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God, for his protection here, and his re- LECT. wards hereafter.

The apostle having taught us throughout the Epiftle that the fpiritual things of the gofpel, called the good things to come, were described as a body is by its shadow, under the priesthood and fervices of the law; and that outward forms of worship were ordained to keep up an inward principle of faith in the promises of God; sums up This whole doctrine, by fhewing us how faith operated, and what effects it produced in good men from the beginning of the world; in order to demonstrate, by their examples, that true religion always was what it now is; that Jefus Chrift is the fume yesterday, to day, and for ever*; that the faith and patience of the gospel were nothing new; that the whole revelation of the Old and New Teftament is one confiftent scheme for the falvation of man; and confequently, that Christianity is indeed, as fome in mockery have advanced, as old as the creation. This is the defign * Ch. xiii, &,

of

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II.

LECT. of the 11th chapter, which begins with a definition of faith, as the fubftance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not feen. It is the substance of things hoped for, becaufe nothing can be the object of our hope till it has first been the object of our faith. It is the evidence of things not feen, because they are capable of no other: the ear is the witness of founds, and the eye is the witness of visible objects; but faith alone is the faculty which difcerns invisible things, and receives them on the word of God: and if men do not with this faculty admit and embrace them, we shall not fucceed by reasoning with them. Spiritual things must be received by a spiritual fenfe, which fenfe is called faith, and the fcripture tells us, that all men have not faith: and where it is not, all the reasoning upon earth will not produce it; therefore let no man be fo vain as to think, that his arguments will perfuade those whom God hath not prefuaded.

After his description of faith, the Apoftle proceeds to shew how it operated in the faints:

II.

faints firft, in Abel, who offered a bloody LECT. facrifice for the remiffion of fins; while Cain brought only of the fruits of the earth, not fignifying his faith in the remiffion of fin by the shedding of innocent blood. Enoch is faid to have walked with God; which no man can do but by faith, becaufe God is invifible: therefore he walked by faith and not by fight. Noah believed that the flood would come upon the earth, when as yet there was no figns of it; and that his house might be faved, when the world should be drowned, by the preparing of an ark. Abraham gave himself up to God's direction, and went out in fearch. of a land he had never seen, and did not fo much as know the name of it. He laid Ifaac upon the altar to be flain, though he had no other fon to inherit the promises; whence his faith concluded, they would be fecured by his fon's refurrection. Jofeph when he was dying, commanded that his bones fhould be carried into Canaan; in faith that the whole nation would follow

them; and that the promises would be fulfilled to him after his death.

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LECT.

II.

gave up his project of preferment at court i knowing that the ministry of God and the reproach of Chrift would be attended with a better recompence. The fear of God, whom he did not fee, had more weight with him than the wrath of Pharaoh who was present to him.

By these and many other like examples, it is proved, that nothing great or acceptable to God was ever done, but only from a fight of things invifible, and the expectation of what is to come after death. It was this faith which fubdued and caft out the kingdoms of Canaan, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, efcaped the edge of the sword, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens.

There are no motives to the observation of a Christian life more striking than those which are drawn from the facts of the law. These the Apoftle hath fet before us abundantly in the Epistle to the He

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II.

brews, as I may shew you hereafter. In LECