice, first, that Noah believed in God in his ordinary life. Before the great test came, before he heard the oracle from the secret place, Noah believed in God. We know that he did, for we read that he walked with God, and in his common conduct he is described as being “a just man, and perfect in his generations.” To be just in the sight of God is never possible apart from faith; for “the just shall live by faith.” It is a great thing to have faith in the presence of a terrible trial; but the first essential is to have faith for ordinary every-day consumption.

2. Note, next, that Noah had faith in the warning and threatening of God. Faith is to be exercised about the commandments; for David says, “I have believed Thy commandments.” Faith is to be exercised upon the promises; for there its sweetest business lies. But, believe me, you cannot have faith in the promise unless you are prepared to have faith in the threatening also. If you truly believe a man, you believe all that he says.

3. Furthermore, Noah believed what seemed highly improbable, if not absolutely impossible. There was no sea where Noah laid the keel of his ark: I do not even know that there was a river there. He was to prepare a sea-going vessel, and construct it on dry land. How could water be brought there to float it? That faith which believes in the probable is anybody’s faith: publicans and sinners can so believe. The faith which believes that which is barely possible is in better form; but that faith which cares nothing for probability or possibility, but rests alone in the word of the Lord, is the faith of God’s elect. God deserves such faith, “for with God all things are possible.”

4. Noah believed alone, and preached on, though none followed him.

5. Noah believed through a hundred and twenty solitary years.

6. Noah believed even to separation from the world.

II. FEAR WAS THE MOVING FORCE.

1. A loyal reverence of God.

2. A holy fear of judgment.

3. A very humble distrust of himself.

III. OBEDIENCE WAS THE GRACIOUS FRUIT. Faith and fear together led Noah to do as God commanded him. When fear is grafted upon faith, it brings forth good fruit, as in this case.

1. Noah obeyed the Lord exactly.

2. Noah obeyed the Lord very carefully.

3. Noah obeyed at all costs.

4. Noah went on obeying under daily scorn.

5. Noah’s obedience followed the command as he learned it.

IV. RESULTS DID NOT FAIL TO COME.

1. He was saved and his house.

2. He condemned the world. His preaching condemned them: they knew the way, and wickedly refused to run in it. His warning condemned them: they would not regard it and escape. His life condemned them, for he walked with the God whom they despised. Most of all, the ark condemned them. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Noah: activity in providing for the real interests of oneself and family

This description of the faith of Noah involves several distinct parts

1. The warning of God.

2. The motive of Noah--fear.

3. The preparing the ark--the result of fear.

4. The consequence of this--the saving of his house.

5. The work this did for others around--condemned them.

I. THE WARNING OF GOD. The men whom God had made had all rebelled against Him; the world was turned against its Maker. As men grew older and more experienced they increased in arts and sciences, but they decreased in religion and the fear of God. These men lived by sight, not by faith. God determined to punish the godless world, and looking around, He saw only one man worth saving. Only one family worth saving! I doubt not many then would have said it was uncharitable to say there are few who would be saved; uncharitable to say that among many professors there were few who from the heart feared God. But “God seeth not as man seeth.” Such, then, was the warning of God. Now is not this account like that of our day? “As it was in the days of Noah,” so is it now. Is not the advance of trade, and science, and agriculture, and knowledge, thought of before the advance of religion? Now see the part of Noah. He obeyed the warning, and prepared the ark, and saved his family. God ordered an ark to save Noah, and Noah made it; he did not trust to the invention of his own brain as to what would be the best thing in all probability to save him from the water, but he made the ark. God had ordered an ark, and the ark of gopher wood, and Noah made it; the ark--only the ark, could save Noah from death. Why? Not because it was the most scientific mode of salvation, not because it was the most learned way of safety, not because it was the most likely means of salvation; no, it was not on this account that Noah made the ark; he made it because it was the appointed means of safety, because God had ordered it.

2. Noah was active in his work, and while he worked he preached. Why was Noah active? Because he feared God and loved his family.

Now some men invent one way of escaping the last deluge of fire, and some another.

1. Some say God’s mercy shall be our ark, which we will hope for without seeking.

2. Some say, our own works shall be our ark, an ark we will provide by our own labour, but not after the fashion God has ordered, an ark not made of gopher wood.

3. Some say, we will make an ark with our works like what God orders, but we will mot begin it yet, we will wait till the clouds begin to darken for the storm, that will be soon enough; we will repent on a death-bed.

4. Some say, we will make something like an ark, but we will not take much trouble about it; we will make it after the material God orders, but we will be satisfied with a mere framework, we will trust to our general religious character to bear us safely through the dreadful fire; we will not concern ourselves about individual acts.

5. Some say, we will have none; no flood will come. Such are all the schemes we have to provide against the last flood. But what shall happen to them?

(1) Those who make no ark will find no ark. Those who trust to God’s mercy without seeking God’s mercy, shall find no mercy.

(2) Those who make their own ark shall enter it, but it will dash to pieces against the first obstacle, and sink its terrified crew against the rocks of everlasting despair. Those who trust to their own works will find they stand them in no stead.

(3) Those who put off making the ark till the clouds darken the sky shall have scarce struck a nail in it before they shall be arrested by the flood.

(4) Those who are satisfied with the outward framework, will find the fire pierce through every open crevice of the ark, and they shall be burnt up in the ark which they have made.

(5) Those who made no ark at all shall be swallowed up quickly.

(6) And then, who shall be saved? Only he who shelters in the true ark, that only rides upon the waters safe and secure; the ark made according to God’s direction.

II. But again, THE MOTIVE which induced Noah to build the ark--fear, produced by faith, and love, inducing fear. “By faith in things not seen as yet, Noah moved with fear, prepared an ark, wherein eight souls were saved.” He believed God’s word. Faith, then, was the spring of all. If he had not believed, he would have been idle, as the idle world. His faith produced works. And again, it awakened him as to the real interest of his family; he was not concerned about their present pleasure, but about their future safety. (E. Monro.)

Noah: things not seen as yet

I. The things not seen as yet are THE GREATEST THINGS IN HUMAN HISTORY.

1. The greatness of human nature.

2. The solemnity of human life.

II. Some of the things not seen as yet are DIVINELY REVEALED TO MAN AS ARTICLES OF FAITH.

1. The universal triumph of the gospel in the world.

2. The termination of that mediatorial system of things under which the human race has been living ever since the fall.

3. The separation of the righteous from the wicked.

III. Man’s faith in the things not seen as yet is CAPABLE OF EXERTING A MIGHTY INFLUENCE UPON HIS LIFE.

1. Noah’s faith in the unseen impelled him to the most trying work. It was trying to his

(1) patience;

(2) social nature;

(3) reason.

2. His faith impelled him to the most serviceable work. In carrying out God’s idea, he saved the world.

3. Sin-condemning work.

4. Self-rectifying work. (Homilist.)

Noah:

I. A GOOD MAN IS THE SPECIAL OBJECT OF THE DIVINE FAVOUR. “Being warned,” &c.

1. Information of the approach of coming evil.

2. Instructions to prepare for the coming evil.

(1) Man cannot do without Divine guidance.

(2) Man will not do without human effort. Work tests and develops character.

3. Assurance of safety from the coming evil. God condescended to bind Himself by an agreement that was comprehensive and everlasting.

(1) It contains reward for excellence of character, and is the basis of all honours to come.

(2) It is eternal.

II. A GOOD MAN IS AN OBEDIENT SERVANT TO THE DIVINE WILL. “Moved with fear,” &c.

1. He was actuated by the sublimest motive. Profound regard for the truthfulness of the Divine admonitions, and implicit trust in the power of God to carry out His threatenings. He was extraordinarily subservient to the Divine plan.

(1) He did precisely according to the Divine plan.

(2) He did precisely at the Divine time.

(3) He did precisely according to the Divine expectation.

In spite of cost, labour, care, ridicule, long delay, other engagements, his faith triumphed over all. There was no arguing, no murmuring, no relapsing, no desponding, but daily work, and daily progress, and daily trusting, until at last the huge ship was ready for its cargo, voyage, and destination.

III. A GOOD MAN IS THE EFFICIENT MEDIUM OF THE DIVINE PURPOSE. By faith and works Noah influenced the whole of the world. He fixed universal destiny.

1. He was the efficient medium in preserving his family.

2. He was the efficient medium in punishing his contemporaries.

3. He was the efficient medium promoting himself. (B. D. Johns.)

Faith the power for right-doing

I. LOOK AT THE SIMPLICITY AND STRENGTH OF NOAH’S FAITH.

1. The Divine word predicted what seemed unlikely to happen.

2. The fulfilment of this prediction was long delayed.

3. The belief of the prediction was opposed by the ungodly atmosphere in which he lived.

II. NOTICE THE RIGHTDOING WHICH NOAH’S FAITH ENABLED HIM TO FULFIL.

1. The discharge of arduous duties. Building, peopling, stocking the Ark.

2. The endurance of severe trials. Scorn and mockery from his contemporaries.

3. The rebuke of a wicked world. “Preacher of righteousness.”

III. REMEMBER THAT THE RIGHT-DOING BY FAITH IN NOAH’S CASE REVEALS THE POWER FOR ALL RIGHT-DOING. Have you hard things to do? You need faith.

1. Faith in the grace of God. That is, in your acceptance by Him through Christ. The love in that is the sufficient motive for right-doing.

2. Faith in the character of God. God is good, wise, faithful, loving. He cannot, therefore, call us to any duty or experience which is not in harmony with what He is.

3. Faith in the word of God. That what He has promised (of help, &c.) He will certainly perform. That is encouragement and support in right-doing. Conclusion. Where did Noah get this victorious faith? Faith comes from knowing God; the more we know Him the better we trust Him; we know Him the more the more we are with Him. (C. New.)

Noah’s faith

I. THE REVELATION WITH WHICH NOAH WAS FAVOURED.

1. It is characterised as a warning.

2. It was a warning from God.

3. It was a warning from God which concerned “ things not seen as yet.”

II. THE MANNER IN WHICH NOAH IMPROVED THE REVELATION WITH WHICH HE WAS FAVOURED.

1. He believed it.

2. He was “moved with fear.”

In the affairs of this life a prudential, stimulating fear is not only permitted, but applauded. Hence the child who so fears his parents as always to obey, is beloved; the scholar who so fears his master as always to excel, is admired; the merchant who, through fear, lingers in the port because he knows that a powerful pirate scours the neighbouring seas, is commended; the tradesman who, through fear, refuses to trust his property in doubtful hands, is accounted wise; and the traveller who, through fear, takes a circuitous route because he knows that the nearest road is infested with robbers, is deemed prudent. Since this is the case in the affairs of this life, how comes it to pass that the fear of the Lord is so generally despised? And why are those who live under its influence so generally regarded as men of mean and melancholy minds? Is it because the rod of a mortal is more to be dreaded than the wrath of God? Is it because the loss of earthly property is a greater evil than the loss of the soul?

3. He prepared the ark.

(1) The building of such a vessel must have consumed a great deal of time. Let those who neglect the whole round of religious duty, pleading as their excuse that they have no time to perform it, consider this trait in Noah’s piety, and stand reproved. What! no time to serve God, and save your souls? The rebel might just as well say to his insulted sovereign, “Sire, I had no time to be loyal.”

(2) It must have occasioned him great expense. It is a striking peculiarity in the economy of God to His people, that before He gives them all that He has, He requires them to consecrate to Him everything which they possess. He acted thus towards Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the apostles. And before He gave Noah his life, and the lives of his household for a prey, He set him upon constructing a vessel, which, considering its magnitude, must have abridged his portion, not only of the superfluities, but even of the necessaries, of life. Judging from the Divine conduct in other cases, we think it not at all extravagant to suppose that the last nail was driven as the last item of his estate was gone. But Noah believed God; and therefore the greatness of the cost was no obstruction to the completion of the work. By the light of faith he discerned that riches and worldly goods are means of honour and of happiness only so far as they are consecrated to God, and employed for Him.

(3) It must have subjected him to much reproach. It is exceedingly probable that the king and the peasant, the philosopher and the fool, the rich and the poor, the hoary headed father and the lisping boy, would all unite in making him and his ark a proverb of reproach and scorn. They would blame him for rendering religion offensive to rational and intelligent men; and they would charge him with cruelty to his family, in spending his substance upon such an extravagant undertaking.

III. THE EFFECTS WHICH RESULTED FROM NOAH’S DILIGENT IMPROVEMENT OF THE REVELATION VOUCHSAFED TO HIM BY GOD.

1. He saved his house. Let all heads of families aim at the same thing. See that your domestic arrangements and private conduct be such as shall entail the blessing, and not the curse, of God upon your offspring.

2. “He condemned the world.”

(1) In the same sense as a witness may be said to condemn a criminal, when he furnishes incontestable evidence of his guilt. His faith, in this sense, condemned their unbelief; for it demonstrated the sufficiency of the revelation given, and was, moreover, a pattern for their imitation, and a motive stimulating them to action.

(2) Inasmuch as he deprived them of all ground of excuse. He was a “ preacher of righteousness”; and, as such, he no doubt instructed them in the nature of righteousness; its necessity and advantages; together with the means of acquiring it.

3. He “became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The righteousness of which Noah is said to have become “heir,” or possessor, is in other places called “the righteousness of God”; “the righteousness which is of God by faith”; “the gift of righteousness which is by Christ”; and sometimes simply, “the righteousness of faith”; by all which expressions is meant, that free justification from all past guilt which we obtain when we believe on Him that justifieth the ungodly. That Noah not only believed all that was revealed concerning the flood; but also all that was made known respecting the perfections of God, the fall of man, and the scheme of redemption by Jesus Christ, is evident from the sacrifice which he offered on quitting the ark, and the gracious acceptance which it obtained from God. (P. McOwan.)

How to receive God’s warnings:

What entertainment did Noah give to this warning? Did he contemn it or set light by it in his heart? No verily; he reverenced it. We must reverence the judgments of God. When Daniel pondered in himself the fearful fall of Nebuchadnezzar, that such a fair arid beautiful tree which reached to heaven should be cut down, he held his peace by the space of one hour, and his thoughts troubled him. When the angels were to blow their trumpets, there was silence in heaven, they were stricken with a kind of astonishment, and could not speak. When the book of the law was read before Isaiah, his heart melted at it, he reverenced the judgment denounced in it. When this proclamation was made in Nineveh, yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed, they all reverenced it, from the king to the beggar, &c., they put on sackcloth, fasted, and prayed to God. Noah hearing of a flood to come, fears it after a godly manner, and provides against the coming of it. But some there be that are no more moved with them than the stones in the church wall (Jeremiah 36:24). Let the preacher thunder out God’s judgments against abominable swearing, lying, flattering, and dissembling, and other sins that reign among the people. Some laugh at it in their sleeves; tell them of the day of judgment, when as all nations shall appear before the Son of Man; they set not a straw by it, they are worse than Felix: he trembled when St. Paul discoursed of righteousness and the judgment to come. They are worse than the devils, for they believe that there is a God, and tremble at it. There is great difference between trembling and reverencing. (W. Jones, D. D.)

Judgment preceded by warbling:

God never brought a judgment upon any nation without previous, distinct, and intelligible warnings. This is a principle of the Divine government, illustrated by the whole history of the Church and the world. Lot warned Sodom; the Israelites, Egypt; their prophets, the Israelites; Jonah, Nineveh; Jesus and His apostles, Jerusalem and Judaea. And thus Noah, both by his actual declaration of the “ word of the Lord “and his building in the view of the people the vessel of safety, testified the Divine intentions, and warned the world of the “ coming wrath.” (T. Binney.)

Faith accepts all God says:

Faith, in the simple and practical view we are attempting to take, consists in a regard to the whole of the Divine testimony, to whatever that testimony relates. If, for example, the truth specifically contemplated be a simple intellectual announcement, faith is the acquiescence of the understanding in its absolute certainty. If it be a promise of good, faith is confidence in its fulfilment. If it be a threatening of evil, combined as all threatenings are with the merciful provision of a method of escape, faith is apprehension concurring with flight to the appointed refuge. It was thus that it first operated in the mind of Noah. (T. Binney.)

Warning despised:

Not far from the place of St. Paul’s shipwreck in the Mediterranean, a noble frigate once set sail. A gallant admiral, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, was her commander, and thought himself fully competent to guide her course. But there was an experienced seaman on board who knew better than he the dangers which surrounded them. However, on his venturing to say so, he was immediately hanged at the yard-arm for his impertinence. Not long did the cruel commodore survive him. In the darkness of the night the ship struck on the fatal rock concerning which the seaman had uttered his warning voice, and soon became a total wreck. A few escaped a watery grave, but the greater part, with the headstrong Sir Cloudesley himself, were drowned. (J. Lange.)

Moved with fear

Fear as a motive in religion:

Here is an instance of a man, in his relations to God, acting under the impulse of fear, and good came of it. Of course this is not one and the same thing as saying that in the moral sphere fear is the highest motive. A thing may be good, without being the best. Men start from different levels, and they live upon different levels. Some “there are who never know what it is to turn unto God from the low plane of immorality. Others, again, take their first step heavenward from the very mouth of the pit. And this varied inception of the Christian life is proof enough that fear cannot be held up as the general or even the best motive. There may be those who never felt it, who have never needed to feel it. There may be those who run in the paths of obedience and righteousness, urged only by a higher and nobler impulse. Neither is it necessary to hold here, when looking upon an example of its beneficent operation, that fear must remain a permanent moral motive even in such a case. An apostle speaks of a “love” which “casteth out fear.” So the one who commences in fear may rise unto this love. The one ascending from the earth in a balloon, gradually but surely rises above the smoke and mist which lie in low clouds over the earth’s surface. Soon he moves, he sails in the clear abyss of the heavens. So with the human life, as it rises unto truth and virtue and God. It may rise above the murky atmosphere of its first motives and earlier days. But let us turn to the direct consideration of the subject in the text.

I. Let me say, first of all, THAT THERE IS FOUNDATION LAID IN THE HUMAN CONSTITUTION FOR THE OPERATION OF THE MOTIVE WHICH WE ARE CONSIDERING. Fear is a universal attribute of human nature. It is as natural for a man to fear as to hope, or trust, or love. And this susceptibility, like all other natural capacities of human life, must have been conferred upon man for beneficent ends. She holds as good a title to her place as does hope; both are patents issued by the hand of the Creator; and not only are they of equally high origin, they are also co-ordinate in dignity, mutually dependent and helpful. If it were not for hope, man would hold back from attainable good. If fear were wanting, he would rush headlong upon invincible danger. Hope cries unto man: “Dare it, dare it!” But some risks are foolhardy, and fear points these out. Man is saved by hope, being swept forward; he is saved by fear, being held back. And now, from the survey of this great law upon the lower levels, I ask: Why scout at fear in the moral realm? Why attempt to scourge her from the temple of religion? Has God bestowed upon your soul a useless or misleading sense, a susceptibility to be devoted unto inactivity and death? Why, He has not done such a thing in the body; and surely the Creator has shown as much wisdom in the adaptation of your spirit to its surroundings as in the adaptation of your body to the material world. Why not, then, grant unto these intimations in these two different spheres equally solemn audience? When in this world Fear cries out: “There is the danger of poverty ahead; there is the possibility of suffering ahead; there is the loss of reputation ahead”--you are not unmindful of her warnings. But again this same Fear, through the voice of Concience, cries out: “Wrath is coming; judgment lies ahead, and the great eternity.” In this case also, why not listen to her signal notes? Unmanly to fear! You say so, with the great cyclones of the awful forces of the universe, boiling, sweeping around you! Unmanly to fear! Then God made you an unmanly man. Irrational to be influenced by fear! Then are you showing yourself a fool every day.

II. THE RELATION OF DEITY TO MAN LEGITIMATISES THE MOTIVE OF FEAR. TWO revelations of God have been given--one in the moral constitution of man, and one in the Bible. These two revelations agree in this, that they present God in the act and attitude of one warning men of possible danger. First, the Bible does this. “Flee to this voice; give it your fullest confidence.’” But shall men love the God who loves, trust the God who promises, and not fear the same God when He warns?

III. THE PUBLIC TEACHING AND LIFE OF JESUS OF NAZARETH BEARS IN THE MOST EMPHATIC MANNER UPON THIS SUBJECT. We notice two things. First, Jesus was no fanatic. On the contrary, never was character so well balanced as His. From such a character would you expect an exaggerated statement of an uncertain dogma, of an unessential partialism? Then, again, consider His great sympathy with men, His measureless benevolence. Yet concerning future punishment and suffering He spake some of the most awful words which this world has ever heard. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’” And the revelation of Nature does the same. It shows physical law relentlessly pursuing the transgressor. If lifts up the picture of human suffering before the eye. It stirs the conscience of the individual and the race with the apprehension of possible evil and suffering beyond the present world. And now, what will you do? Mind, I do not ask you to ignore any other attribute of Deity which has been revealed to man. There is love shining forth in most beautiful characters. Answer this, as you ought, by hope and trust and gratitude. There are words of sweetest invitation written upon the pages of the Bible. Sweetly let your heart respond.

IV. IN A SUBJECT SO INDEFINITE AS THIS, DEMONSTRATION IS, OF COURSE, IMPOSSIBLE. It seems to me, however, that the suggestions which have been made are so many grave intimations to every thoughtful mind. But comes there up in reply from any human life the voice: “I cannot fear, I see the flashing danger-signal--I mark its lurid light. I hear those awful words as they drop from the lips of Jesus. I see it all, I hear it all; and yet no apprehension of danger is awakened within me”? In reply let me say, perhaps you do not need to fear. The Divine Father has many ways of drawing men unto Himself. Possibly in your case love is doing its work. If this be so, all is well. But the spectacle of a human life unto which the mandatory word of God has come in vain, which is consciously moving forward in disobedience, consciously out of harmony with itself and moral law--for any such life as this to lift up the words, “I cannot fear”--this is a very different matter, and this, it seems to me, is passing strange. What shall I say to you? Exhort you to fear? Stand up here and cry: “Be afraid, be afraid”? This were absurd. Emotions cannot” be manufactured to order in the laboratory of the will. This let me say: Perhaps your fear is artificially, unnaturally repressed. Perhaps it is, by the hand of a moral thoughtlessness, or a moral bravado, battened down in the hatchways of your being. The ship had crashed into an iceberg, and immediate death seemed inevitable to every one on board. A gentleman from out that scene said to me: “Very few were calm in that hour; there were very few who did not fear then.” But, possibly, had these same terror-stricken ones spoken on the subject an hour before the collision, many of them would have said: “As a moral being I am incapable of fear.” Nevertheless fear was in them. So it may be with you. Again, let me say that inability to fear may be due to moral hurt. The hand may become so callous that a living coal of fire can beheld within the palm, and no pain felt. Through paralysis the arm may die, so that the heaviest blow gives no sensation. So the Bible declares that the moral nature may be so seared as to be past feeling. Perhaps this is the case with some who say they cannot fear. Perhaps a false and unworthy life has smitten you with moral paralysis. In either case, whether it is due to unnatural repression or moral paralysis, this inability to fear is not something to be satisfied with, much less to boast of. The paralytic does not run about with his dangling arm, crying out: “Pinch it; I do not feel! Hit it; your blow hurts me not! Ha, ha, I cannot feel!” Neither should the moral paralytic so boast. Rather let him betake himself to the electric battery of moral law, and see if he cannot quicken the insensate nerves, irrigate with new life the callous tissues of his moral being. Closely connected with this subject is an insinuating delusion which is exercising the most pernicious influence upon thousands. Human voices cry out: “The spirit of the age is against this whole matter of fear, indeed forbids it.” I cannot appreciate the force of this retort, or see what the spirit of the day has to do with the great matter of a man’s relation to his Creator and Judge. The age of Louis

XIV. had its spirit; so had the age of Charles II. and of Frederick the Great.What were these spirits? Thin, vaporous films, blown from the mouths of men, curling for a brief moment around the everlasting mountain of Bible truth. And the spirit of our day, if it is contradictory of the living Word, shall prove as evanescent. The spirit of the age is the atmosphere through which walks the creature of a day. It extends upward from earth--say, as high as a man’s heart; say, as high as his head; while all above this, all around this, are the awful depths of the moral ether, unchanged since the days of Noah--ay, unchangeable, as is the God whose breath they are. The spirit of the age to be called in to modify the eternal conditions of the moral universe! The six-foot atmosphere of this our little world to beat over, to pour itself through, to reprortion the shoreless, soundless ocean of the eternal nature of things! The very thought is enough to awaken laughter throughout the universe of God! The spirit of the age, forsooth! A few hours’ cholera, a few days’ fever, a falling brick, a runaway horse, a passing locomotive may sweep away a human life out of it, and for ever. Let us not make fools of ourselves. We are not too big to be warned of God, and we shall not belittle ourselves by giving thoughtful heed to His warning. (S. S. Mitchell, D. D.)

Use of fear

The Houourable Robert Boyle, distinguished alike as a philosopher and as a Christian, acknowledged (though “he blushed it was so”)that his fear, during a tremendous thunderstorm in the night, while he resided in Geneva, “was the occasion of his resolution of amendment”--a resolution to which he faithfully adhered through life. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)

Fear in religion

The testimony of one of the most genial and successful of preachers is that “of all the persons to whom his ministry had been efficacious only one had received the first effectual impressions from the gentle and attractive aspect of religion; all the rest from the awful and alarming ones--the appeal to fear.” Take again the testimony of one of the wisest and most successful of our schoolmasters. “I can’t rule my boys,” he says, “by the law of love. If they were angels or professors I might; but as they are only boys, I find it necessary to make them fear me first, and then take my chance of their love afterwards. By this plan I find that I generally get both; by reversing the process I should in most cases get neither.” And God does not deal with us now as He will do when perfect love has cast out its preparative fear. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)

Fear

The tragic event that led to Peter Waldo’s conversion reminds us of the similar circumstance that awakened in Luther’s mind the conviction of sin. On a certain day he was sitting at a banquet of distinguished citizens when one of the guests at his side suddenly became a corpse. The solemn emotion that seized all present became a life-long force in the heart of Peter Waldo. He gazed forward in fear to the account he must himself give at the bar of God. His sins rose in remembrance before him. How shall I appease an awakened conscience? was the question that filled his soul. The Romish Church had its answer ready: “By almsgiving”; and Waldo from that day devoted part of his wealth to the relief of poverty. Every quarter of the town felt his beneficence: but his heart was not at peace: his alms-deeds could not assure him of the forgiveness of sins. (C. A. Davis.)

Salutary influence of fear:

That Luther was not an angel in his youth we may know, for he tells of himself that he was whipped fifteen times in one day in his first school. But all this did not beat grace into his heart, though it may have beaten letters into his head. He made brilliant progress in study, and at twenty years of age received his degree at the university as a Bachelor of Arts. Up to this time his heart was in the world. His father designed him for the law, and his own ambition no doubt aspired to the honours within easy reach in that line of life. God designed otherwise. Just at that critical time, when the very next step would be the first in a life-long profession, one of his fellow-students, dear to him as a brother beloved, one Alexis, was assassinated. The report of this tragic affair coming to Luther’s ear, he hurried to the spot and found it even so. Often before, conscience, and the Spirit in his heart, had urged him to a religious life, in preparation for death and the judgment. And now, as he stood gazing upon the bloody corpse of his dear friend Alexis, and thought how in a moment, prepared or unprepared, he had been summoned from earth, he asked himself the question, “What would become of me if I were thus suddenly called away?” This was in A.D. 1505, in summer. Taking advantage of the summer’s vacation, Luther, now in his twenty-first year, paid a visit to Mansfeldt, the home of his infancy. Even then the purpose of a life of devotion was forming in his heart, but not yet ripened into full and final decision. On his way back to the university, however, he was overtaken by a terrific storm. “The thunder roared,” says D’Aubigne; “a thunderbolt sank into the ground by his side; Luther threw himself on his knees; his hour is perhaps come. Death, judgment, eternity, are before him in all their terrors, and speak with a voice which he can no longer resist. ‘ Encompassed with the anguish and terror of death,’ as he says of himself ‘ he makes a vow, if God will deliver him from this danger, to forsake the world, and devote himself to His service.’ Risen from the earth, having still before his eyes that death must one day overtake him, he examines himself seriously, and inquires what he must do. The thoughts that formerly troubled him return with redoubled power. He has endeavoured, it is true, to fulfil all his duties. But what is the state of his soul? Can he, with a polluted soul, appear before the tribunal of so terrible a God? He must become holy”--for this he will go into the cloister, he will enter a convent, he will become a monk and a priest in the Augustinean order. He will there become holy and be saved. (W. E. Boardman, D. D.)

Conversion and fear:

One dear old man, who at the ripe age of seventy-eight, became a humble childlike Christian, and who twice in the week used to walk eight miles to hear me, had one favourite version of the words which caused his conversion, to which he adhered with frightful fixity and retailed to every one he met. “There were three of us old men a-settin’ together, and you turned and you shook your little finger at us, and you said, ‘You old men there, you are going to hell as fast as your old legs can carry you!’ I never felt so afeared in my life, and I have been a changed man ever since.” (Ellice Hopkins.)

Fear and faith:

Fear and faith do not at first sound very likely companions. It is just because we think this, because we fancy ourselves a little wiser than God’s Word, that our fear and our faith fail to act as they ought. Let us try to learn a better lesson now; and it will help us to do this if we set about studying what Noah did a little more closely than perhaps we have done before. We will take his fear first, for I suppose it would come first. He heard the tremendous words of wrath from the God whom he walked with, and he knew He would not speak without acting. He said to himself “Is not God’s word gone forth, ‘I will destroy all flesh’? I cannot rest easy; what shall I do? what can I do?” I think Noah must have had a longer or a shorter time when fear was overwhelming--but it was not allowed to go long uncorrected. Almost in the same breath with the threat, we hear the voice which called out the faith. Imagine him told to make an ark. He may have said to himself, It is strange--it is what man never did before--but I know that my God would not tell it me and mean me to be a mere laughing-stock to the world. The triumph shall be on my side in the end. So we see his fear made ready for his faith, and his faith told his fear how far it was to go and what it was to do. They showed him his own helpless state--they took him to God for help. And now see what his action was. It was simply doing his little part in God’s great plan. And what was the result? A specimen of that great Divine plan--God’s strength and our weakness hand in hand; the saving of his house; the keeping at bay of all the terrific onsets of those torrents of rain and buffetings of waves. That is how faith and fear do work together. In the first place the sense of fear is a most necessary thing, and a thing we are not often left to go without. Does it come home to us--the truth of an offended Father who will by no means clear the guilty, and whom it is absurd to think we can satisfy. Faith then comes in and applies this very helplessness, this very sinfulness, this very fear. Faith bids us look within and see the things which are unseen--put present likings, strong temptations, selfish instincts, stifling voices aside, and see that there are joys to come, and there is a wrath to come--that there has been a marvellous work done, which eye never saw the like of, and which mind cannot take in--a work of love whereby God came down from heaven and took upon Him man’s lowly likeness and suffered for sin, in order to help the helpless, in order to provide an ark which shall float over the very waves of God’s justice and be lifted up by them out of harm’s reach. But what will be the working of the fear and the faith? Noah built the ark and entered into it. We have but to do a very little thing, but that we must do--not even to build an ark at God’s bidding--but in the first place simplyto enter in and be on the safe side of the door which God will close upon us. That entering in is not quite nothing; it means feeling very helpless: but only seek you to be taught your own unsatisfactory self, and can you find it so hard to win safety by casting off all refuges but the only safe one. Now I think we see how faith and fear go together. Fear is not dismay--and faith is not self-security. Safe within the ark of Christ’s Church--safe in the love of Christ Himself, you yet “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” That very fear ought to strengthen our faith, to drive us out of any holdfast but the one only one, and make us unite ourselves with Him under whose leadership we are the surer to conquer, the surer we are of our weakness. (John Kempthorne, M. A.)

Abraham

The faith of Abraham

I. THE FAITH EXHIBITED BY ABRAHAM IN HIS OBEDIENCE TO THE DIVINE CALL. It was neither poverty, nor restless discontent with the monotony of daily toil, that sent him out of Ur of the Chaldees. Nor does Scripture drop any hint of persecution. The simple urgent reason was a Divine command, “Get thee out,” &c. Mighty consequences hung upon his obedience. It was the first link in a long chain of acts of faith by which the knowledge of the true God was to be preserved in the earth, and the redemption of mankind accomplished. The greatest and happiest consequences have flowed from single acts of righteousness and faith. Men simply did their present duty; they took counsel with none but their own conscience; one step before them on life’s path stood clearly revealed, and they ventured, notwithstanding all being dark beyond. By faith they acted thus, believing that if a man can only see his way a yard before him in the path of duty, he may step it as boldly as though the whole road were clear right up to the gate of heaven. When Wicliff, the pioneer of the English mind in that unknown land of promise which lay hid in the Bible, first led the way by translating it into his mother-tongue, he went forth in faith, not knowing whither. When John Hampden resisted the unrighteous impost of ship-money, he-committed himself in faith to a struggle the issue of which no sagacity could predict. Little did he think that he was making himself a name as chief among the founders of his country’s liberties; it was the duty of the hour, and that was enough for him. When the crew of the Mayflower left our shores to seek a home in the New World, they went out not knowing whither; in their grandest dreams they could never have imagined what a stronghold of civil and religious liberty would arise out of the foundation they were laying in obedience to conscience and by their faith in God.

II. ABRAHAM’S SOJOURN IN CANAAN, AS IN A LAND NOT HIS OWN, THOUGH IT WAS THE LAND OF PROMISE. Similar trials of faith have fallen to the lot of other men who, obeying God and conscience, have gone out not knowing whither, Not always have they found the promised land. Many have died without witnessing the accomplishment of their hopes, sometimes without catching a glimpse of the splendid results to which their faith and courage ultimately led. Exemption from such trials must not be expected. Brave lives are sacrificed in the forefront of battle that the soldiers in the rear may pass on to victory; so in every battle of principle the faith and courage of many a good soldier appear to be spent without result. Without result indeed they would be, if the conflict ended with their lives and their example perished. But since, in every contest for truth and right, the victory has first to be won inwardly, in the hearts of many earnest men, before it can be made palpable to eye and ear, so those who help the spiritual preparation contribute as much to the victory as they who actually accomplish it. (E. W. Shalders, B. A.)

The obedience of faith:

Obedience--what a blessing it would be if we were all trained to it by the Holy Spirit! How fully should we be restored if we were perfect in it! Oh, for obedience! It has been supposed by many ill-instructed people that the doctrine of justification by faith is opposed to the teaching of good works, or obedience. There is no truth in the supposition. We preach the obedience of faith. Faith is the fountain, the foundation, and the fosterer of obedience. Obedience, such as God can accept, never cometh out of a heart which thinks God a liar, but is wrought in us by the Spirit of the Lord, through our believing in the truth and love and grace of our God in Christ Jesus. There is a free-grace road to obedience, and that is receiving by faith the Lord Jesus, who is the gift of God, and is made of God unto us sanctification. We accept the Lord Jesus by faith, and He “Leaches us obedience, and creates it in us. The more of faith in Him you have, the more of obedience to Him will you manifest.

I. THE KIND OF FAITH WHICH PRODUCES OBEDIENCE.

1. It is, manifestly, faith in God as having the right to command our obedience. He has a greater claim upon our ardent service than He has upon the services of angels; for while they were created as we have been, yet they have never been redeemed by precious blood.

2. Next, we must have faith in the rightness of all that God says or does. We hear people talk about “minor points,” and so on; but we must not consider any word of our God as a minor thing if by that expression is implied that it is of small importance. We must accept every single word of precept or prohibition or instruction as being what it ought to be, and neither to be diminished nor increased. We should not reason about the command of God as though it might be set aside or amended. He bids: we obey.

3. Furthermore, we must have faith in the Lord’s call upon us to obey. We, who are His chosen, redeemed from among men, called out from the rest of mankind, ought to feel that if no other ears hear the Divine call, our ears must hear it; and if no other heart obeys, our soul rejoices to do so.

4. Obedience arises out of a faith which is to us the paramount principle of action. The kind of faith which produces obedience is lord of the understanding, a royal faith. The true believer believes in God beyond all his belief in anything else and everything else.

II. THE KIND OF OBEDIENCE WHICH FAITH PRODUCES.

1. Genuine faith in God creates a prompt obedience. “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed.” There was an immediate response to the command. Delayed obedience is disobedience.

2. Next, obedience should be exact. “Abraham, when he was called to go out … went out.” That which the Lord commands we should do--just that, and not another thing of our own devising. Mind your jots and tittles with the Lord’s precepts. Attention to little things is a fine feature in obedience: it lies much more as to its essence in the little things than in the great ones.

3. And next, mark well that Abraham rendered practical obedience. The religion of mere brain and jaw does not amount to much. We want the religion of hands and feet. I remember a place in Yorkshire, years ago, where a good man said to me, “We have a real good minister.” I said, “I am glad to hear it.” “Yes,” he said; “he is a fellow that preaches with his feet.” Well, now, that is a capital thing if a preacher preaches with his feet by walking with God, and with his hands by working for God. He does well who glorifies God by where he goes and by what he does; he will excel fifty others who only preach religion with their tongues.

4. Next, faith produces a far-seeing obedience. Note this. “Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance.” How great a company would obey God if they were paid for it on the spot! Those who practise the obedience of faith look for the reward hereafter, and set the greatest store by it. To their faith alone the profit is exceeding great. To take up the cross will be to carry a burden, but it will also be to find rest.

5. Yet, remember that the obedience which comes of true faith is often bound to be altogether unreckoning and implicit; for it is written, “He went out, not knowing whither he went.” Even bad men will obey God when they think fit; but good men will obey when they know not what to think of it. It is not ours to judge the Lord’s command, but to follow it.

6. The obedience which faith produces must be continuous. Having commenced the separated life, Abraham continued to dwell in tents and sojourn in the land which was far from the place of his birth. His whole life may be thus summed up: “By faith Abraham obeyed.” He believed, and therefore walked before the Lord in a perfect way. Do not cultivate doubt, or you will soon cultivate disobedience. Set this up as your standard, and henceforth be this the epitome of your life--“By faith he obeyed.”

III. THE SORT OF LIFE WHICH WILL COME OF THIS FAITH AND OBEDIENCE.

1. It will be, in the first place, life without that great risk which else holds us in peril. A man runs a great risk when he steers himself. Rocks or no rocks, the peril lies in the helmsman. The believer is no longer the helmsman of his own vessel; he has taken a pilot on board. To believe in God, and to do His bidding, is a great escape from the hazards of personal weakness and folly. Providence is God’s business, obedience is ours. What harvest will come of our sowing we must leave with the Lord of the harvest; but we ourselves must look to the basket and the seed, and scatter our handfuls in the furrows without fail.

2. In the next place, we shall enjoy a life free from its heaviest cares. If we were in the midst of the wood, with Stanley, in the centre of Africa, our pressing care would be to find our way out; but when we have nothing to do but to obey, our road is mapped out for us. Jesus says, “Follow Me”; and this makes our way plain, and lifts from our shoulders a load of cares.

3. The way of obedience is a life of the highest honour. By faith we yield our intelligence to the highest intelligence: we are led, guided, directed; and we follow where our Lord has gone. Among His children, they are best who best know their Father’s mind, and yield to it the gladdest obedience. Should we have any other ambition, within the walls of our:Father’s house, than to be perfectly obedient children before Him and implicitly trustful towards Him?

4. But this is a kind of life which will bring communion with God. Obedient faith is the way to eternal life; nay, it is eternal life revealing itself.

5. The obedience of faith creates a form of life-which may be safely copied. As parents, we wish so to live that our children may copy us to their lasting profit. Children usually exaggerate their models; but there will be no fear of their going too far in faith or in obedience to the Lord.

6. Lastly, faith working obedience is a kind of life which needs great grace. Every careless professor will not live in this fashion. It will need watchfulness and prayer, and nearness to God, to maintain the faith which obeys in everything. “He giveth more grace.” The Lord will enable us to add to our faith all the virtues. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Abraham forsaking the world

I. THE RESULT OF ABRAHAM’S FAITH, which we are now called upon to consider. There are three distinct points before us:

1. The first part of what is mentioned as the work of Abraham’s faith, showing the Christian what he should give up.

2. What he should bear.

3. What he should live for. What had Abraham to give up?” Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house.” What a command! Consider what he had to forsake. And in the eyes of his family how absurd and fanciful must his scheme have been! But Abraham was supported by a certain hope. “He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

Thus, then

1. Abraham gave up the world and endured hardships.

2. Lived on the hope of a future blessing, which he did receive.

3. And all this he did by faith.

II. AND NOW LET US APPLY ABRAHAM’S CASE AND CONDUCT TO OUR OWN. First, then, what is the world you have to give up? It is the world, the objects to which we are drawn, the objects around us, which draw forth our sinful inclinations, which we are now to consider.

1. It depends upon different dispositions what becomes our world. To one man nature is his world: he has a mind to enjoy extremely the beauties and the works of nature. The feelings produced by a rich sunset or a beautiful view are his very religion; he gazes at the beauty of a flower till he thinks he worships the God who made it; he forgets the Creator in the creature, and mistakes the one for the other. Poetry is his religion, or sentiment, or some such natural feeling. Now suppose such a man called by duty, i.e. by God, to live in a place where he is cut off from all such objects of admiration, to live quietly and without excitement amid what are to him the dull realities of life, obliged to give up all his taste and refinement, and put up with quiet, dull, sober, everyday work--at least what is so to him naturally; and suppose this man refuses to do it, or lingers in doing it: he thinks if he gives up nature and his admiration that all his religion will go too. All his religion depended on a place, and nature is that man’s world. It is what Abraham’s family and home were to him, and if he refuse to desert it at the call of duty, he is not living above the world.

2. Again: in another man applause and praise is his world; he lives for this, and has lived for it all his life; every act of his life is governed by what men think of it. Now suppose such a man withdrawn from the sphere in which he had been admired, courted and flattered; suppose him called by duty to work in a sphere where his brightest acts would be unknown, and there would be none to admire even his most creditable denials; and suppose he hesitated to do this--then that man’s world would be human applause.

3. Or again; to some men mere worldly success is their world, what they call getting on in life; they live for this; their whole views of right and wrong are almost bounded by their chance of success in their profession, their trade, their farm, their place.

4. But to some, like Abraham himself, their family is their world. If your family interfere with any single duty to God, that family is your world.

5. To others--in the common use of the word--pleasure is their world; society, whose only object it; is to gratify the sense or entertain the imagination. Good-natured society; dissipated society; intellectual society; idle society, whose object it is to pass away the dull hours of life by the empty reading of novels, or by lounging in listless carelessness through the precious fleeting hours of time. Ambitious society, whose great object it is to surpass each other in display of wealth.

6. To some, activity is a kind of world.

7. To some a particular set of circumstances connected with religion is their world, a particular minister, whom they almost worship, particular religious friends, whose word, with them, would almost surmount the authority of Scripture. This, then, is what he must do and give up for Christ’s sake and the gospel’s. The believer must show forth his faith, like Abraham, by forsaking and coming out from the world.

III. AND UNDER THIS WHAT IS THE CHRISTIAN’S HOPE?

IV. BUT ALL THIS IS THE RESULT OF FAITH. By faith Abraham gave up the world and rested on future promises. And by faith you must give up the world and rest on future promises. For example

1. If your world is the admiration of nature, of trees and hills, and the objects of the earth around you; then, if called by duty to cease to spend days in contemplating these, to work in a line which to you is dull and uninteresting, faith helps you by opening your eyes to see a world where are objects like those you yield, which you shall enjoy freely hereafter; where are hills without their toil, suns without their burning, trees without their dying, flowers without their fading, nature unstained by sin, unvisited by death, in the very presence of death for ever.

2. If your world is the praise of man, you are called to give it up; faith offers you the praise of God instead, the approval of your Saviour.

3. If your world is success m your earthly calling, and you are called by conscience to resign hopes of high success here, faith points through the veil of humiliation to the everlasting hills, where you shall reign as kings and priests for ever.

4. If your world is your family, whose affections God calls you willingly and cheerfully to resign, faith points to a re-union in heaven.

5. If your world is society, with its vain, empty, delusive, dissipating pleasure, faith points you to a society whose whole object is God, whose whole religion is praise, and whose whole will is obedience; a society of angels and saints, gathered from the earliest ages, and purified by the influence of the Spirit.

6. If your world is activity, and passive suffering to the call of God, faith offers a field of active service before God for ever.

7. If your world is a particular sphere of religious circumstances, faith points you to God, and bids you trust in Him, not in man. (E. Monro.)

Self-renunciation at the call of God

I. It becomes the infinite greatness, and all-satisfactory goodness of God, at the very first revelation of Himself unto any of His creatures, TO REQUIRE OF THEM RENUNCIATION OF ALL OTHER THINGS, AND OF THEIR INTEREST IN THEM, IN COMPLIANCE WITH HIS COMMANDS.

II. THE POWER OF SOVEREIGN GRACE, IN CALLING MEN TO GOD, AND THE MIGHTY EFFICACY OF FAITH COMPLYING THEREWITH.

III. IT IS THE CALL OF GOD ALONE THAT MAKES A DISTINCTION AMONGST MANKIND, AS UNTO FAITH AND OBEDIENCE, WITH ALL THE EFFECTS OF THEM. Abraham thus believed and obeyed God, because he was called. And he was called, not because he was better, or wiser than others, but because it pleased God to call him and not others (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).

IV. THE CHURCH OF BELIEVERS CONSISTS OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED OUT OF THE WORLD. The call of Abraham is a pattern of the call of the Church Psalms 45:10; 2 Corinthians 6:17-18).

V. SELF-DENIAL IN FACT OR RESOLUTION, IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL SINCERE PROFESSION. Abraham began his profession in the practice of this, and proceeded unto the height of it in the greatest instances imaginable. And the instruction that our Saviour gives herein (Matthew 10:37-38; Matthew 16:24-25), amounts but unto this--If you intend to have the faith of Abraham, with the fruits and blessings attending it, you must lay the foundation of it in the relinquishment of all things, if called thereunto, as he did.

VI. THERE IS NO RIGHT, TITLE, OR POSSESSION, THAT CAN PRESCRIBE AGAINST THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD; IN THE DISPOSAL OF ALL INHERITANCES HERE BELOW AT HIS PLEASURE.

VII. GOD’S GRANT OF THINGS UNTO ANY, IS THE BEST OF TITLES, AND MOST SURE AGAINST ALL PRETENCES OR IMPEACHMENTS (Judges 11:24).

VIII. POSSESSION BELONGS UNTO AN INHERITANCE ENJOYED. This God gave unto Abraham in his posterity, with a mighty hand, and stretched out arm; and He divided it unto them by lot.

IX. AN INHERITANCE MAY BE GIVEN ONLY FOR A LIMITED SEASON. The title unto it may be continued unto a prefixed period. So was it with this inheritance; for although it is called an everlasting inheritance, yet it was so only on two accounts.

1. That it was typical of that heavenly inheritance which is eternal.

2. Because, as unto right and title, it was to be continued unto the end of that limited perpetuity which God granted unto the church-state in that land; that is, unto the coming of the promised Seed, in whom all nations should be blessed; which the call and faith of Abraham did principally regard.

X. THAT IT IS FAITH ALONE THAT GIVES THE SOUL SATISFACTION IN FUTURE REWARDS, IN THE MIDST OF PRESENT DIFFICULTIES AND DISTRESSES. So it did to Abraham, who, in the whole course of his pilgrimage, attained nothing of this promised inheritance.

XI. THE ASSURANCE GIVEN US BY DIVINE PROMISES IS SUFFICIENT TO ENCOURAGE US TO ADVANCE IN THE MOST DIFFICULT COURSE OF OBEDIENCE. (John Owen, D. D.)

I. THE HARD TASK TO WHICH ABRAHAM WAS CALLED.

Faith the power for severing old ties

1. It involved painful separation from the past.

2. It involved the risk of being misunderstood in the present.

3. It involved great uncertainty for the future.

II. THE SIMPLE FAITH BY WHICH THIS HARD TASK WAS FULFILLED.

1. This faith was based on a Divine call.

2. Sustained by abundant promises.

3. Expressed by absolute surrender.

III. THE WONDERFUL BLESSING TO WHICH THIS SIMPLE FAITH LED. What came of this act of obedience? All the blessedness the world has ever had. (C. New.)

Abraham’s prompt obedience to the call of God

I. WHAT WAS ABRAHAM’S SPECIAL EXPERIENCE WHICH LED TO HIS BECOMING SO REMARKABLE A SAINT?

1. He had a call.

2. He obeyed it.

3. He obeyed it because he believed God.

II. WHAT WAS THERE PECULIAR IN ABRAHAM’S CONDUCT?

1. That he was willing to be separated from his kindred.

2. That he was ready for all the losses and risks that might be involved in obedience to the call of God.

3. That he waived the present for the future.

4. That he committed himself to God by faith.

5. What he did was done at once.

III. THE RESULT OF ABRAHAM’S ACTION. Did it pay? That is the inquiry of most people, and within proper bounds it is not a wrong question. Our reply is, it did so gloriously. True, it brought him into a world of trouble, and no wonder: such a noble course as his was not likely to be an easy one. What grand life ever was easy? Who wants to be a child and do easy things? Yet we read in Abraham’s life, after a whole host of troubles, “And Abraham was old and well stricken in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.” That is a splendid conclusion--God had blessed Abraham in all things. Whatever happened, he had always been under the Divine smile, and all things had worked for his good. He was parted from his friends, but then he had the sweet society of his God, and was treated as the friend of the Most High, and allowed to intercede for others, and clothed with power on their behalf. What honour, also, the patriarch had among his contemporaries; he was a great man, and held in high esteem. How splendidly he bore himself; no king ever behaved more royally. His image passes across the page of history rather like that of a spirit from the supernal realms than that of a mere mad; he is so thorough, so childlike, and therefore so heroic. He lived in God, and on God, and with God. Such a sublime life recompensed a thousandfold all the sacrifice he was led to make. Was not his life a happy one? One might wisely say, “Let my life be like that of Abraham.” As to temporal things the Lord enriched him, and in spirituals he was richer still. He was wealthier in heart than in substance, though great even in that respect. This very day, through his matchless seed, to whom be glory for ever and ever, even Jesus Christ of the seed of Abraham, all tribes of men are blessed. His life was, both for time and for eternity, a great success; both for temporals and for spirituals the path of faith was the best that he could have followed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Adventuring for God:

We can hardly read those words without at once thinking how all this common life around us would be both simplified and made noble if men generally, in laying out their plans and carrying on their ordinary work, were moved and guided in the same Divine way!--i.e., if they inquired first, at every important decision, every new start and every new turn in the road, where their Lord called them to go; and then, leaving all other questions aside, were to go straight on, no matter what comfort, like the familiar country that the patriarch was leaving, they might be obliged to give up, and no matter how untried or bleak the regions before. I suppose one chief hindrance to its having this effect on most of us will be the difficulty of our realising that, with respect to each one of us, in our personal insignificance, God just as truly has a plan and a particular place, both of work and of communion, as He had for Abraham or Moses, for Enoch or Samuel, for St. John or St. Paul, for any hero or any saint. But He has. Ours may not be so high a place or so much honoured with usefulness as theirs. We have no concern with that; but the whole tenor of our Christian religion tells us our place is there; that when He created us God designed each one, in every station of society, of either sex, in all kinds of employment, for a particular service in His Church, in His family on earth, and in His heaven for ever. You may forfeit it by not believing in it, and by trying to live and die for yourself; God may hereafter fill up the vacancy and finish the full harmony of His heavenly multitude by the river of life without you. But in the millions of wayward lives entangled with each other He will never for one instant lose sight of the thread of yours. He formed you with a loving intention, and all His affection and mercy to the rest have not diminished a particle His affection and mercy for you. Next observe the large meaning of one small word--the word “out.” This faithful man was “called to go out,” and he “went out.” We are to draw from that a new inference, viz., that in his journeying one place did not look to him just like another, equally attractive and desirable. On the contrary, between the past and the future there was a contrast. What he must leave behind is familiar; what he must turn toward is strange. What he must leave behind is known, tried and safe and agreeable; what he must encounter is hazardous. Going out implies a giving up of something like a home, with the warm, bright, sheltering, endearing attributes always associated with that beloved name. Within are security and comfort; without are exposure, peril, sacrifice. Here, then, is a new rule for the Christian life. Where that life is regenerate, what a Christian life ought to be, fulfilling the gospel idea, it does not merely run on from one scene to another on the same level, nor does it consist in merely moving about through the routine of aa easy experience without progress, without trying new difficulties, gaining greater heights, or by fresh sacrifices coming into a closer and more spiritual sympathy with Christ. Every step needs faith in God, faith in the better country to come, faith in the end to be reached, or else he would look back and perhaps sink down in the road. Take in, then, with this another strong element in the doctrine of the text--the superiority, in this going forward of the disciple after his Lord, of faith over knowledge. We knew the low country we left by eyesight, by the senses, or the intellect; but what lay before was always unknown, invisible, a land of promise, only believed in. In all our approaches to God, in making up our minds to come out on Christ’s side in an open confession, in baptism in maturer years, in coming to be confirmed, in every victory over the evils of the world, we cannot depend merely on the understanding. “He went out, not knowing whither he went.” That was the crown and the glory of his obedience. He did know who tailed him, and in whom he believed, and that was enough. It might seem, at first sight, in reading this passage, as if the principal stress were laid on the obedience. And then some of you who are more advanced in the higher privileges of the gospel, and accustomed to> discriminate in spiritual matters, might say: No; obedience is a low and elementary stage; obedience is of the law; we are not under the law, but under grace; we are not Jews; Christ has come, and it is the faith and love which go out to Him for what He is in the beauty of His holiness, and what He has done for us in the atonement of the Cross, that constitute the special advantage of our position in the Christian Church. Nothing can be more true than this. The whole object of this chapter is to celebrate, not the bare keeping of commandments, but faith in the invisible, and the glory of acting freely with reference to the absolute God rather than present profits, or any outward reward. Hence it runs all through the passage that there are two kinds of obedience, not distinguished from each other by the outward appearance of the obedient action--for this may be precisely the same in the two cases--but by the motive which prompts the obedience, or the feeling that impels us to act as we do. Two different kinds of character are produced by these two sorts of obedience. One is the obedience of calculation; the other is the obedience of faith. (Bp. F. D. Huntington.)

Abraham’s faith:

What did God mean to teach Abraham, by calling him out of his country, and telling him, “I will make of thee a great nation”? I think He meant to show him, for one thing, that that Babel plan of society was utterly absurd and accursed, certain to come to nought, and so to lead him on to hope for a city which had foundations, and to see that its builder and maker must be, not the selfishness or the ambition of men, but the will, and the wisdom, and providence of God. Let us see how God led Abraham on to understand this--to look for a city which had foundations; in short, to understand what a state and a nation means and ought to be. First, God taught him that he was not to cling, coward-like, to the place where he was born, but to go out boldly to colonise and subdue the earth, for the great God of heaven would protect and guide him. Again: God taught him what a nation was: “I will make of thee a great nation.” As much as to say, “Never fancy, as those fools at Babel did, that a nation only means a great crowd of people--never fancy that men can make themselves into a nation just by feeding altogether, and breeding altogether, and fighting altogether, as the herds of wild cattle and sheep do, while there is no real union between them.” For what brought those Bable men together? Just what keeps a herd of cattle together--selfishness and fear. Each man thought he would be safer forsooth in company. Each man thought that if he was in company he could use his neighbour’s wits as well as his own, and have the benefit of his neighbour’s strength as well as his own. And that is all true enough; but that does not make a nation. Selfishness can join nothing; it may join a set of men for a time, each for his own ends, just as a joint-stock company is made up; but it will soon split them up again. Each man, in a merely selfish community, will begin, after a time, to play on his own account, as well as work on his own account--to oppress and over-reach for his own ends, as well as to be honest and benevolent for his own ends, for he will find ill-doing far easier and more natural, in one senses and a plan that brings in quicker profits, than well-doing; and so this godless, loveless, every-man-for-himself nation, or sham nation, rather, this joint-stock company, in which fools expect that universal selfishness will do the work of universal benevolence, will quarrel and break up, crumble to dust again, as Babel did. “But,” says God to Abraham, “I will make of thee a great nation. I make nations, and not they themselves.” So it is: this is the lesson which God taught Abraham, the lesson which we English must learn nowadays over again, or smart for it bitterly--that God makes nations. The Psalms set forth the Son of God as the King of all nations. In Him all the nations of the earth are truly blessed. He the Saviour of a few individual souls only? God forbid! To Him all power is given in heaven and earth; by Him were all things created, whether in heaven or earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers; all national life, all forms of government, whether hero-despotisms, republics, or monarchies, aristocracies of birth, or of wealth, or of talent--all were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist and hold together. Believe me, it takes long years, too, and much training from God and from Christ, the King of kings, to make a nation. Everything which is most precious great is also most slow in growing, and so is a nation. But again: God said to Abraham, when He had led him into this far country, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” This was a great and a new lesson for Abraham, that the earth belonged to that same great invisible God who had promised to guide and protect him, and make him into a nation--that this same God gave the earth to whomsoever He would, and allotted to each people their proper portion of it. How this must have taught Abraham that the rights of property were sacred things--things appointed by God; that it was an awful and heinous sin to make wanton war on other people, to drive them out and take possession of their land; that it was not mere force or mere fancy which gave men a right to a country, but the providence of Almighty God! Now, Abraham needed this warning, for the men of Babel seem from the first to have gone on the plan of driving out and conquering the tribes around them. Now, in Genesis 14:1-24. there is an account of Abraham’s being called on to put in practice what he had learnt, and, by doing so, learning a fresh lesson. We read of four kings making war against five kings, against Chedorlaomer, king of Elam or Persia, who had been following the nays of Nimrod and the men of Babel, and conquering these foreign kings and making them serve him. We read of Chedorlaomer and four other kings coming down and wantonly destroying other countries, besides the five kings who had rebelled against them, and at last carrying off captive the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Lot, Abraham’s nephew. We read then how Abraham armed his trained servants, both in his own house, three hundred and eighteen men, and pursued after these tyrants and plunderers, and with his small force completely overthrew that great army. Now, that was a sign and a lesson to Abraham, as much as to say, “See the fruits of having the great God of heaven and earth for your protector and your guide; see the fruits of having men round you, not hirelings, keeping in your company just to see what they can get by it, but born in your own house, who love and trust you, whom you can love and trust; see how the favour of God, and reverence for those family ties and duties which He has appointed, make you and your little band of faithful men superior to those great mobs of selfish, godless, unjust robbers; see how hundreds of these slaves ran away before one man, who feels that he is a member of a family, and has a just cause for fighting, and that God and his brethren are with him.” Now, as sure as God made Abraham a great nation, so if we English are a great nation, God has made us so; as sure as God gave Abraham the land of Canaan for his possession, so did He give us this land of England, when He brought our Saxon forefathers out of the wild barren north, and drove out before them nations greater and mightier than they, and gave them great and goodly cities which they builded not, and wells digged which they digged not, farms and gardens which they planted not, that we too might fear the Lord our God, and serve Him, and swear by His name; as sure as He commanded Abraham to respect the property of his neighbours, so has He commanded us; as sure as God taught Abraham that the nation which was to grow from him owed a duty to God, and could be only strong by faith in God, so it is with us: we English people owe a duty to God, and are to deal among ourselves, and with foreign countries, by faith in God, and in the fear of God, “seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” sure that then all other things--victory, health, commerce, art, and science--will be added to us. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)

The spiritual production and practical development of true religion

I. THE SPIRITUAL PRODUCTION OF TRUE RELIGION.

1. Divine sovereignty.

2. Special revelation.

3. Earnest faith.

II. THE PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF REAL RELIGION.

1. Renunciation of old mode of life.

2. Adoption of new.

(1) Implicit trust in God.

(2) Conscious strangeness on earth.

(3) Glorious prospect. (Homilist.)

Faith making light of present privations

I. GOD’S PEOPLE ARE OFTEN CALLED TO STRANGE PRIVATIONS.

1. One hard feature of these privations was that they had come in the way of obedience to God.

2. Moreover, they seemed to involve unfulfilled promise on God’s part.

II. THESE PRIVATIONS ARE, HOWEVER, ACCOMPANIED WITH BRIGHT PROSPECTS.

1. The present and visible does not limit our history.

2. The future will be as good as even God can make it.”

3. In that future the delayed promises will be fulfilled, and the fruit of present obedience and discipline enjoyed.

III. FAITH DWELLING ON THIS PROSPECT CAN ENDURE THE PRIVATIONS.

1. Assuring us of this future, faith gives songs in present trouble. With the joy of hope we can sing as we suffer.

2. Lifting us unto this future, faith dwarfs present need. “The sufferings of the present time are not worthy,” &c.

3. Showing us the possibilities of this future; faith endures present discipline. Discipline is to make the future greater. “These light afflictions work for us a far more,” &c. “While we look,” &c. Conclusion: Feed and exercise this faith that it may grow. By it often climb the mount and see the land that is very far off. (C. New.)

Abraham’s faith and pilgrimage

I. THE OBJECT OF ABRAHAM’S DESIRE: “A city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.” This was the view under which the future state was presented to him; and it suggests

1. The immortality of its inhabitants. The city “ hath foundations,” and shall evermore endure.

2. The changelessness of its enjoyments. This is also intimated by the term “foundations.” Its happiness is permanent.

3. The glory of the state. “Whose Builder is God,” that is, in a special sense. It displays, in a peculiar degree, His power, wisdom, and goodness.

4. Common participation. There is society. This multiplies happiness to angels and saints.

5. Perfect moral order. “Whose Maker is God.”

II. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS WHICH THIS SINGULAR, BUT INSTRUCTIVE, CONDUCT OF ABRAHAM SUGGESTS. He chose the pilgrim’s life, and dwelt in tents rather than inhabit a city on earth.

1. We are taught by this conduct of Abraham the true ground of the eminent piety of God’s ancient saints.

2. We are taught to regulate our choice in life by our superior regard to the interests of the soul.

3. We are taught a noble indifference to the accommodation of our pilgrimage.

4. We are taught to be willing to make sacrifices for the religious good of others. (R. Watson.)

Abraham’s faith

I. Where faith enables men to live unto God, as unto their eternal concerns, IT WILL ENABLE THEM TO TRUST UNTO HIM IN ALL THE DIFFICULTIES, dangers, and hazards of this life. To pretend a trust in God as unto our souls and invisible things, and not resign our temporal concerns with patience and quietness unto His disposal, is a vain pretence.

II. If we design to have an interest in the blessing of Abraham, WE MUST WALK IN THE STEPS OF THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM. Firm affiance in the promises for grace, mercy, and eternal salvation, trust in His providence for preservation and protection in this world, with a cheerful resignation of all our temporal and eternal concerns unto His disposal, according to the tenor of the covenant, are required hereunto.

III. WHERE FAITH IS ONCE DULY FIXED ON THE PROMISES, IT WILL WAIT PATIENTLY UNDER TRIALS, AFFLICTIONS, AND TEMPTATIONS, FOR THEIR FULL ACCOMPLISHMENT; as did that of Abraham, which is here celebrated.

IV. FAITH DISCERNING ARIGHT THE GLORY OF SPIRITUAL PROMISES, WILL MAKE THE SOUL OF A BELIEVER CONTENTED AND WELL SATISFIED WITH THE SMALLEST PORTION OF EARTHLY ENJOYMENTS, &C. (John Owen, D. D.)

On travelling

There is a time when a man may leave his own country and travel into strange countries, yet great circumspection is to be had in it.

1. A man must be called to it: we must do nothing without a calling. Not as if every one should expect such a calling as Abraham had by God’s immediate voice. We have our callings, but mediate. If a man be employed in an ambassadage to a foreign prince, he hath a calling to leave his country for a time. If a man cannot live in his own country, and can more conveniently maintain himself and his charge in another, he may go to it, so as he make not shipwreck of religion. If a man abound in wealth, and be desirous of tongues, arts, and sciences in another country, he hath a calling to it.

2. We must take heed that our families in the mean season be not neglected. He that careth not for them of his house is worse than an infidel. A man under pretext of travelling may not run away from his wife and children.

3. We must have no sinister respect in it. We must not make travelling a cloak to cover theft, murder, adultery, and other gross and notorious vices. God can find us out in all places; for whither shall we fly from His presence?

4. We must not imagine our travelling to be meritorious, as pilgrimages were in former times.

5. Let us take heed in travelling that we travel not away faith and good conscience; wheresoever we become, let us keep ourselves undefiled of the superstitions and corruptions that be in other countries. Let us keep our religion safe and sound, that the least crack be not found in it. Travelling is a dangerous thing. Let us not take it on us unless we be some way or other called to it, as Abraham was. (W. Jones, D. D.)

The illusiveness of life

I. GOD’S PROMISES NEVER ARE FULFILLED IN THE SENSE IN WHICH THEY SEEM TO HIVE BEEN GIVEN. Life is a deception; its anticipations, which are God’s promises to the imagination, are never realised; they who know life best, and have trusted God most to fill it with blessings, are ever the first to say that life is a series of disappointments. And in the spirit of this text we have to say that it is a wise and merciful arrangement which ordains it thus. Abraham had a few feet of earth, obtained by purchase--beyond that nothing; he died a stranger and a pilgrim in the land. Isaac had a little. So small was Jacob’s hold upon his country that the last years of his life were spent in Egypt, and he died a foreigner in a strange land. His descendants came into the land of Canaan, expecting to find it a land flowing with milk and honey; they found hard work to do--war and unrest, instead of rest and peace. During one brief period in the history of Israel the promise may seem to have been fulfilled. It was during the later years of David and the earlier years of Solomon; but we have the warrant of Scripture itself for affirming that even then the promise was not fulfilled. In the Book of Psalms David speaks of a hope of entering into a future rest. They who believe that the Jews will be restored to their native land, expect it on the express ground that Canaan has never been actually and permanently theirs. A certain tract of country--three hundred miles in length, by two hundred in breadth--must be given, or else they think the promise has been broken. To quote the expression of one of the most eloquent of their writers, “If there be nothing yet future for Israel, then the magnificence of the promise has been lost in the poverty of its accomplishment.” I do not quote this to prove the correctness of the interpretation of the prophecy, but as an acknowledgment which may be taken so far as a proof, that the promise made to Abraham has never been accomplished. And such is life’s disappointment. Its promise is, you shall have a Canaan; it turns out to be a baseless, airy dream--toil and warfare--nothing that we can call our own; not the land of rest, by any means. But we will examine this in particulars.

1. Our senses deceive us; we begin life with delusion. Our senses deceive us with respect to distance, shape, and colour. That which afar off seems oval turns out to be circular, modified by the perspective of distance; that which appears a speck, upon nearer approach becomes a vast body. All experience is a correction of life’s delusions--a modification, a reversal of the judgment of the senses: and all life is a lesson on the falsehood of appearances.

2. Our natural anticipations deceive us--I say natural in contradistinction to extravagant expectations. Every human life is a fresh one, bright with hopes that will never be realised. There may be differences of character in these hopes; finer spirits may look on life as the arena of successful deeds, the more selfish as a place of personal enjoyment. With man the turning-point of life may be a profession--with woman, marriage; the one gilding the future with the triumphs of intellect, the other with the dreams of affection; but in every case life is not what any of them expects, but something else. It would almost seem a satire on existence to compare the youth in the outset of his career, flushed and sanguine, with the aspect of the same being when it is nearly done--worn, sobered, covered with the dust of life, and confessing that its days have been few and evil. Where is the land flowing with milk and honey? With our affections it is still worse, because they promise more. Man’s affections are but the tabernacles of Canaan--the tents of a night; not permanent habitations even for this life. Where are the charms of character, the perfection, and the purity, and the truthfulness, which seemed so resplendent in our friend? They were only the shape of our own conceptions--our creative shaping intellect projected its own fantasies on him: and hence we outgrow our early friendships; outgrow the intensity of all: we dwell in tents; we never find a home, even in the land of promise. Life is an unenjoyable Canaan, with nothing real or substantial in it.

3. Our expectations, resting on revelation, deceive us. The world’s history has turned round two points of hope; one, the first, the other, the second coming of the Messiah. The magnificent imagery of Hebrew prophecy had described the advent of the Conqueror; He came--“a root out of a dry ground, with no form or comeliness; and when they saw Him there was no beauty in Him that they should desire Him.” The victory, predicted in such glowing terms, turned out to be the victory of submission--the law of our humanity, which wins by gentleness and love. The promise in the letter was unfulfilled. For ages the world’s hope has been the Second Advent. The early Church expected it in their own day. “We, which are alive, and remain until the coming of our Lord.” The Saviour Himself had said, “This generation shall not pass till all things be fulfilled.” Yet the Son of Man has never come; or rather, He has been ever coming. Unnumbered times the judgment eagles have gathered together over corruption ripe for condemnation. Times innumerable the separation has been made between good and bad. The promise has not been fulfilled, or it has been fulfilled, but in either case anticipation has been foiled and disappointed. There are two ways of considering this aspect of life. One is the way of sentiment; the other is the way of faith. The sentimental way is trite enough. Saint, sage, sophist, moralist, and preacher, have repeated in every possible image, till there is nothing new to say, that life is a bubble, a dream, a delusion, a phantasm. The other is the way of faith: the ancient saints felt as keenly as any moralist could feel the brokenness of its promises; they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims here; they said that they had here no continuing city; but they did not mournfully moralise on this; they said it cheerfully, and rejoiced that it was so. They felt that all was right; they knew that the promise itself had a deeper meaning; they looked undauntedly for “a city which hath foundations.”

II. THE MEANING OF THIS DELUSIVENESS.

1. It serves to allure us on. Could a man see his route before him--a fiat, straight road, unbroken by bush, or tree, or eminence, with the sun’s heat burning down upon it, stretched out in dreary monotony--he could scarcely find energy to begin his task; but the uncertainty of what may be seen beyond the next turn keeps expectation alive. The view that may be seen from yonder summit--the glimpse that may be caught, perhaps, as the road winds round yonder knoll--hopes like these, not far distant, beguile the traveller on from mile to mile, and from league to league. In fact, life is an education. The object for which you educate your son is to give him strength of purpose, self-command, discipline of mental energies; but you do not reveal to your son this aim of his education; you tell him of his place in his class, of the prizes at the end of the year, of the honours to be given at college. These are not the true incentives to knowledge; such incentives are not the highest--they are even mean, and partially injurious; yet these mean incentives stimulate and lead on, from day to day and from year to year, by a process the principle of which the boy himself is not aware of. So does God lead on, through life’s unsatisfying and false reward, ever educating: Canaan first; then the hope of a Redeemer; then the millennial glory.

2. This non-fulfilment of promise fulfils it in a deeper way. The account we have given already, were it to end there, would be insufficient to excuse the failure of life’s promise; by saying that it allures us would be really to charge God with deception. Now, life is not deception, but illusion. We distinguish between illusion and delusion. We may paint wood so as to be taken for stone, iron, or marble; this is delusion: but you may paint a picture, in which rocks, trees, and sky are never mistaken for what they seem, yet produce all the emotion which real rocks, trees, and sky would produce. This is illusion, and this is the painter’s art: never for one moment to deceive by attempted imitation, but to produce a mental state in which the feelings are suggested which the natural objects themselves would create. Let us take an instance drawn from life. To a child a rainbow is a real thing--substantial and palpable; its limb rests on the side of yonder hill; he believes that he can appropriate it to himself; and when, instead of gems and gold hid in its radiant bow, he finds nothing but damp mist--cold, dreary drops of disappointment--that disappointment tells that his belief has been delusion. To the educated man that bow is a blessed illusion, yet it never once deceives; he does not take it for what it is not, he does not expect to make it his own; he feels its beauty as much as the child could feel it, nay, infinitely more--more even from the fact that he knows that it will be transient; but besides and beyond this, to him it presents a deeper loveliness; he knows the laws of light, and the laws of the human soul which gave it being. He has linked it with the laws of the universe, and with the invisible mind of God; and it brings to him a thrill of awe, and the sense of a mysterious, nameless beauty, of which the child did not conceive. It is illusion still; but it has fulfilled the promise. In the realm of spirit, in the temple of the soul, it is the same. All is illusion; “but we look for a city which hath foundations”; and in this the promise is fulfilled. And such was Canaan to the Israelites. To some doubtless it was delusion. They expected to find their reward in a land of milk and honey. They were bitterly disappointed, and expressed their disappointment loudly enough in their murmurs against Moses, and their rebellion against his successors. But to others, as to Abraham, Canaan was the bright illusion which never deceived, but for ever shone before as the type of something more real. And even taking the promise literally, though they built in tents, and could not call a foot of land their own, was not its beauty theirs? Were not its trellised vines, and glorious pastures, and rich olive-fields, ministers to the enjoyment of those who had all in God, though its milk, and oil, and honey, could not be enjoyed with exclusiveness of appropriation? Yet over and above and beyond this, there was a more blessed fulfilment of the promise; there was “a city which had foundations”--built and made by God--toward which the anticipation of this Canaan was leading them. The kingdom of God was forming in their souls, for ever disappointing them by the unreal, and teaching them that what is spiritual and belongs to mind and character alone can be eternal. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)

Mysteriousness of life

It is not unusual for captains to receive their commands from their country to set sail, especially in times of war and danger, knowing not their destination. They cannot open their commission, perhaps, until they have reached a solitary, silent part of the great ocean. And we “sail under sealed orders”; we all go out “not knowing whither we go.” (E. P. Hood.)

Reason may hinder faith

I suppose you will all say that if a man were able to go a journey of two or three hundred miles a-foot, he were a very good footman; yet if you will tie him to carry a child of four or five years old with him, you will say it would be a great luggage to him; and the man would say, “Pray, let this child be left alone; for though he may run along in my hand half a mile, or go a mile with me, yet notwithstanding I must carry him the rest of the way; and when I come at any great water, or have to go over any hill, I must take him upon my back, and that will be a great burden to me.” Thus it is between faith and reason. Reason at the best is but a child to faith. Faith can foot it over mountains and difficulties, and wade through afflictions, though they be very wide; but when reason comes to any affliction, to wade through that and to go over some great difficulties, then it cries out, and says, “Oh Faith, good Faith, go back again; good Faith, go back again.” “No,” says Faith, “but I will take thee upon my back, Reason.” And so Faith is fain to do, indeed, to take Reason upon its back. But oh, what a luggage is Reason to Faith! Faith never works better than when it works most alone. The mere rational considering of the means, and the deadness thereof, is a great and special enemy to the work of believing. (William Bridge.)

Faith stimulating endeavour

See the spider casting out her film to the gale; she feels persuaded that somewhere or other it will adhere and form the commencement of her web. She commits the slender filament to the breeze, believing that there is a place provided for it to fix itself. In this fashion should we believingly cast forth our endeavours in this life, confident that God will find a place for us. He who bids us pray and work will aid our efforts and guide us in His providence in a right way. Sit not still in despair, O son of toil, but again cast out the floating thread of hopeful endeavour, and the wind of love will bear it to its resting-place.

The tent life:

The tent life will always be the natural one for those who feel that their mother country is beyond the stars. We should be like the wandering Swiss, who hear in a strange land the rude old melody that used to echo among the Alpine pastures. The sweet sad tones kindle home sickness that will not let them rest: no matter where they are, or what they are doing, no matter what honour they have carved out for themselves with their swords, they throw off the livery of the alien king which they have worn, and turning their backs upon pomp and courts, seek the free air of the mountains, and find home better than a place by a foreign throne. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

A city which hath foundations

The way to the city:

There are some men who are like the patriarch Abraham in this--they have no fixed dwelling-place in the earth. They go from one city to another at the different seasons of the year, arranging to come to each just at the season of its highest bloom. This is thought to be a pleasant, but it is a very poor way of spending life. Men who are always seeking pleasure are never happy. They soon wear all freshness out of their hearts. Better far be at the hardest work all the year round than be such a man. In the intervals of work, however, it is a good thing to see, as one can, the famous cities of the world. It is a relief to leave the well-known streets and the scenes of accustomed occupation for a time; and some expansion of the mind is attained amid the new and varied scenes which come into view. Now, suppose a man on pilgrimage going through a number of such cities, and coming at last of purpose to the best. May we not suppose such a man pausing and saying, “Is this all? Have I seen the strongest that man can build, the fairest that he can paint? Is there no other city which I have not seen, no fairer lands than those which I have traversed? I have been refreshed, I am thankful; but alas for my immortality if this be all! ‘Could you not suppose such a man, at such a time, rejoicing in the privilege of taking his place beside Abraham, and “looking for a city which hath foundations”?

I. THE CITY. How far we are to carry forward the ideas which we have about a city on earth, and fix them on that celestial place which God has prepared for the dwelling of His people through all eternity, it is difficult to say. It is with this as it is with the natural and spiritual body: there is a resemblance and yet a difference. To transfer our ideas just as they are, without purification or expansion, would be to vulgarise and degrade heaven. But to rise by their means to higher ideas like them, is just what the teaching of Scripture enables us to do. “A city.” Let us thank God for that word--or these: “a country,” “a better country, that is, an heavenly.” How do these familiar terms fill up for us the dim and vast obscure I They make a home for our wandering thoughts. They give an answer to our wondering inquiries.

1. This city is very ancient. Not the plan of it merely in Divine thought, nor parts of it merely in course of construction, but the whole city was built and finished, and Abraham journeyed to it through the quietness of the patriarchal days, just as a man now might journey to Paris or Rome.

2. This city is very strong and stable. “It hath foundations.” It is designedly put in contrast with those frail and movable structur Colchester; on the 15th of May an old lame man and a blind man were burnt at Stratford-le-Bow. In the same month three women suffered at Smithfield, and a blind boy was burnt at Gloucester. In Guernsey, a mother and two daughters were brought to the stake. One of the latter, a married woman with child, was delivered in the midst of her torments, and the infant just rescued was tossed back into the flames. Reason, humanity, even common prudence, were cast to the winds. Along the river bank stood rows of gibbets, with bodies of pirates swinging from them in the wind. Ferocity in the Government and lawlessness in the people went hand in hand.” (Tinling’s Illustrations.)

They were stoned

Martyrdom:

The word “martyr” properly means “a witness,” but is used to denote exclusively one who has suffered death for the Christian faith.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the chief and most glorious of Martyrs, as having “before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession” (1 Timothy 6:13); but we do not call Him a martyr, as being much more than a martyr. He was not only a martyr; He was an atoning sacrifice. He is the supreme object of our love, gratitude, and reverence. Next to Him we honour the noble army of martyrs; not indeed comparing them with Him, “who is above all, God blessed for ever,” or as if they in suffering had any part in the work of reconciliation, but because they have approached most closely to His pattern of all His servants. Now it may be said that many men suffer pain, as great as martyrdom, from disease, and in other ways: again, that it does not follow that those who happened to be martyred were always the most useful and active defenders of the faith; and therefore that in honouring the martyrs we are honouring with especial honour those to whom indeed we may be peculiarly indebted (as in the case of apostles), but nevertheless who may have been but ordinary men, who happened to stand in the most exposed place, in the way of persecution, and were slain as if by chance, because the sword met them first. But this, it is plain, would be a strange way of reasoning in any parallel case. We are grateful to those who have done us favours, rather than to those who might or would, if it had so happened. But in truth, if we could view the matter considerately, we shall find that (as far as human judgment can decide on such a point), the martyrs of the primitive times were, as such, men of a very elevated faith; not only our benefactors, but far our superiors. For let us consider what it was then to be a martyr.

1. It was to be a voluntary sufferer. Men, perhaps, suffer in various diseases more than the martyrs did, but they cannot help themselves. Again, it has frequently happened that men have been persecuted for their religion without having expected it, or being able to avert it. These in one sense indeed are martyrs; and we naturally think affectionately of those who have suffered in our cause, whether voluntarily or not. But this was not the ease with the primitive martyrs. They knew beforehand clearly enough the consequences of preaching the gospel; they had frequent warnings brought home to them of the sufferings in store for them if they persevered in their labours of brotherly love. Death, their final suffering, was but the concummation of a life of anticipated death. Consider how distressing anxiety is; how irritating and wearing it is to be in constant excitement, with the duty of maintaining calmness and steadiness in the midst of it; and how especially inviting any prospect of tranquillity would appear in such circumstances; and then we shall have some notion of a

Christian’s condition under a persecuting heathen government. I put aside for the present the peculiar reproach and contempt which was the lot of the primitive Church, and their actual privations. Let us merely consider them as harassed, shaken as wheat in a sieve. Under such circumstances the stoutest hearts are in danger of failing. Thus the Church is sifted, the cowardly falling off, the faithful continuing firm, though in dejection and perplexity. Among these latter are the martyrs; not accidental victims, taken at random, but the picked and choice ones, the elect remnant, a sacrifice well pleasing to God, because a costly gift, the finest wheat flour of the Chinch: men who have been warned what to expect from their profession, and have had many opportunities of relinquishing it, but have “borne and had patience, and for Christ’s name sake have laboured and have not fainted.”

2. But, in the next place, the suffering itself of martyrdom was in some respects peculiar. It was a death, cruel in itself, publicly inflicted, and heightened by the fierce exultation of a malevolent populace. The unseen God alone was their Comforter, and this invests the scene of their suffering with supernatural majesty, and awes us when we think of them. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me” (Psalms 23:4). A martyrdom is a season of God’s especial power in the eye of faith, as great as if a miracle were visibly wrought. It is a fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, a commemoration of His death, a representation filling up in figure,” that which is behind of His afflictions, for His Body’s sake, which is the Church” (Colossians 1:24). And thus, being an august solemnity in itself, and a kind of sacrament, a baptism of blood, it worthily finishes that long searching trial which I have already described as being its usual forerunner in primitive times. To conclude. It is useful to reflect on subjects such as that I have now laid before you, in order to humble ourselves. What are our petty sufferings, which we make so much of, to their pains and sorrows, who lost their friends, and then their own lives for Christ’s sake; who were assaulted by all kinds of temptations, the sophistry of Antichrist, the blandishments of the world, the terrors of the sword, the weariness of suspense, and yet fainted not? How far above ours are both their afflictions, and their consolations under them! (J. H. Newman, D. D.)

God’s martyrs

I. SEVERAL WAYS THEY WERE PUT TO DEATH.

1. Some were stoned. This was a punishment determined by God in the Judicial Laws of Moses, to be executed upon several transgressors. Yet no judge had warrant from God to condemn any innocent person to this kind of death; yet Zacharias, for charging the Jews with their sins, and denouncing God’s judgments against them, was stoned to death.

2. Some were sawn asunder: thus some say Isaiah was slain by Manasses. This was a cruel kind of execution.

3. Some were tempted by some cruel kind of death to forsake their God, yet they did net.

4. Some were slain by the sword, which is used as well by the magistrate against offending subjects as by the soldier against enemies. Martyrs might be thus slain, either judicially or extrajudicially, without any formal process of judgment; for many times they laid heinous crimes to their charge. Sometimes they made justice injustice, obedience to God disobedience to man, and virtuous acts heinous crimes; and so-called good, evil; and light, darkness. The whole signifies that the lives of the saints and prophets were taken away cruelly and most unjustly by several kinds of tormenting deaths.

II. Some were not slain, BUT LIVED A MISERABLE LIFE. For

1. They wandered. They might be wanderers, either by constraint or voluntarily: by constraint, as when they were banished, or forcibly dispossessed of their houses; voluntarily, as when for fear of death, or to enjoy the quiet of conscience, they fled out of their country, or from the places of their habitation, so that they have no certain safe place of rest--they were continually flitting and removing, as not having where to lay their heads.

2. In this wandering condition they were destitute of raiment and clothes, whereby they might cover their shame, and defend their bodies from the injuries of heaven. They wanted stuff, or, if they had stuff, they could not have made them; and in this case they used sheep-skins and goat-skins. Which expression implies that their clothing was very mean and coarse; yea, not so much as shapen, sewed up, and fitted for their bodies, but only wrapped about some principal parts, leaving others naked. These did not deserve the name of garments, but were nothing else but skin upon skin, the skin of beasts upon the skin of man.

3. They were destitute, that is, in great want of other necessaries, and, as the word doth signify, very poor and indigent; for they had left all their substance, or it was taken from them, or they could have no use of it in their necessity. And if they wandered amongst strangers, little was to be expected from them; for strangers are many times used strangely, and few are sensible of their miseries. Some think the word may be turned (descerti)--deserted and forsaken; for in such a case few dare own their own flesh and blood and nearest relations. Yet the former sense seems to be more genuine, for their very habit did signify that their penury was very great.

4. They were afflicted; for in such a case their straits must be many, and the pressures and perplexities of body and mind very great, and such as none, but some who have been in their case, can truly apprehend.

5. They were tormented. The word may signify they were ill-handeled, sorely vexed, oppressed, and brought very low. (G. Lawson.)

Sawn asunder

Of sawing professors asunder:

We do not read in sacred Scriptures of any that were sawn asunder. But the Jews, among their other traditions, have this, that the Prophet Isaiah was sawn asunder with a wooden saw, in the time of King Manasses. Epiphanius, in setting out Isaiah’s life, noteth as much, so doth Hierom in the last close of the fifteenth book of his “ Comment on Isaiah,” p. 57. Whether that be true of Isaiah or not, most sure it is that some have after such a manner been martyred, either by sawing them asunder, or by pulling the members of their body asunder. This testimony of the apostle is sufficient to assure us of the truth thereof, and it giveth an instance of the cruelty of persecutors which showeth itself even in the death of martyrs. The ground of all was their extreme hatred of truth, and malice against maintainers thereof, which made them cast out all bowels of pity; yea, it made them take a devilish delight in cruelty. Herein lieth a difference betwixt cruelty that tends to death and that which is in death. The former may be to make men yield, but this is on malice and a mere devilish disposition.

1. This giveth instance of the depth of man’s corruption, which makes him as a devil incarnate, worse than the most savage beasts. Some tyrants have so far exceeded in cruelty as they have hired men to invent instruments for cruel kinds of death. Phalaris among the heathen is famous, or rather infamous, for this. Perillus, at his motion, made a bull of brass, hollow within, which with fire might be heated red hot, and men put thereinto, their crying out for that torture seemed to be as the lowing of a bull, and thereupon no pity taken of them. Other like things are noted of Dionysius, Rouseris, and other tyrants.

2. These tortures do give demonstration of the inconceivable supportance and comfort of the Divine Spirit, whereby martyrs have been enabled with patience to endure what cruelties could be inflicted on them, and in the midst of torments meekly and sweetly to commend their spirits into God’s hands, to the world’s astonishment.

3. How should this stir us up patiently to bear smaller trials? Yea, not to be afrighted or discouraged with anything that man can do, but to rest upon this, that that God who hath enabled His servants in former times to endure such exquisite tortures unto death, will enable us to endure what He shall bring us unto. Pertinent to this purpose is the advice of Christ (Luke 14:4-5). (W. Gouge.)

Tempted

“They were tempted”

I. THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH OF THE STATEMENT. It is not true that all the saints were scourged, nor all imprisoned, neither were all stoned, nor all slain with the sword, but it is true that they were all tempted. The word “tempted” bears two meanings; first of all, that of being tried or afflicted; and secondly, that of being enticed to sin. In the first aspect of it God did tempt Abraham, that is, He tried him; and this He does with all His people. God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trial. Count it not therefore a strange thing that you should have a cross to carry. As for the other sense of the word “tempt,” the bad and hard one, in that sense also the statement is universally true. All the people of God have been tempted to sin. Satan no sooner perceives a child of God renewed in heart than he endeavours to mar the work of the Holy Spirit, to ruin the happiness of the believer, and to weaken his usefulness by leading him into sin. The world is always tempting God’s people, and there is no position in life which is free from peril. Whether our path be rough or smooth we are liable to be tripped up unless a hand unseen shall hold us up. This is true of all who have gone before us … they were tempted.” At times Providence permits those who are in authority to exercise great power of temptation.

So it was with the saints of old: those who were in power accounted them as sheep for the slaughter. But if there were no devil and no wicked world it would still be true that the saints were tempted, for every man is tempted when he is “drawn away of his own lust, and enticed”; and there is that within the best of men which might make them into the worst of men if the grace of God did not prevent. This fact that all the saints have been tempted should put an end to all murmuring upon that score. Somebody says, “Mine is a hard lot; I have to follow Christ under great disadvantages. My foes are those of my own household.” Yes, your lot may be hard, but if you could just peep within the pearly gates and see that brilliant company, who are the peers of the realm of heaven, you would see none but those who once were tempted. Dare you demand a better lot than theirs?

II. THE UNLIMITED BREADTH OF THE STATEMENT. “They were tempted”: it does not say how. If one form of temptation had been mentioned, we should have surmised that they did not suffer in other ways, but when the statement is, “they were tempted,” we shall not be wrong in concluding that they were tried in any and every form. Whatever form temptation may take, in some or in all the saints, that temptation has been endured. We may say of Christ’s mystical body as we may say of Christ’s self--“tempted in all points like as we are.” The saints who are in heaven were tempted in all ways. They were tempted by threats, but they were equally tempted by promises. They were equally deaf to either form of solicitation: they could not be driven, and they could not be drawn; however the net might be spread they could not be taken in it. They have been tempted in subtlest fashion: reason and rhetoric, threat and scorn, bribe and blandishment, have all been used, and used in vain. They were tempted both with trials peculiar to themselves, and with trials common to us all.

III. THE SPECIAL POINT OF THE TRIAL. All these temptations, according to the connection of our text, were aimed at the faith of these holy men. Let us see to it that we become strong in faith, for that is true strength. Feed your faith well. Know the truth, and know it thoroughly. Read the Scriptures, and understand them. Make sure of the eternal verities. Live much upon the promises of future bliss. The sorrows of the way will grow light as the eternal weight of glory is revealed.

IV. THE INTENSITY OF THIS TRIAL. That I gather from the position of our text, which is very strange. The more we think of it the more we shall see that being tempted is worthy to be put side by side with being sawn asunder, and being slain with the sword; for many of those who are daily tormented with temptations will tell you that it is as painful to bear as any form of death. I want to answer the question which naturally arises--Why then does God permit His people to encounter so much temptation? Why is the road to heaven so beset with foes? The Lord answers many designs at one and the same time.

1. Persecution and temptation are a sort of sieve, to sift the Church of God. There must be these fiery persecutions, that the drossy hypocrites may be purged out.

2. Trial and temptation also discover the reality of conversion. Now the fact that he can stand against temptation is one of the very best evidences that he is born again and made a new creature in Christ Jesus; and those who see such a change confess that this is the finger of God.

3. Again, it is by this that men are left without excuse, inasmuch as they refuse the light. I sometimes wonder why ungodly men cannot let Christian people alone. But no; the moment a Christian appears among working men they are all upon him as though they were so many dogs worrying a hare. What does this show but that they know the truth and hate it? They know the light, but would fain quench it, and therefore they put from them the candle which God sends to them. This leaves the ungodly altogether without excuse; it is God’s purpose that it should do so. Meanwhile it does saints good; for painful as it is to them, it drives them to prayer. Many a man lives near to God in prayer who would not have done so if he had enjoyed an easier position. His prayerfulness strengthens him; trial makes him grow in faith and in every grace, and he becomes a better Christian. I believe that persecution is overruled by God for displaying the work of the Divine Spirit. Men see in Christian patience, in Christian courage, and in Christian zeal what the Holy Ghost can work even in such poor raw material as our human nature is. God is magnified by the successful struggling of His people out of love to His name. Moreover the life of the Church is the life of Christ extended and drawn out in His people. It seems to me the trials and the temptations of this life are all making us fit for the life to come--building up a character for eternity. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Wandered about

Believers may be wanderers

The grounds hereof are these

1. The envy and hatred of the world against them, which will not suffer them to sit safely and securely on their own nests. The men of this world are to believers as fowlers to fowls, and hunters to beasts. So was Saul to 1 Samuel 24:11; 1 Samuel 24:14; 1 Samuel 26:20). Hereunto does the prophet allude (Jeremiah 16:16; Micah 7:2; Lamentations 4:18).

2. Saints’ high esteem of the truth of God, and of the peace and quiet of their own conscience, which they prefer before house and home, kindred and country. They had rather wander with a quiet conscience, holding the truth, than sit at ease in their own house under their own vines and fig-trees with a torturing conscience upon denying the truth.

3. God’s wise providence, who opens a way for them to escape death; yet so as their faith is proved to be sound by this kind of trial, which is a great one, and in the consequence thereof may prove worse than a present death. Yea, further, God hereby keepeth the light of His truth from being put out, and causeth it to shine up and down in more places (Acts 8:1; Acts 8:5). This being the condition whereunto believers may be brought, they who have settled places of abode ought to succour such wanderers (Hebrews 13:2). This, then, must needs be a strong motive to endure this trial, because it is no other than what is common to all saints.

That we may the better observe this take notice of these rules

1. Be well instructed in the nature of this world and vanity of all things under heaven; how nothing is certain and sure. Why, then, should men seek a certain abiding in so uncertain a place?

2. Get assurance of that house, city, and country which is to come. Assurance thereof will make us more content to be without house, city, and country here in this world.

3. In thy best security and most settled estate be a pilgrim in thy mind and disposition, as Abraham and other patriarchs were (verse 13). Herewith the apostle supports Christians (1 Corinthians 10:13). (W. Gouge.)

Of the extreme want whereunto confessors may be brought:

Saints may be brought to extreme exigencies. So was David (1 Samuel 21:3); and Elijah (1 Kings 17:6), had not a raven brought him provision, he might have starved; and so again, had not an angel provided for him (1 Kings 19:7-8). So Lazarus (Luke 16:21), and many others in all ages.

1. God suffers this that His children might be the rather moved to look up unto Him, and wholly and only to depend upon Him. External means are many times an occasion of drawing the hearts even of saints from God Psalms 30:6). The wise man saith, that “the rich man’s wealth is his strong city” (Proverbs 10:15).

2. God suffers this that His succouring of them might be the more manifested and magnified. (W. Gouge. )

Of whom the world was not worthy

An epic of failure:

This chapter is the most audacious of all poems--it is the epic of failure. Other poets have recited the conquests of their legendary heroes; it was reserved for the poet of faith to recite an ode not less magnificent in honour of heroes all foiled and fallen. That is the way of the Bible. That is why the Bible is the comforter of the weary, the inspiration of all hope-blasted and heart-broken victims of life’s illusions. No good man has wholly prospered in his aims; the best men mourn the failure of all that they best conceived. No true heart in this house of God is satisfied with itself. In proportion to its truth and nobleness it mourns the failure of its highest aims. All this, at least--in part. Enough to inspire thoughts of sadness. Let us listen to this voice which comes to us across the rolling waves of all the centuries, chanting the higher victories and the diviner gains of the heroes of faith. So shall we be comforted under every failure and re-inspired after every defeat. All these died in faith, not having received the promises--disappointed, cheated of the lower, the temporal, the material, yet receiving a spiritual, a higher and eternal fulfilment. An epic of failure! We have learned that the throne of highest glory is the cross of the world’s rejection. At the feet of that colossal Failure who was gibbeted on Calvary we lose our carnal ideals and learn to read the divinest and most lasting triumphs in the defeats which seemed most shameful. Need I waste any word in explanation? The Failure I join with the poet of faith to celebrate is not that which springs from cowardice, from sloth, or from incapacity. Surely not! There are men who fail for no other reason than thai they are invertebrate sluggards, or waste their energies on aims that are unworthy and perishable. These I sing not; they are better forgotten. The charity of God has ordained that they pass quickly out of human memory. Before you sneer at any man as a “failure” be sure you inquire whether the conditions of success were not then absent, or worse, whether the world, snarling at all noble enterprise, was not too strong for him. Fools sneer when wise men err! Before you scornfully label any man “failure,” call to mind some of history’s divinest defeats--Socrates, hemlock-cup in hand; Paul of Tarsus in Nero’s dungeon; Jesus Christ on the Cross! Nothing is more tragic than the way society sometimes arrays its forces against daring and aspiring youth. It is an envious world. And not unseldom death overtakes a brave young soul before he has fought his way to victory. So it was with that Italian painter who, reduced to painting shop-signs for a livelihood, died by the roadside of starvation and a broken heart. After his death men woke up to find that an artist had been amongst them. That his soul was great can save no hero of faith from neglect and oblivion, if he have not built some brazen monument solid on the brute earth. That he left his generation richer in faith, in hope, in aspiration, is nothing. That he preserved it from brutishness, from moral stagnation, is nothing. How can these trifling divinities atone for his failure to run a successful church, or make a pile, or initiate a spirited foreign policy? These be thy gods, O Israel! But, Vivas to those noble failures I we exclaim. Vivas to the young men and maidens, over whose unfulfilled plans an early grave closed! Vivas to all thinkers who died with their theories un-demonstrated! Vivas to all statesmen hustled from power by a recreant and godless people, to die amid the shattered fragments of a just and righteous policy! Vivas to the merchant who, rather than riot in plundered thousands, died an honest bankrupt! Vivas to the incorruptible pauper, who might have exchanged the poorhouse for a palace, could he but have smiled and been a villain! Virus to the shackled and branded criminal, doomed to perpetual prison and disgrace by the lie of perjured witnesses! Vivas to all true souls who have perished in just causes amid rabble execrations! Vivas to all who have attempted great things for humanity and God, and--failed! Spanning my native Tay, a strong and stately viaduct successfally defies all pressure of wind and wave, bearing mighty engines with living freights from shore to shore in all weathers. Yet it is built upon a past failure! a few years ago another structure stood in its place, it was at once a thing of beauty to the eye and of profit to the shareholder. The engineer was honest and capable, and was knighted for his pains. But it fell before the strong winds of a night, and with it fell, not only four-score human beings, but the reputation, and, alas! the reason, of its constructor. Shall we upbraid him? Say, rather, shall we not praise him who, first of the whole race of men, attempted a design so vast, and built the longest bridge in the world! Other engineers came after him. They improved upon his ideas. They learned from his mistakes. The result is a bridge which seems good for the service of many generations. Vivas to those who have failed I I say that the Tay Bridge was built not alone by the successful men who reaped the subsequent rewards, it is built also upon the souls of the nameless workmen who perished in its construction, and upon the soul and mind of poor, demented Sir Thomas Bouch. No need to pile up illustrations. It is plain that humanity might have prospered fairly well without its successes, but could have progressed no jot or tittle without its defeats. Having regard to the conditions of human life, it is plain that defeat is not less essential than victory; misdirection and error prepare the way for solid and enduring good. If I may choose, I will have for my portion the failures of mankind; he may have the successes who will. Vivas to those who have failed! Of whom the Mammon-worshipping world was not worthy. Failure? Let us not breathe the word in connection with any honest effort. Let us not so insult the memory of the baffled brave. No true ideal is finally dishonoured; no true effort is wasted; no true worker wholly perishes. From his loss humanity achieves a greater gain. Our future is built upon his past. He himself may perish, Moses-like, upon some lonely Nebo, but we pass over into the promised land! (W. Walsh.)

God’s esteem of His people

I. LET THE WORLD THINK AS WELL, AS HIGHLY, AS PROUDLY OF ITSELF AS IT PLEASETH, WHEN IT PERSECUTES IT IS BASE AND UNWORTHY OF THE SOCIETY OF TRUE BELIEVERS, AND OF THE MERCIES WHEREWITH IT IS ACCOMPANIED.

II. GOD’S ESTEEM OF HIS PEOPLE IS NEVER THE LESS FOR THEIR OUTWARD SUFFERINGS AND CALAMITIES, WHATEVER THE WORLD JUDGETH OF THEM. They cannot think otherwise of them in their sufferings, than they thought of Christ in His. They did “esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4); as one rejected of God and man. Such is their judgment of all His suffering followers; nor will they entertain any other thought of them. But God is of another mind.

III. OFTTIMES IT IS BETTER, AND MORE SAFE, FOR THE SAINTS OF GOD TO BE IN THE WILDERNESS AMONG THE BEASTS OF THE FIELD, THAN IN A SAVAGE WORLD, INFLAMED BY THE DEVIL INTO RAGE AND PERSECUTION.

IV. Though the world may prevail to drive the Church into the wilderness, to the ruin of all public profession in their own apprehension, YET IT SHALL BE THERE PRESERVED UNTO THE APPOINTED SEASON OF ITS DELIVERANCE--the world shall never have the victory over it.

V. IT BECOMES US TO BE FILLED WITH THOUGHTS OF, AND AFFECTIONS UNTO, SPIRITUAL THINGS, TO LABOUR FOR AN ANTICIPATION OF GLORY, THAT WE FAINT NOT IN THE CONSIDERATION OF THE EVILS THAT MAY BEFAL US ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE GOSPEL. (John Owen, D. D.)

The world’s unworthiness a cause of saints wandering:

The first thing expressed in this reason of confessors wandering is, the world’s vileness. The world is not worthy of them. This consequence is confirmed by this direction which Christ giveth to His disciples (Matthew 10:11; Matthew 10:13). They who preferred the things of this world before communion with the great King were counted not worthy of that favour to sit at His table Matthew 22:4-5). This should dissuade confessors of the truth to take heed of complying too much with the men of this world. This had almost cost Jehosaphat his life (2 Chronicles 18:31). He was sharply reproved for it by a prophet (2 Chronicles 19:2). Saints do herein undervalue themselves, and give occasion to be trampled under foot, yea, and torn to pieces. The world may take great advantage hereby, but saints may be sure to get no good. Should saints comply with them whom God thinks to be unworthy of them? This is the second thing expressed; for this phrase,” was not worthy,” is here set down as a judgment, which followed upon saints wandering from them. So as the world’s unworthiness deprived them of the society of saints, and might be very beneficial unto them. On this ground Christ saith to the Jews, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from Matthew 21:43). And it is expressly noted that Christ returned back again from the unworthy Gadarenes, where they besought Him to depart from them (Luke 8:37). This departing from the men of the world is sometimes done by the world’s forcing them (Acts 8:1; Matthew 10:23). Thus God in His wise providence maketh persecutors spoilers of themselves. Potiphar spoiled himself of a very faithful and profitable servant by casting Joseph into prison (Genesis 39:20), so the Jews spoiled themselves of Christ (John 7:33-34). And of the apostles, who carried the light of the gospel from the Jews to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46-47).

1. Here we have one special reason of saints suffering what they do by the world. It is not God’s displeasure against them; for in love to them, and for their present and future glory are they here persecuted. It is for the punishment of the world to deprive it of those that would be their greatest honour, comfort, and profit, if they were well entertained among them.

2. Herein appeareth the world’s sottishness in punishing themselves by their attempts to punish saints. They may spoil saints of earthly habitations and revenues, they may put them to bodily pains and deprive them of life, but they spoil themselves of the means of spiritual grace, of peace of conscience, and comfort of soul. Yea, and of eternal life, and implunge themselves into easeless torments.

3. This showeth whose case is the worst, whether their’s that are persecuted, or their’s who do persecute. Surely if all things be duly weighed, we shall easily discern that the persecutor’s case is the worst. The persecuted therefore may say,” Weep not for us, but weep for yourselves” Luke 23:28).

4. This giveth occasion to such as are deprived of faithful ministers and godly neighbours to examine themselves, and consider whether their unworthiness hath not been the cause thereof.

5. This exhorteth us to esteem ministers, saints, Divine ordinances, and other holy things appertaining to the kingdom of God, so as God may account us worthy to enjoy them; and not take them away by reason of our unworthiness. (W. Gouge.)

The world’s treatment of great men:

The words occur parenthetically. Sufferings precede, and sufferings follow. It seems as if the writer, glowing with devout thankfulness over the worthy deeds of these martyrs of faith, was struck suddenly with scornful indignation at the thought that all their sufferings were inflicted upon them by a world that was all unworthy of them, a world for which they were far too good, a world which affected to despise and presumed to torture them, while in reality it was in comparison with this pure gold of humanity, thus tried in the furnace of persecution, mere contemptible dross. These heroes of all time, these the salt of the world, who saved it from utter corruption, and by the very blood which their persecutors poured out sowed the seed which was to renew the face of the earth; these representatives of what man can be when he allows God to work in him mightily, were men who in their lifetime were despised as unworthy of the world, and who loved the world which was indeed unworthy of them. There is something very awful, something which brings the blush of shame and indignation to our cheeks, in the thought that the world thus spills the blood, and tries to stifle the enthusiasm, of its best and noblest children; that their best acts are often misconstrued; that the finest and purest elements in their characters are often just those which during their lives are least appreciated. There seems to be an enormous waste of human goodness, while we have at the same time so little of it that we cannot afford, if we only knew our true interests, to lose a single lifeful. But the important point for each of us to consider, is to which of the two classes he himself practically belongs; whether in the sight of God, from whom no secrets are hid, he is one of those whom God calls “the world,” or one of those of whom the world is “not worthy.” I know no more simple or practical way of setting this question before ourselves, than by asking what is our own estimate of those whom we believe to be trying to serve God. When you see anything, any person, superior to yourselves, does the sight give you pleasure? Do you feel proud of him? Do you try to aid him? If you ever hear of some daring act being done, do you feel disposed to give it its right name; or do you prefer to single out any ludicrous incidents in it, to extract from it and deliberately disparage all its nobleness, and make it as unlikely as you can that there should be any repetition of such a manifestation of enthusiasm. So far as you can judge, does your personal influence tend to increase or to diminish the chance of any marked display of goodness or courage being exhibited in your own society? It was said of a great English statesman--the Earl of Chatham--that no man ever left his cabinet without feeling himself a braver man than he was when he entered … To know how to do justice to all persons; to admire what really deserves admiration in the characters of those with whom we have to do; to detect through the coverings of awkwardness, or shyness, or reserve, or even much more serious defects, the true solid metal which lies beneath--is a duty which is not learned in a day. But we have advanced far in the right direction when we have satisfied ourselves that it is a duty to do this; that we have no right to be blind to latent good in others; that God wishes us to find it out, and then to pay honour to it for His sake; and that for all hasty judgments, and for all blind judgments, and for all uncharitable judgments, and above all for all judgments which wish to find evil rather than to find good, we shall most certainly have to give account … It would be well if you could commence life with an instinctive hatred of all persecution, and especially of all religious persecution. There always is and always will be a “world”--it may be a literary world, or a fashionable world, or a religious world--but there always will be some dominant body in every society which passes judgment without having the earnestness to care to know the merits of the case on which judgment is to be passed. This world always dislikes and is suspicious of everything new, everything which calls upon it to reconsider its principles, and, in short, to “examine itself whether it be in the faith”; whether its customs also, as well as its opinions, will bear testing. And the world finds means for making its dislike and suspicion felt, and it taxes to the uttermost the patience and courage of those who by honest and painful, if often misguided, efforts are striving to serve it. Among the chief benefactors, not of England only, but of the human race, stands William Tyndal, the man who almost alone gave us the substance of our wonderful translation of the Bible. He was a thorough student, not, so far as we know, a man of vehement action, like Luther. But he admired Luther, when to do so was dangerous. He expressed his opinion openly, and he fell into disgrace. He escaped into a foreign country. He translated part of the Bible. It was seized and destroyed by an English bishop. He continued his work. He was constantly under the shadow of martyrdom. But the student worked on; and his work was done. The Bible was given as a heritage to Englishmen; but scarcely was the long toil of life complected, when the workman was called into a higher Presence. By the treachery of an English spy he was placed in the hands of the English authorities, and as has been said, “passed away in smoke and flame to his rest.” (H. M. Butler, D. D.)

The world’s estimates

How different are the estimates of earth and heaven! How different is man’s standard of judgment from that which Scripture calls “the shekel of the sanctuary”! The world drives its saints into deserts and caves of the earth. The world says of each, what it once said of one, “Away with such a fellow from the earth--it is not fit that he should live.” God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, sees their rash judgments, hears their hard sentences, one upon another, and says, just of those whom the world counts wanting in every attribute of sociability and citizenship--“of whom, on the contrary, the world was not worthy.” Let us try to estimate aright this parenthetical comment. “The world.” This cosmos of sense and matter, with its pleasures and its ambitions, its lustings and strivings and warrings, its vanities, its falsehoods, and--its children. Yes, there are those who live for it and for it only, and who count any other life an enthusiasm, a fanaticism, or a hypocrisy. And the world is very real--who shall speak to the contrary? Very substantial, very powerful in its edicts, its threatenings, and its punishments. This is its day, and it makes the most of it. The world “knows that it has but a short time”--and there is a misgiving, too, under its vauntings, which make them more arrogant and imperious. Such reflections are necessary to the understanding of the text. And they enable us to go forward, and show why men of faith are so repulsive to the world; why, in days of violence, they are persecuted; why, in days of tranquillity, they are courteously, but effectually, ostracised. There is a natural hostility between faith and the world. The one lives for the future: the other lives for the present. The one sees the Invisible: the other places Him at an immeasurable distance. Nowhere is the world really stronger than in Christendom. To profess faith--to fight for the faith--is the world’s masterpiece of self-tranquillising. Are we not all of one speech? Why be more scrupulous, more sensitive, more religious, than your neighbour? The world worshipping is twice the world. It has made its covenant with death--with hell it is at agreement. And that which might seem to be faith’sremedy is forbidden her. “Wilt Thou that we go and gather them up?” Wilt Thou that we discern for ourselves between the false and the true, between the nominal believer and the real believer, within the professing Church, and within the visible communion? Not so. “Lest, while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.” At all risks, the world and the Church must be mingled together in the present; if so be the influences of grace may yet touch the worldly, and bring them into the fold of the real and of the true. Thus we are taught to look more at principles than at persons. We must not, we cannot, go apart by ourselves, and leave the Church-world to its own ways and its own devices. If it excommunicates, if it drives into the desert, it must have its way: and it will set its mark, if not publicly yet in secret, upon all who refuse to speak its thought and to do its bidding. The man of faith, the consistent Christian, may be in the world, of it he cannot be--and the world knows it. The world of the home, the world of the school, the world of the shop and the counting-house, the world of fashion and of society, feels and resents the reproving speech, and yet more the reproving silence, of the man who quietly and consistently lives for the unseen, and turns all his thoughts and actions that way. And this is the closing lesson of the chapter of faith. We are reminded that there is a “world “ present and active in the heart of Christian England, and that there is also, side by side with it, not only a visible professing community, which, for us, is almost coextensive with it, but also a secret society, knit together in a bond of spiritual sympathy, not only by the possession of common ordinances of worship and rules of living, but by the actual presence, within each member, of the Holy Spirit of God quickening, guiding, enabling, sanctifying--drawing their desires heavenward, and making” that world,” the world of heaven and of God, more real and more present and more persuasive to them than all the pleasures and all the interests of things seen and temporal. We are reminded also that in this realisation of the invisible God lies a power, and a dignity, and a patent of nobility, altogether different, in kind as well as in degree, from all the greatness and all the honour which can be conferred by rank or wealth, by genius or intellect, by the admiration of senates or the favour of kings. “Of whom the world was not worthy” is God’s description of the very men whom the world casts out as fools or madmen. Live now, at all costs, for “that world,” whether “this world” shall curse or bless. In pureness, in meekness, in diligence, in love unfeigned--with the Holy Spirit within you--so pass the time of your sojourning, and look for your rest and your home in the one “city which hath the foundations,” the city of the everlasting glory, whose light is the crucified and risen One, whose Architect and Artificer is God. (Dean Vaughan.)

Great men

I. THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH FORM A VERY DIFFERENT ESTIMATE OF GREATNESS. Look at history. What names are those that fill its pages? Kings, counsellors, and chieftains--men who have lived only to subdue and govern their fellow-men. History is so occupied with their deeds, that it finds no place to record manifestations of moral principle, and works of true greatness. There is no record in it of those men, who through a strength and purity of soul obtained a sway over the minds of their fellow-men; who, rising above their times, assailed all forms of error, rescued great truths from the corruption of ages, and by their characters, deeds, sufferings, and writings, proved themselves the benefactors of their race. The world does not know them; but their names are repeated with veneration by thousands. These are our great men; and the day is coming when their greatness shall be acknowledged. The Church esteems moral greatness as the highest kind of greatness; and whatever qualities a man may have apart from this, she refuses to admit his pretensions, and casts out his name. There is too much of lowliness and simplicity in true moral greatness to charm and attract the world. Intellectual greatness is far inferior to moral greatness. A man may be intellectually great, and yet morally mean. He may be like Bacon, the greatest and the meanest of men. The philosopher and the poet are inferior to the Christian. The Church knows nothing of the greatness of men as kings, as warriors, or as statesmen. In her estimation “the Christian is the highest style of man.” It is necessary to moral greatness, that there should be an acquaintance with the truth--with God’s truth; that truth which illuminates and saves the soul; that truth which sustains a man amidst the scoffings and revilings of an age; that truth which teaches a man how to live and how to die. To be a great man, therefore, a man must recognise the superiority of his nature. He must act as a man, knowing and feeling that he has a soul. He must not be imposed upon by the pageants of the world; he must not be allured by the charms of the things that are passing away; he must confess himself to be a stranger and a sojourner here, as all his fathers were. A great man must be a bold man--one who will act out his convictions, defying all peril, and hearing in his own conscience a voice louder than the threatenings of the world. He must be a man who will dare to be singular; who will hew out his own pathway; who will even look death in the face rather than give up his principles, and leave guilt upon his conscience. He must be an active man--a man making his existence necessary to the world, and who will not let the world do without him; yea, the world cannot, the world shall not do without him. It retains the impression of his deeds. His influence shall outlive himself, and shall never die.

II. THERE HAVE BEEN GREAT MEN IN THIS WORLD OF OURS--men “of whom the world was not worthy.” There have been some who were men above their age--men standing out from their fellows, men who have lived alone in their generation, and have been like stars in the expanse of heaven. Among the great men who have lived since the days of the apostles I may single out the monk of Germany. Among the most memorable scenes that have occurred in European history is, undoubtedly, that scene in which that great man stood before the world’s authorities friendless and alone and when the question was proposed to him--“Will you recant?” he answered “By God’s grace, never.” By that one act and deed of his he deserves to be enrolled among the list of those men “of whom the world was not worthy.”

III. GREAT MEN ARE MADE SO BY THE GRACE OF GOD. They were “born not of blood, nor of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Their lives were a copy of the holiness of truth, an illustration of the beauty of truth, and a manifestation of the power of truth.

IV. GREAT MEN HAVE, GENERALLY SPEAKING, GIVEN AN IMPULSE TO THE AGE IN WHICH THEY LIVED. It was impossible for them to think and speak and act in such a world as this, without producing undying impressions; it was impossible for them to suffer and to die, without leaving memorials of their names, their deeds, and their sufferings, in the sympathies and in the hearts of men. They laid the foundation of that vast structure of civil and religious liberty in which we meet and bow down and worship to-day.

V. THE WORLD HAS ALWAYS BEEN IGNORANT OF ITS GREAT MEN. There was One, of whom it becomes us to speak with the greatest reverence. He came into this world; and though He had made the world, yet it knew Him not, and cried out--“Away with Him! away with Him! crucify Him! crucify Him!” And if the world know not the Master, is it likely that it will recognise His disciples? The world has never known these great men. It has always treated them with contempt. They have been afflicted, forsaken, tormented; they have “wandered about in goatskins and in sheepskins”; and yet these very men have been among our true nobility and spiritual aristocracy; “ of whom the world was not worthy.” And yet, for them the world forged its fetters, opened the doors of its dungeons, and lit up its fires, that their spirits might ascend to liberty and to God.” (H. J. Bevis.)

These all … received not the promise

What of the saintly dead prior to the coming of Christ?

It is altogether probable that among the Jewish Christians there would be great anxiety to know what had been the condition, in the unseen world, of their saintly forefathers who had died before the coming of the Messiah. It is probable, too, that on this subject revelations may have been made by the apostles which were not recorded in Holy Scripture, because their chief interest and practical importance would cease before the true tradition of their teaching had been corrupted and passed away. An incidental sentence of this kind seems to imply a knowledge, in primitive times, of the state of good men who had died before Christ came, which has disappeared from the memory of the Church. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

The argument:

Your fathers, the greatest of them, while they lived, and after they entered Paradise, were waiting and hoping for the coming of Christ. Neither on earth nor in heaven could they be “made perfect” until He came. Till His birth, till His death, till His ascension to glory, their life was a life of faith; and yet you are ready--though the Divine promise is already in part fulfilled--to surrender your confidence in God, because the complete fulfilment is still delayed. (R. W. Dale, LL. D.)

The promise of incompleteness

There was a plain mechanic in a little town in Scotland who feared God; and built houses for a livelihood. He never had more than three months of schooling in his life. Let us draw a circle round the seventy-five years of that life, and look at it merely by itself. Measured by the ordinary standards of the world, how cramped it is I how insignificant! But then can we look at that life in that way? It is plain that we cannot; for every life establishes connections and creates consequences. It is with a life as it is with a large estate. It cannot be closed up at once upon the death of the testator. Certain obligations have a given time to run. Certain outstanding amounts of capital may not be paid in for years. Indeed, it is doubtful if the real sum total of any man’s life can be stated until the end of all things. This humble mechanic, for instance, was the father of a son whose name is known and honoured wherever the English language is spoken. To James Carlyle’s life must be added the sum of Thomas Carlyle’s life and the influence of his writings, and the influence of the men whose thought has been stimulated or shaped by those writings. I have taken this familiar illustration as containing in itself the substance of my text to-day. The truth it gives us is that no man’s life can be estimated by itself, but helps to complete the past, and is completed by the future. These people--Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the rest--were the spiritual heroes of an earlier time, representing the nation’s moral high-water mark. They were powers, and society acknowledged and bore witness to their power. Yet there was a good in store, which, though they contributed to it, did not come to them. There was a promise infolded in their life which was not fulfilled to them, but to those who came after them. If their life is to be estimated only in itself, if its record is to cover only the sum of its years, then this state of things seems unjust and cruel, and the life itself of little account. But you at once see that the writer is taking a far wider view than this. He is contemplating these early heroes, not only by themselves, but as links in a great succession of men of faith. He is viewing the results of their life as parts of the great development of humanity at large. Now, the recognition of this as a law of life has a vast influence upon any man’s character. It shapes a man of a different type from one who regards his life as an end to itself; and it is here set down to the credit of these Old Testament heroes, as an element of their faith, that they apprehended this larger law and lived by it; that they put mere personal considerations out of sight--were content to be merely stages, and not finalities, in the great growth of human history. So far as this world is concerned their life goes to minister to other lives, and is simply a factor in the progress of mankind as a whole. This is a far wider conception of faith than we commonly form. We are disposed to make faith exclusively personal, to trust God mostly for what He will do for us, or for those most closely bound to us. We say to ourselves, “We must trust God for daily bread, for provision for old age or sickness, for a place in heaven”; and so we must. So Christ commands us to do; but, at the same time, He teaches us to give faith a much wider range. We are parts of a great Divine economy, of a great march of ideas and character; builders on a great building of God, each carving his stone, or laying his few courses of brick; husbandmen in God’s vast domain, each tilling his few acres--one sowing, another reaping; one planting, another watering. No man’s faith is perfect which regards merely his own salvation; no man’s prayer is according to Christ’s standard which leaves out “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Thus identifying ourselves with the interests of God’s kingdom--the whole development of our race--we find ourselves identified with a process. The perfect man, the perfect society, are not created out of hand. They have not come yet, but they are slowly coming, and coming through much crudeness and imperfection by the way. Thus, then, the kingdom of God is no exception to the law which obtains in other kingdoms--that growth involves imperfection and destruction. Take the law as it holds in nature. Growth comes through death. The corn of wheat brings forth fruit only as it dies. In nature’s processes we find much which serves merely as the step or the scaffolding to something better and greater and more beautiful, and which, when its purpose is accomplished, passes away. There is the worm. It crawls in the sun, and lies upon the leaf, and then wraps itself in the cocoon; and then springs forth the butterfly in all the glory of gold and purple: and the worm-life and the cocoon-life have done their work, and have given that beautiful creation to the air and the flowers, and they pass away. Go higher up, into the life of man. A perfect, healthy child, how beautiful it is! how winning! how innocent! how natural and graceful its attitudes! What parent has not found himself looking back to the years of infancy with a feeling that the years which have made his children men and women have robbed him of something ineffably sweet and precious? Childhood is only a stage: so is youth, with its flush of hope, its high aims, its fulness and vigour of life; and so manhood, with its strength and achievement. In a normally developed life each stage as it passes away hands over to its successor something better and stronger. Does the process end with old age? Is there not something better beyond the line which we call death? So of society. It passes through crude conditions, which give place to higher and better conditions. One life is spent in evolving the powers of electricity: the man who comes after reaps the full benefit of the telegraph and telephone. A Columbus discovers America, we enjoy it. Go still higher, into the region of religion and worship,. The same law holds. Religion is not given to man full-grown. The true faith works its way into shape and power out of a mesh of false faiths. One by one these fall off and die, leaving only what is essentially true to be taken up into the new and higher form. Not one of the men mentioned in this catalogue in the eleventh of Hebrews can be held up as a perfect model of character for the men of a Christian age. The New Testament morality is higher than that of the old. The humblest Christian believer has what Samuel and Elijah had not. And as to worship, we say, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” We come to God without priest or victim or symbol; but what a stretch between our standpoint and that of the Israelite!--a stretch strewn with broken types. Prophet, priest, king--one after another, God breaks these types in pieces as the fulness of time draws on, when Christ, the Teacher, the great High Priest, the Lord of lords, is to come into the world.

II. We come, then, to the second truth of our text. Having seen the fact of imperfection, WE SEE THAT ALONG WITH THE IMPERFECTION GOES A PROMISE. You notice the peculiar word here, “received not the promise.” It is noted as a mark of the faith of these good men that they saw a promise of something better in the imperfection of their own age. Christ bears witness to this in the words, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it, and was glad.” In like manner Moses saw a nation in the rabble which went out of Egypt. To him the desert meant Canaan. So in nature, the seed, even in its falling into the ground and dying, utters the promise of the corn: the blossom, as it is borne down by the wind, promises the fruit. Even the falling leaf, as it settles down to its new task, promises next spring’s juices and leaves. So in the moral progress of our race. Paul tells us that “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural,” that “The first man is of the earth, earthy”; but in these he sees the promise of something better. “Afterwards, that which is spiritual. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption.” Society in its best development to-day is imperfect: the ideal form of government is yet to be revealed; but as we turn over to the vision of John on Patmos, we see a perfect society, a holy city, a heavenly Jerusalem, a faultless administration. Now, the practical question for us is, What is our true attitude toward these two facts of imperfection and promise? Our text tells us, by the example of these men of old. There were imperfect men; they saw a possible good which was not for them: but through faith they accepted the imperfection and made the best of it, and cheerfully gave their energy, and endured their suffering, to make the coming man and the coming time better than themselves and their time. We are on the same line. We and our time are simply a stage toward something better. With all our boast of high civilisation, elaborated jurisprudence, rich spiritual acquirement, and vast knowledge, there is something better for the men of the coming time. They will know more, and enjoy more than we do. They will be better men than we are. They will have greater riches of spiritual culture. It is a high test of faith for a man to do his best under temporary conditions, as a mere faction of a great whole, as a mere means to the development of some better thing in a future which he is not to enjoy; and yet that is the lesson which God’s administration teaches us. How much care and skill and beauty go into merely temporary things! Take a wheat-corn, that very thing which is to fall into the ground and die, and split it open, and put it under a microscope, and what a perfect and beautiful organism it is! Look at that apple-blossom, which in a few days will be blown away by the wind, and what perfection of form, what delicacy of texture and tint! Each one of those living motes which dances for an hour in the setting sunlight is finished with all the nicety of your own anatomy. Nature is prodigal in her apparent waste of beautiful and perfect things. So, when God gave a temporary system of worship to carry men over to Christ, how carefully selected were the types; how stringent the insistence on details which seem trivial to us! Cannot we read this lesson? Shall we refuse our best because our best is to be merged into something better? Or shall we not rather feel ourselves at once stimulated and honoured by being allowed to contribute our best to the great result which is by and by to gather up into itself the best of all the ages? You have read how, in the old border-wars of Scotland, the tidings of invasion and the summons to arms were carried by the fiery cross. One runner took it and went at full speed to a certain point, telling the news as he went, and then gave it to another, who ran on in like manner. It was not for the messenger to whom that summons came to sit down and prepare for the defence of his own house and the protection of his flocks and herds. He must take the cross and run for the next stage. The message of Christ’s Cross points us beyond ourselves and our own interest and our own time. It lays on us the charge of the coming time. It bids us do our best in our own time, as a means to making that Cross the central fact of the future time. Our stage of life contains a promise for the next stage that it shall be better and higher for our faithful toil. Our problem is to push that promise nearer to its fulfilment. Thus, then, let us take the promise of the better thing into the inferior, incomplete conditions of to-day. Let us accept the fact of incompleteness, not passively, nor idly: that were to exclude faith, and faith is the very keynote of this lesson; nor, on the other hand, despairingly nor angrily that were presumptuous and useless as well. But let us recognise in it a promise of completeness, a stage towards it, and a call to promote it. No one of us can be more than a factor in the world’s history. The power of each factor will appear only when the whole column shall be cast up. The sum total will be greater than any factor, but for the very reason that it will include all the factors. “We must be slow,” as one remarks, “to judge unfinished architecture.” Truthfully said the old Greek poet, “The days to come are the wisest witnesses.” If there be truth in that theory of development, so widely ,accepted in this day; if we are living in an incomplete physical universe, no less than in partly developed moral and spiritual conditions, that fact goes to show that one law holds from the natural up to the spiritual. That holds out the hope that all the apparent waste in nature will one day be accounted for and shown to be no waste. That points again to the larger hope, that the imperfect work of true men, the imperfect teaching of half-taught men, the imperfect moral development of primitive men, and all the disappointed aspiration and seemingly fruitless toil, and rejected testimony of God’s workmen in all times, will be found again, revealed in its true value and power. It was a profound remark of a modern essayist, that the continual failure of eminently endowed men to reach the highest standard has in it something more consoling than disheartening, and contains an “ inspiring hint that it is mankind, and not special men, that are to be shaped at last into the image of God; and that the endless life of the generations may hope to come nearer that goal of which the short-breathed three-score years and ten fall too unhappily short.” The present, for each of us, bears the sign of the Cross. The crown is in the future. (M. Vincent, D. D.)

An increasing purpose

I. THE BOND UNITING US WITH PAST GENERATIONS.

1. The question then agitating men’s minds was, Is not this new faith in Christ Jesus the destruction of Judaism? And the writer of this Epistle answers the question by the broad assertion that Christianity is the real Judaism, and that the true line of succession runs through the Church, and not through the synagogue. Fancy a stiff Pharisee’s face, at hearing a Christian teacher claim Abraham, Jacob and, most audaciously of all, Moses for his side! But why did he do so? Because the foundation of their lives was faith. The writer will not allow any difference, except that of development, between the call of prophet and psalmist, “Trust ye in the Lord for ever,” and the preaching of apostles, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” There has never been but one way to heaven, and faith has always been one, however different in completeness its creed.

2. It is but applying the same principle in a slightly different direction to say that all in Christian ages who have the same spirit of faith are one. All who lay hold of the same Christ with the same confidence are knit together. But it must be the same Christ, the Divine-human Christ, the world’s Redeemer; and the faith must be so far the same that it leans the whole weight of man’s weakness on that Incarnate Strength, and hangs all its hopes on that one Lord.

II. THE BETTER THINGS FORESEEN FOR US. There is no such advance within the limits of Christianity as separated it from the earlier revelation. The further “light’’’ which each age has a right to expect is to “break forth from the Word” already given. “The Christ that is to be” is the Christ that was, and is “ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” He is “ for ever,” as being complete. As for truth, all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in Him, and may be drawn from the deepening understanding of the principles embodied in His life, death, resurrection and reign. All theology, morality, sociology, lie in Him as gold in ore, or diamonds in a matrix. As for powers, all that can be needed or done for the regeneration of the world and of single souls has been done and supplied in the work of Christ. What remains is but the application of the power which has been lodged in humanity. But while objective revelation is complete, and God’s treasures contain no “better thing” than the unspeakable gift once bestowed and ever possessed, there is meant to be an advancement in understanding of the truth, and in appropriation of the power. Jesus is inexhaustible. No one man can absorb Him all; no one age can. A thousand mirrors set round that central light will each receive its beam at its own angle, and flash it back in its own fashion. So true progress will consist in a fuller understanding and firmer grasp of Him as Son of God and Redeemer of the world, and in a more complete reception of His Spirit, manifested in more Christlike characters and more Christ-pleasing services.

III. THE YET BETTER THINGS IN RESERVE FOR OUR SUCCESSORS. Naturally the progress is not to stop with us, but will go on as long as there is a Church on earth. We too have but partial light, and have partially appropriated the gifts, and discharged the duties given and enjoined in the partly understood gospel. The Church of the future will have broken down all sects. Religion will one day be harmonised with “ science.” Christian principles will be applied to social and national life with revolutionary effects. There will be a fuller baptism of the Spirit on the happier Church that is to be, resulting in more consecrated lives, in more missionary and evangelistic effort, and in a finer harmony of nature, and a more systematical and majestic development of capacities in the individual and the community.

IV. THE FINAL PERFECTING IN WHICH ALL ARE UNITED. The saints of the old and the believers of the new covenant are not to be perfected apart.

1. There is to be a perfect union of all in the common joy of possession of the common gift. On the march the pilgrims were widely separated, but in the camp their tents will be near each other. Just as Dante saw Paradise under the symbol of a great rose, whose many petals were yet one flower, and just as astronomers tell us that the giant nebulae, consisting of infinite numbers of suns, are yet each one whole, though we cannot imagine what forces bind together across such bewildering spaces, so all who, in solitude here, and amid misconceptions and diversities have yet loved the one Lord and followed the one Shepherd, shall couch round Him above, and in some mysterious, but most blessed manner, know that they “live together,” and “all together with Him,” as the bond of their unity, and perhaps the medium Of their intercourse. There will be a united perfecting in the common possession of the whole Christ.

2. There will be united perfection in enjoying the consults of the long unfolding through the ages of the fulness of Christ. Here one generation originates and another completes. But the time comes when all the workers shall share in the gladness of the finished work; when all who, separated by long ages and thick walls of mutual misconception, and divergence in practice and opinions, have yet been unknowingly toiling towards the same end, shall clasp inseparable hands in the great result which contains all their work. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The greatness of faith:

The point in these words on which we wish to fasten is, that it was through faith that the worthies, of whom St. Paul speaks, obtained “a good report.” There is here a distinct assertion that faith, and nothing but faith, gained for the most distinguished saints their high pre-eminence; that if they enjoyed a larger than the ordinary share of the Divine favour, it was in consequence of their believing with a more than common steadfastness. Neither does our text stand alone in furnishing such a representation. Throughout Scripture faith is represented as most acceptable to God, and as securing to man the highest privileges and recompenses; and it is on this very account that the gospel is so distasteful to numbers, that numbers would reject it, and devise a better theology for themselves.

I. Now it is very easy, but very unfair, to speak of faith as an act of the mind, which only follows where there is testimony enough, and over which, therefore, a man has little or no control, and which, consequently, ought not to be made the test or criterion of any moral qualities. We call this unfair because it takes no account of the influence which the affections exert over the understanding, in consequence of which a man will readily believe some things, and positively disbelieve others, though there shall be no difference in the two cases in the amount of furnished testimony. Just think for yourselves: if I bring you intelligence of a matter in which you have no personal concern, which you have no interest whatever in either proving or disproving, the mind is likely to be fairly impartial, and to give its decision on a just estimate of the evidence which I adduce. But suppose the intelligence to be of an obnoxious and troublesome character; suppose that if proved true it will compel you to exertions or sacrifices which you shrink from being called upon to make. Here is a widely different case. The strongest feelings of a man will be at once up in arms, and we shall find it needful to make assurance doubly sure before we can gain credit for the unpalatable truth. Apply this to the matter of revealed religion. Let, then, the Bible, with all its credentials, be submitted for the first time to a man whose reason is in full vigour for investigating truth; is he likely to feel any pleasure in the doctrines of the Bible? Are they such as he can be supposed to feel any wish to find and prove true? No; these doctrines present him with a portrait of himself whose accuracy he must undoubtedly be unwilling to admit. And though, indeed, the Bible, not content with exposing to him his condition, offers him a remedy, nevertheless this remedy itself is offensive to his pride. Now tell me, is it fair to say of a man who receives as true a document, thus humbling to himself, thus imposing duties from which nature shrinks; is it fair to say of him that he merely yields to a certain amount of testimony, which left him no choice? Nay, this is altogether wrong: even the evidences of the Christian religion are not such as leave no option to the student; they are such as will be sure to prove convincing, where there is diligent and candid inquiry; where there is a wish to ascertain truth, and a determination to obey it when once ascertained; but it is not such a testimony as is sure to prevail, even in the absence of all such qualifications. It is not a testimony addressing itself to the senses, graven on the earth, or glaring from the firmament, and forcing conviction alike on the careless and the diligent. It is, on the contrary, a testimony which may be overlooked by indolence, and overcome by prejudice. It will not ordinarily commend itself to the man who sits down to its investigation with hostile feelings and bitter prepossessions, hoping to be able to reject it as defective. Therefore you cannot say of the man who yields to this evidence that he only submits to what could not be withstood. He might have resisted, he would have resisted, had he not brought to the inquiry a teachable spirit, a sincere wish to discover truth, and a fixed resolve to conform to its dictates. But go beyond the evidences, go to the truths which revelation unfolds, and you will see still more clearly that believing presupposes the possession, or requires the exercise of dispositions which are confessedly excellent. There must be humility in him who believes, for from the heart he confesses himself unclean and undone. There must be the submission of the understanding to God, for much has to be received which cannot be explained. There must be a willingness to suffer, for Christianity summons to tribulation; there must be a willingness to labour, for Christianity sets a man about the most arduous duties. We do not know any achievement so remarkable, so little to have been expected from a proud, prejudiced, and depraved creature, such as man naturally is, as the believing in a record so humiliating, so condemnatory of lust, so rigid in enjoining duties, as is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You might tell us of great exploits, of splendid deeds, which have earned for those who wrought them surpassing renown; but we should not fear that any of the heroes had done a nobler or a more admirable thing than is effected by any one who exercises the faith of which my text speaks. Yes, give place, ye great ones of the earth, who have drawn the homage of your fellow-men by penetrating the secrets of nature, improving the arts, advancing the commerce, strengthening the institutions, or subduing the enemies of your country. We would bow before a lowlier and, nevertheless, a more illustrious throng; we would find a higher title to respect, and we see that throng, and we acknowledge that title in those of whom an apostle could say, “These all obtained a good report through faith.”

II. Let us advance a step further; let us proceed from the preliminaries, as they may be called, to the consequences of faith, and we shall find fresh warrant for that “good report” of which our text speaks. For faith, you observe, cannot be a barren or an uninfluential principle. It is not so with regard to inferior truths, much less can it be so in regard to the truths of the Bible. Let us fasten on certain of the doctrines which God has revealed, and certain of the virtues which God demands, and let us see whether faith in the one will not be of necessity productive of the others. For example: it is a portion of the Scriptural revelation that God is omniscient and omnipresent; that nothing can be hid from His scrutiny, but that He is ever at hand, a vigilant inspector, to note human actions, and register them for judgment. Can this be really believed, and yet the believer fail to be intently earnest to approve himself in God’s sight? Will be ever think himself in a solitude, ever act as alone and unobserved? Will not rather his faith produce a holy reverence, an awful fear of the Almighty? The Bible tells him, moreover, of an amazing scheme of rescue, planned and executed by God, on behalf of himself and his fellow-men. Can this be believed, and yet the believer not glow with intense love towards a gracious and benevolent God, who has done such surprising things for his good? Yea, and toward his fellow-men, seeing that they are objects of the same mercy with himself, and therefore equally precious in the sight of his Creator? Oh! will not faith, genuine faith in the mighty truths of redemption, make a man feel as an affectionate son towards God, and as an affectionate brother towards all men? And yet further, along with the revelation of this amazing scheme of mercy, the Bible sets forth conditions, apart from which we can have no share in the blessings procured by Christ’s death, imposing duties, on the performance of which our future portion is made to depend, and annexing promises and threatenings, just as though we were to be judged by our own works, irrespective of the work of the Redeemer. It tells us of a heaven, and it tells us of a hell, and dealing with us as accountable creatures. Faith in these things must animate to effort, to obedience, to self-denial; and he who is really a believer in the revealed truths as to man’s everlasting state, and the indissoluble connection between conduct here and condition hereafter, will necessarily be one who struggles for mastery, and wages continual war with the world, the flesh, and the devil. There is no strangeness, then, at all. Faith is precisely that condition of the soul which such a Being as God might have been expected to approve; for having given the revelation contained in the Bible, to require faith in its disclosures is to require that the understanding submit itself, that pride be cast down, that the “flesh be crucified with its affections and lusts,” and that every energy be consecrated to His service. Where, then, is the marvel if He have been pleased to ordain that it should be through faith that men “ obtain a good report.”

III. Finally, to impress, it possible, the argument on every hearer, we will represent the nature and achievement of this principle of faith. We, you and I, live in the midst of allurements and temptations, what is without conspiring with what is within to bind us to earth, and make us cleave to it as our home and our all; and whilst we are thus entangled there comes a revelation from the invisible God, a revelation of amazing truths connected with His nature and with His purposes to ourselves, His guilty and depraved creatures; in this revelation you and I are bidden to believe--bidden on the express declaration that in return for our faith we shall be admitted into privileges which thought cannot measure. And is it an easy thing to believe? Easy! it is to lay aside prejudice, it is to become as little children, it is to submit implicitly to God’s authority. Easy! it is to abandon what we love, to forego what we desire, to do what we dislike, to endure what we dread! Easy! it is to cut off the right hand, pluck out the right eye, wrestle with principalities and powers, to despise death, and anticipate futurity! Easy! do it, ye who count it so easy. Ye who make so light of believing--believe. Ye who represent faith as a mere nothing, have faith. You would invite us to some great and hard achievement, we invite you to a greater and harder; we match believing against all your doing; we match it in difficulty, we match it in results. There is nothing which you admire which we may not attempt in our own strength, but we must have the power of the Lord God Almighty ere we can believe in Him whom He hath sent. (H. Melvill, B. D.)

Christ, the prime promise, not received by true believers

Of the believers before mentioned, and of others that lived before Christ, it is said they that received not the promise, that is, saints, under the Old Testament, had not an actual exhibition of Christ. This was one of the promises, concerning which it was said of the patriarchs, they received not the promises (Hebrews 11:13). In this respect it is said that many prophets and righteous men desired to see those things (Matthew 13:17), namely, Jesus Christ incarnate, living, preaching, working miracles, &c., and that the prophets inquired and searched diligently about those things (1 Peter 1:10). Therefore they did not enjoy them. God was herein pleased to manifest His wisdom in reserving such a promise to a fulness of time Galatians 4:4).

1. That His goodness might by degrees increase, as the sun doth, and so be the better discerned. For by degrees it was more clearly revealed.

2. That so great a blessing might be the more expected, inquired after, and longed for.

3. That the patience and other graces of saints might be the better exercised.

4. That Christ Himself might be the more honoured, in that He was reserved to the latter age of the world, as being a blessing which surpassed all other blessings before it.

(1) Hereby we have instruction in the nature of faith, which is to rest upon promises for things future, as if they were actually accomplished.

(2) This doth much amplify the faith of former believers, in that they did and endured so great things for Christ before they enjoyed Him.

(3) It checks our backwardness and dulness in believing, who live in the times wherein the promise may be and is received.

(4) This should stir us up to seek to excel them, in that we have received the promise which they received not. (W. Gouge.)

Borne better thing for us

Something better:

Thus faith makes character. The Pyramids of Egypt are dead stone. The pyramids of Israel are holy men. Worldly fortune most of these heroes and heroines had none. Fame indeed came to them; but they did not march up to Fame and say, “Be thou my god.” And what was that fame? Not that of eloquence; nor did they gain the laurels of war; they obtained a good report. Their virtues lived after them. Thus faith achieved the great result. And faith in what? A promise. Seeing, then, that faith in a promised Saviour is so good a thing, what can be better than such a promise? The apostle is speaking of the promise fulfilled. We live now not under the promise, but under the full revelation of the Christ.

I. A GLORIOUS REVELATION OF THE CHARACTER OF GOD. “Something better.” The works of man often show decrepitude, wasting genius, failing power. Witness Turner in art, and Sir Walter Scott in literature. But all God’s works show development--onwardness. Creation in its physical aspect does. Look at the crustaceans and at the silurian fossils, &c. None can fail to see progress--some-thing finer, nobler, better. Look at the moral world! Look at God’s revelations of righteousness and truth! How wonderfully superior the light which David had to that which Abel had! Then, as the course of inspiration rolled along, the devout Jew heard descriptions through Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah, which filled in the sublimely prophetic history with the story of Messiah’s sufferings. In the incarnation and redemption of our Saviour we still see something better. And then our Saviour tells us that there is still something better. He says, “It is expedient for you that I go away,” then the Comforter Shall come. Life is not to be a mere obedience even to Christ’s words, but a spiritual potency within, God’s Spirit in the inner man. The unprejudiced mind is bound to see in all this a revelation of God’s character--of His interest in man, of His wisdom, His pity, and His grace! We ought to make history a ground of trust and hope in God, so that in looking back we may say, “I will trust, and not be afraid.”

II. A GLORIOUS INTERPRETATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. The path of the Christian is like that of the Church, from strength to strength, from glory to glory.

1. Learn to interpret life by the key of this principle. It is the only one that can solve the mysteries of pain and sorrow, or that can soothe the heart in agony and trouble. The motto, “It is better,” cannot be ever on our lips, it is true. We should act a lie as if we were false enthusiasts. We cannot say, “I see or feel this to be good”; but we can say, “I believe it to be so.” Faith trusts. Faith rests upon the Divine order!

2. This principle of interpretation is supported by human histories. Life only blossoms by slow degrees, and only when it is in full bud do we see how suitable the soil, how perfectly adapted the atmosphere. We would not have had Stephen stoned, but it was better that his dying testimony should aid in turning Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle, and better for Stephen himself to enjoy so early the welcome where Christ Himself rose from His throne to receive him. It is when the fabric is woven that we see what colours were best to let pass through the loom. It is when the temple is complete that we understand why the crooked stone that puzzled us was placed in its appointed spot. It is when the haven is reached by a circuitous voyage, and a strange tacking to and fro in troubled waters, that the captain tells you all about the sand-banks and the sunken rocks.

3. This principle of interpretation explains the providence of earth. Pitiable are those conceptions of life which treat the universe as though we moved only in some meaningless cycle. There is progress in all that makes for the enrichment of thought, the amplification of life, the elevation of the common lot. It is better to live now than in the old times before us. Nations, as well as men, do rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things. Doubtless as the waves of the incoming sea seem sometimes to recede, so there appear to be periods of drawback and disheartening. But progress is made. The islands once in darkness do see great light. The gospel does spread. Law does become more equitable. Sanitary science does triumph. Intercommunication between great nations in travel and commerce does increase. Education does spread.

4. This principle of interpretation explains the Saviour’s preparation of heaven. The very same word is used--“I go to prepare a place for you.” He has “foreseen” all that, and made ready the home. We cannot see the occupations and delights of our departed ones, but we know that they are blessed; we know that where they are there is “something better”; and we know that this prepared home will be soon ready for ourselves. There knowledge is freed from earthly limitation. There love is no more enfeebled by divided affection. And what mean these words? “That they without us should not be made perfect.” The temple is incomplete. The table is not full. They are blessed, but our home-coming will add intensity and fulness to their joy. How transfigured would human life be if we studied this text in all its breadth and beauty--if we remembered, as students, that God disciplines human life, so that the golden corn of experience may afterwards be a harvest for others; that as servants the heroism of our faith is remembered in that which is least as well as in that which is greatest, so that “something better” is coming than any earthly reward; that as worshippers, when thrilled at times with the glories of spiritual song, we are nearing the fellowship of the great multitude which no man can number! (W. M. Statham, M. A.)

The believer’s portion--something better

I. WHAT IS THIS PORTION?

1. Religion here in all that constitutes it.

2. Religion future in all its glorious prospects.

II. BETTER THAN WHAT?

1. Certainly better than the world at its worst--in its degrading pleasures, selfish purposes, hatred, and strife.

2. Better than the world at its best.

(1) In the achievements of science.

(2) In art.

(3) In literature.

(4) In its friendship, sympathy, love.

3. Better than the best things of the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations.

III. IN WHAT RESPECTS BETTER?

1. In that it includes God’s care and attention, and our help cannot fail.

2. In that it forms His highest and most costly provision.

3. Now it

(1) Provides for every man.

(2) Fills every holy desire.

(3) Is spiritual in character.

(4) Is certain amid a changing world.

(5) Grows continually better.

4. In the future

(1) It ends in heaven.

(2) Its blessings will be eternal.

Learn:

1. To be sure you are the heirs of this portion.

2. To think of it often.

3. To walk worthy of your vocation. (E. Jerman.)

The disposal of the times and states of the Church

I. THE DISPOSAL OF THE STATES AND TIMES OF THE CHURCH, AS UNTO THE COMMUNICATION OF LIGHT, GRACE, AND PRIVILEGES, DEPENDS MERELY ON THE SOVEREIGN PLEASURES AND WILL OF GOD, AND NOT ON ANY MERIT OR PREPARATION IN MAN. The coming of Christ at that time when He came was as little deserved by the men of the age wherein He came as in any age from the foundation of the world.

II. Though God gives more light and grace unto the Church in one season than in another, YET IN EVERY SEASON HE GIVES THAT WHICH IS SUFFICIENT TO GUIDE BELIEVERS IN THEIR FAITH AND OBEDIENCE UNTO ETERNAL LIFE.

III. It is the duty of believers, in every state of the Church, to make use of and IMPROVE THE SPIRITUAL PROVISION THAT GOD HATH MADE FOR THEM, always remembering that unto whom much is given, of them much is required.

IV. GOD MEASURES OUT UNTO ALL HIS PEOPLE THEIR PORTION IN SERVICE, SUFFERINGS, PRIVILEGES, AND REWARDS, ACCORDING TO HIS OWN GOOD PLEASURE.

V. IT IS CHRIST ALONE WHO WAS TO GIVE, AND WHO ALONE COULD GIVE, PERFECTION OR CONSUMMATION UNTO THE CHURCH.

VI. ALL THE OUTWARD GLORIOUS WORSHIP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT HAD NO PERFECTION IN IT; AND SO NO GLORY COMPARATIVELY UNTO THAT WHICH IS BROUGHT IN BY THE GOSPEL (2 Corinthians 3:10). VII. ALL PERFECTION, ALL CONSUMMATION, IS IN CHRIST ALONE. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and we are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (John Owen, D. D.)

That they without us should not be made perfect

Man perfected through fellowship

I. THE FUNDAMENTAL GIFTS OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE CAN BE RECEIVED BY THE INDIVIDUAL IN HIS SEPARATION AND OBSCURITY. We may be ready to ask the question, Was it not hard that these early believers, who had so nobly satisfied God’s demand upon their faith, should be shut out from their full and final blessedness for ages? For the present let it suffice to reply that they received, without a single exception, compensations that in the meantime more than filled up the measure of their desires. Each Old Testament saint was assured by some sign or other that he had become acceptable to God. Their comparative ignorance and detachment did not bar them from the possession of this precious rudimentary grace. These religious heroes, upon whom the seal of God’s clear approval and acceptance was set, did not belong to great devotional and educating fellowships. They lived apart. In the brain of many a Bedouin sheik, who canters across the desert-sand to-day, you might find a more elaborate theology than in some of these patriarchs. If we, with our modern wealth of learning and abstract divinity and scientific illustration, could have conversed with Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, we should probably have been repelled by the crudeness of their views. Their expectation of the Deliverer had more in it that was akin to inspired instinct than reason. But they were entirely loyal to its leading, and God sealed their faith. In the absence of the fully accomplished promise, a witness of some sort was vital to their sustained fidelity. The God who had called them to His service could not well leave them destitute of it. He could not prove Himself an Egyptian taskmaster, and command His servants to form characters fit to be built into the universal temple, without granting one of the first requisites for the strengthening and consolidation of character, the sense of His favour and acceptance. It was through this assurance that the first believers became capable of an ever-growing fidelity. And then God could not leave an unnecessary burden on the conscience of His people. No organ or faculty of a man’s nature can compare with conscience in its sensitiveness. To deny conscience the rightful assaugement of its pain would be a barbarity akin to torture. Whatever disabilities and tribulations might be laid upon the fathers of the Jewish Church, they were brought at least into the light of God’s unshadowed favour. They lived in that light, and the light was not quenched when they passed away.

II. THE CROWNING GIFTS OF THE COVENANT ARE VOUCHSAFED TO MEN IN THEIR MUTUAL FELLOWSHIPS. “That they without us should not be made perfect.” The world’s gray fathers and the youngest child in the latest term of time must be glorified together. The firstborn cannot outrun or anticipate the last. The life of nature is social, and its different parts are perfected together. God does not fashion isolated orbs to shine in solitary splendour. He kindles systems and galaxies and constellations. In all parts of nature there is community of development, fellowship of life and ecstacy. The rapture of one type of life is timed to the ripeness of another. The skylark carols over the springing corn. The nightingale pours its liquid love-plaint into the red heart of the rose. There is a co-perfecting of all the kingdoms of life. God seems to delight in the magnificence of aggregate effects. And is it not so also in the spiritual world? Not till the golden chime is heard that proclaims the approach of God’s ripe summer will the life of all the separate ages receive its highest glory and development. We are only in solitary training for the anthems that will usher in the coronation of our common humanity. True music will never be heard till the blended song of Moses and the Lamb awes the listening spheres. The higher you ascend in the scale of life, the more pronounced is this principle of interdependence. The whole of humanity is, after all, one organism. It is very significantly described as “one body”. The description is almost as true if looked at from the commercial or political as if viewed from the religious standpoint. Humanity is being slowly bound into an economic whole. With the setting up of the new dispensation some new effusion of light and knowledge and spiritual victory has come to the Old Testament saints in the region of the unseen. The basis of faith must be laid in life; but faith can increase in ever-expanding progression after life has ceased. In respect to all these, of whom it is said they have received together with us the better things of the promise, the basis of faith was well laid in life. They through their faith had received, without exception, some sign of God’s approval. And now, in ways unknown to us, they have entered into the fulness of the promises desired and waited for by kings and righteous men of old. In what way were the believing dead spiritually perfected, and made to enter into the fulness of the promise through Christ’s manifestation amongst men? They were perfected in knowledge, in conscience, and in character. By that blood of sprinkling to which they came in common with their fellow-believers in the flesh, they learned that the forgiveness of sin was no piece of unthinking indulgence on the part of the Judge of all the earth; they came to recognise a higher significance in sanctity, and to feel their obligations of worship and service measured by a higher ideal of sacrificial love and unselfishness. Besides the richer effusion of joy that came to the first generation of God’s servants through the work of God’s incarnate Son, their joy is further perfected with the progressive perfecting of human history. The first promise to Abraham looked forward to the blessedness of all nations through his seed. The promise is not fully brought to pass, nor is the large hope of the father of the faithful fulfilled till that has been accomplished. The highest victories of the Church in heaven are only consummated by the victories of the Church on earth. We shall miss nothing by dying. The sunshine will come to us in the far-off land. We shall not be cut off from the supreme triumph. Just as the air of the polar and the equatorial regions is ever changing places and bringing about fresh and tempered atmospheres essential to all life, so between the different epochs of the human race there are grand and consolatory equalisations always going on. The perfecting will be common. Abraham and David and Daniel waited for us, and we in our turn shall wait for others. The perfecting is common for the Church of all ages. Within certain limits we hold in our hands the blessedness of God’s servants of olden times, and we work in trust for the dead. Others will one day work in trust for us. There will be no supreme perfecting till the saved whole is brought in. The text suggests that there is a larger fulfilment of the covenant in the last great day, for which the spirits of the old and the new dispensation must alike wait. Before the crowning touch can be put on our destinies we must needs tarry till the most distant heir of the promises and the latest born of all God’s sons has come into the horizon. God treated the race as a unity in Adam, He treated it as a unity in Christ, and He will treat it yet again as a unity in the consummation of all things. It is said that sometimes swallows arrive on our eastern coasts before the winter has quite passed away, and the great tide of migration set in. These stray birds have been observed to gather together and fly south, probably to the coast of Spain, for a few days or weeks, till the spring temperature has come, and the carnival of vernal life has begun to quiver in the air. They have had to turn aside to balmier climbs for a little space and await the coming of the rest. So with the saints and prophets and martyrs of the earlier ages. They have passed into the unseen before God’s summer sun has begun to shine upon the universe. In some sphere of temporary rest and blessedness, in a more genial land than this, their spirits are refreshed, and they await the completed number of the elect. The rearguard and the vanguard, the sowers and the reapers, the fathers and the children. The quick and the dead, will be gathered into one common circle to share the matchless manifestations of the great day of God. The splendour to which the latest ages have come will flow back into the earliest. The last perfecting benediction will not alight upon us in our isolation, but as members of a countless assembly. The lowliest believer of the coming ages will not be shut out from the consummated bliss and triumph. All parts of humanity, all races, all generations, possibly all hidden worlds of the unknown universe, will be closely and significantly interdependent in their final blessedness. The fact that God should have determined to perfect the men of all ages together shows how much He thinks of those great principles of mutual association and fellowship which we sometimes esteem so little. He shows honour to those lowly disciples and followers of His Son whom we do not sufficiently honour. He will not crown them apart. Their services have been obscure, their prayers secret, but their recompense shall be in presence of all worlds and all generations. Be prompt to recognise God’s law of community. He will put supreme honour upon that law by blessing and glorifying at His appearing all members of the saved humanity together. God will not honour those who set aside that law. In helping our brethren we are helping ourselves. Their progress and perfecting is necessary to ours. God seems to be teaching us in this way the humility which can be best learned and exercised through fellowship. It is a check to our pride to be reminded that we can only be crowned in common with the rest. We cannot be crowned alone. The honour would be too high for us to safely sustain. It might imperil the balance of our moral life. And then by perfecting His servants together God seems to remind us of the graciousness and beauty of patience. Disembodied saints of the olden time are waiting for us, and we shall have to wait for them. They had their blessed compensations here, and receive yet better compensations in the presence of their redeeming Lord; but they still wait till the last convert from savagery has been won, the last backsliding disciple reclaimed, the last weak and inconsistent servant of God strengthened and sanctified. They are in the van of the pilgrimage, but they have learnt so much of the gentleness and patience of Christ, that they wait about the fountains of life for the fading of the world’s last twilight and the coming up of the last straggler in the far-off rearguard. Do not let us think ourselves isolated pilgrims or travellers. We belong to the sacramental host. Let us watch against selfish hurry and impatience. We shall have to await the weakest for our final blessedness. Let us wait for them with more Christlike patience here, and help them along the pilgrim path. And then God has ordained that the perfecting of our destinies shall be in common, because He wishes to set forth His grace and power upon a scale of incomparable magnificence. How splendid the perfecting for which the holy spirits of so many epochs wait! How sublime the destiny into whose effulgence all elect souls shall be together gathered! (T. G. Selby.)

The interdependence of all saints

The apostle had been speaking of the saints of the Old Testament. He had been building the triumphal arch of Old Testament history. The names of the world’s spiritual conquerors are written there, But at the close of this triumphal commemoration you cannot fail to notice the unexpected turn of the text. The conclusion towards which this whole chapter of faith’s heroism seems to move would be an ascription of our indebtedness to these valiant servants of the Lord who “ have made it a world for us.” Without them, the writer of this sacred history would naturally have said, Without them we are not made perfect. But instead he said, “That apart from us they should not be made perfect.” We hardly transcend the text, we do but follow the inspired Word out to its larger revelation, when we say, Each Christian generation is necessary to all before; the last saint belongs in some measure to the first; the better thing of each age is for all who have lived and died; not only is it true that we inherit the lives of the saints, but they are to inherit ours; we are for them as well as they for us; neither they nor we are to be made perfect apart; the last century of human history shall crown all the centuries; the consummation of the world is the perfection together of all the saints. This is hardly our customary thought of the saints. We think of them as passed beyond all participation in this world’s history, withdrawn from its trials and having no concern henceforth in its warfare and victories; made perfect in their own pure hearts, and their lives elsewhere no more bound up with this world’s destiny. We remember with grateful love what they had been to us in the years gone by; we remind one another in our public places of our common inheritance in the lives of good men; we build monuments to the memory of the brave who died for their country; we draw inspiration for youth front the illumined historic page, and the spirit of the martyrs blends still with all sacrifice of love. But while we remember these worthy and sainted ones, we should not forget that we too are to be for them, as they have been for us. If you contemplate, for example, any sacred character from the Old Testament, you will observe that such character is never held apart either from the men of God who went before it, or from the servants of the Lord who are to follow after it. Each of these characters is put in the Bible into relation with all before and all after it--as a link in a chain; all personages that carry on God’s gracious revelation, are as links in one continuous chain--and both ends of this unbroken chain of sacred history, running through the ages, with its many links of lives interlocked in one purpose of redemption, are bound to the throne of God, the beginning of it by the first Divine act of creation, and the final end of all in the glory of the Son of Man at the right hand of the majesty on high. The interdependence of all saints, the living and the dead, and those who are to be, appears in certain events in the life of Christ, and may be inferred also from certain inspired hints in the apostolic writings. It is clear from the narrative of the transfiguration, that Moses and Elias had not been cut off by death from personal interest and anticipation in the progress of God’s kingdom on earth. What was done here upon a place called Golgotha, was to be done for them also there in that place called Paradise. And it is deeply significant and suggestive that the apostle Peter who was one of the two to witness this revealed intimacy of the saints of the old and the new, and to see upon the Holy Mount this close contiguity of two worlds, is the same apostle who has dropped in his epistle quite incidentally, and as a matter of course, that word concerning Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison, and again concerning the preaching to those that are dead. The Lord’s life here, and the life of the dead there, were and are correlated; the history of the two spheres, the realm of the dead, and the kingdom of God on earth, were and are in some way ,connected and parallel histories; the two lands are contiguous, and one Lord passes back and forth across their boundary-line, to-day in the body, to-morrow in the spirit, and the third day risen again, and seen by the disciples; and He has the same administration of perfect justice and grace in both worlds. There is hardly anything more contrary to Scripture than is our common exaggeration of the importance of death. Do we not remember how Jesus seemed always to be putting death into the background as a very secondary and even incidental thing in the history of a soul which has attained the true, the eternal life? He minimized death when He called it a sleep. We magnify it when we call it destiny. The apostles, catching Jesus’ diviner tone, called sin death, and love life. Death in the apostolic speech was turned into a metaphor; it served to illustrate something far greater and more important than itself. Conversion to them was the great change; to die may be the greatest event which can happen to a man; but to die is one of the least important things which a man does; to repent of sin, to surrender to God, to live unto Christ--this is the great thing for a man to do. We think of death as a vast gulf between friends; as a great barrier between hearts that would go on loving and being loved for ever; as a wall of adamant suddenly reared by a Divine decree between mother and child, husband and wife; and with the years the great silence widens between men and women who were friends. But when one who had been taught of Jesus had occasion to refer to death, he thinks not of chasm or adamantine wall, but of the veil of the temple--the mere veil between the holy, and the holiest place. “And this hope,” he said, “enters within the veil.” Does it not revive us like a breath of the Spirit to know this truth of All Saints’ day, that we all shall be made perfect together, and none apart; that in God’s plan our lives and theirs, whom for a little while we do not see, have been interwoven, and still run on interweaving their threads and colours; that still we are living for them, and they for us in the one kingdom of our Lord; that they in their rest, or in their new activities, are resting, or are ministering, not apart from us, as we in our toils and in our dreams still are living and still are loving not without them; that whatever in higher spheres is transpiring in their lives has also its worth yet to be revealed for us, as our thought and love may have growing worth for them; that whether in some silence in Divine light round about them they are becoming holy and radiant with perfect love in their own pure hearts, or whether along some way of God they are now made strong to run with some glad tidings, or whether with the Lord Christ they be permitted with their dear hands to give some added grace and human, homelike touch to the places in His many mansions which He has gone to prepare for us--still, still, they think, they fly, they rest, they love, not apart from us, and in them and their large happiness the great God thinks also of us; that without us they may not be made perfect in that final unspeakable perfection of all the saints in the last day. And we too--herein is a comfort which we must not suffer any man to take from us--we also are living for them; as the early Church before its Latin corruption did not hesitate in its childlike faith to express in its prayers for the sainted dead this most Christian sense of the mutuality of the believers’ lives both here and there. We also are living for our fathers, for our friends who have passed before us, for all the saints, if indeed we are living truly and unselfishly; if we are ripening for their companionships, and becoming strong and pure for celestial thoughts and deeds in the ages of ages. Another lesson from this truth of All Saints’ day lies close at hand. I shall have spoken in vain if you do not perceive once more the truth that to be a Christian and to be saved is not merely to become perfect for one’s self, and to carry off a crown of glory at the judgment day. It is rather to come to the end of self, and to begin to be a member of a blessed society of spirits. No man is to be saved apart from all the saints. God’s law of salvation is a social law, the law of a redeemed society. The social life of the Church, therefore, the social unity of the Church, is not an adjunct or accessory of the Divine constitution of the Church; it is an element of the Divine idea of the Church; it belongs to its essential Christianity. And hence it follows that churches are not revived, and do not grow, if this Divine idea of the covenant of believers and the household of faith, is lost sight of, or practically ignored. Once more, let the lesson come home to us from what I have been trying to say, that individually we cannot grow in grace apart from all saints. There is a beautiful Scripture, the most important clause of which we are too apt to hurry over as we read it: “That ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth.” The condition of knowledge of the love of Christ is that we find it and share it with all saints. Yet this is just what many of us sometimes are not willing to do. We would know the love of Christ with our favourite saints. With all saints, said Paul. It was Paul, to whom were given personal revelation above measure, who felt the need of learning the love of Christ with all the saints, those unknown saints, those humble saints, those poor saints, untaught, unlearned, are to be your fellow-helpers to the truth. There are faces among them--I have seen some such--in whose light we may learn more of the secret of the Lord than from any books. Oh, when will we understand that our Christ is the universal Christ? (Newman Smyth, D. D.)

The one true Church

1. There appears to be little doubt, that the persons here spoken of are the Old Testament believers--all of them, not only those mentioned by name in this chapter, but those whose history is more comprehensively alluded to. “These all, having obtained a good report through faith.” True religion was always the same, in every age of the world--that is to say, in the substance and vital saving truth of it--however the outward expressions of it may have varied,

2. But now consider, in the next place, what the apostle says concerning these men. He says that they “obtained a good report through faith”; they were well witnessed of, in consequence of the life they led, and that life was a consequence of their faith. The same vital principle which enabled them to rest implicitly on the Word of God, and thereby to be justified in His sight, enabled them also to overcome the world. It rose superior to the attractions and solicitations of sense, to let their light shine before men, so that all could see their good works, and glorify their Father which is in heaven. By faith they were enabled to refuse every inducement which would have driven them off from obedience to their God. By faith they held all personal interests and all natural feelings, the fear or the favour of men, subservient to the one great duty, obedience to the living God. Their works, then, were their credentials upon earth, and by them their profession was justified--the profession of sincerity in the service of God. What a proof was there of the power over them of real religion, that raises man above the fear of his fellow, and gives him holy communion with his God! This, and this alone, in any age, is religion. These men, then, received “a good report through faith.” But how agrees this with the fact that they were persecuted, that they were stoned, that they were sawn asunder, that they were cast out as evil? The two things agree well. Their conduct, by contrast, condemned the world; this is expressly recorded of one of them--Noah. Men of the world, condemned by the contrast, resent the affront;and so they that are born of the flesh persecute them that are born after the Spirit. To be commended by the Church is only one-half of the “good report” of the saint; to be condemned by the world is the other half. The Old Testament saints “obtained a good report” both ways “by faith.” And are there not in our own times, and in our own country, men who have thus “obtained a good report through faith”--men who have resisted the tide of the times, and what was manifestly the rising tide of advancement and advantage among men--men who have refused to dilute their testimony for God’s truth, and have calmly and patiently, and with their eyes open, preferred honourable neglect, yea, contempt and scorn, to any crooked management, any disingenuousness, aye, or any concealment of their sentiments, for the purpose of conciliating compromisers in high places?

3. But now, returning to the Old Testament saints and to the language of the text, we inquire, for further explanation, what it is that the apostle denies them. He says they “received not the promise.” And here we must distinguish between the words containing the promise, and the thing promised by the words. The apostle uses the expression in both senses, as you will see readily by a comparison of the thirteenth and seventeenth verses of this chapter. At the thirteenth verse he writes, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises.” One of the persons referred to is Abraham. Then in the seventeenth verse the apostle writes thus: “By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son.” Abraham was one of those who had not received the promises, and yet he had received the promises; that is, he had received the words in which the promises were conveyed, but he had not received the things promised. Now, what are we to understand here by the thing promised, which was not then received? Light will be thrown upon this by the language of the apostle, in some of the stirring acts of his true life of faith. See Acts 23:6; Acts 24:14; Acts 26:6-8. Mark how the apostle’s mind was fixed upon the great promise of the resurrection of the dead. No doubt “the promise” generally signified Messiah, but especially that blessing which remains to be enjoyed, previously to His second coming--the resurrection of the dead. It was the great hope of the Old Testament saints. Hear one of them. “I know,” said he, “that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” Nothing can be more distinct than this expression of his hope. And another of them said, “I shall be satisfied when I awake up in Thy likeness”; expressing his hope nearly in the same words with the apostle--“We wait for the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.” Observe the one hope of the Church; that as there was “ one Lord,” as we have seen, in the Old and in the New Testament, and “one faith “ in Him, and “ one baptism “ by the Holy Ghost for the remission of sins, so there was “one hope,” and they were “called in one hope of their calling.” This doctrine of the resurrection of the dead was indeed denied by some of the Jews. There is no truth, however plainly revealed, which will not be denied by some men. The Sadducees had learned a strange secret--to admit the Old Testament, and yet deny the resurrection of the dead. They came to Jesus, and gave Him opportunity to set the matter in its true light; for they came with what they conceived to be an unanswerable difficulty. If by saying that “all live to God” with reference to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our Lord had intended merely to say that their souls were alive in the presence of God, it would have been no argument at all against the Sadducees. The question was the resurrection of the body. But if our Lord meant to say that the spirit of Abraham is not Abraham, but only part of him, God having made him of both matter and spirit, that when God called Himself “the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob,” He called Himself the God of the men, and not of the spirits of the men merely, and then added, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to Him,” then it is to the point, for the bodies of those men shall yet live, as well as their spirits; and so it was an answer to the Sadducees. The resurrection was indeed the hope of the Old Testament if properly understood. But this promise was not received by the saints under the Old Testament. They “obtained a good report through faith,” as we have seen, but they “received not the promise.” They were kept waiting in abeyance. The whole scheme is imperfect as yet.

4. And then follows the reason: “God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” The preliminary and preparatory steps are given seriatim, to member after member; they are born into this world, they are born again, they are justified, they are in their measure sanctified, they are separated from the flesh; their souls, made perfect, are in felicity with their Lord; but there remains a step, which is not so given: “God having provided some better thing for all, that some without the rest should not be made perfect.” Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, must wait for Moses and David; and they must wait for Isaiah and Jeremiah; and they must wait for Peter and James and John; and they must wait for Polycarp and Ignatius and Athanasius; and they must wait for Luther and Calvin and Crammer; and they must wait for us; and we must wait for others, till He has accomplished the number of His elect, and then all, in the twinkling of an eye, shall receive the promise at the second coming of the Lord Jesus. Here we see, then, the true communion of all the Church--the true oneness of the one true Church--the mystical body of the Lord Jesus, gathering from time to time, in all the preliminary, preparatory steps of it, and all ready at the appointed time to stand up in perfection, in the likeness of the Son of God. It is with this body that we now have communion by faith; not with those around us here upon earth only, but with them that have fallen asleep also, and with them in two divisions, if I may so speak. With some among them we hold communion through memory, as well as faith, for we knew them while they were here. They were faithful and true, and our hearts loved them. They have been taken from us, hidden for a little season from our sight, and are waiting for that better something which God hath prepared for all that love Him. With others we have communion only by faith; memory has nothing to do with it, for we never knew them; but by faith we know what their characters were. They, too, have fallen asleep, and they too are waiting for that better something which God hath prepared for us all. There is consolation, as well as instruction, in this. Every other association must be broken up; every other tie must be snapped asunder; all our business associations, all our social, domestic ties must give way; death is no respecter of any of us; they are all suddenly broken. Here is an association, from which nothing can separate us, the communion of the Church of God, the fellowship with those that have obtained a good report through faith, and are waiting for that something better. Must we, too, leave this sunny world, with all its enjoyments, with all that remains so attractive to the natural heart, in defiance of the disappointment, the mourning and lamentation and woe that prove it to be a fallen world? Must we be drawn from the little family circle, in which it is our delight now to dwell? Ah! remember, it is not to go among strangers; it is to join a larger circle of the same family--it is to be transferred from a small and a suffering circle to a large and a rejoicing circle of the same brotherhood, the First-born in the midst of them. (H. McNeile, D. D.)

The future perfecting:

When all whom God has foreknown and predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, shall have fought the good fight of faith, then will come the perfecting--the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. At present all who have died in the Lord wait the fulfilment of the promise. Abel, Noah, and Abraham are not to be perfected in glory by the redemption of their bodies until the last soul has been converted to God, and the valley of the shadow of death has been traversed by the last pilgrim. When the top stone of the building has been brought in with shouts of “Grace, grace unto it,” from all the redeemed and angelic hosts, then the glory of the Lord will descend upon His spiritual temple and transfigure it with everlasting light. Then, to change the figure, the saints in one glorious company, with no member of the Christ-named family absent, clothed upon with their spiritual bodies, shall enter the gates of the New Jerusalem, and celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb. There they shall recount their trials and victories, compare their experiences of redeeming love, and drink together of the river of God’s pleasures. There is something very sublime in the spectacle presented to us of this ever-gathering host. Daily, nay hourly, the number which no man can number is being increased. If the saints waiting for the resurrection are permitted to hold fellowship with souls as they arrive from this world of sin and sorrow, how they must have lifted up their heads of late years as sinners from earth’s remotest end have come bending at the feet of Him who has redeemed them with His blood. Surely His kingdom is increasing, they must think, when from India, China, and the islands of the Pacific saints of God are being gathered in, when the chariots of fire bring up martyrs from heathen lands. This plan of God, to confer redemption on all the saints together, none anticipating the rest, must give Abel, the oldest saint in heaven, an intense interest in the youngest born of the heavenly family, whose birth into the kingdom will herald the long-looked-for day of Christ’s appearing. Christians on earth may feel that they have divided interests, but when waiting for the day of glory they must feel that their interests are one. Party names, earthly distinctions, how completely lost these must be in the expectation of this glorious hope. (E. W.Shalders, B. A.)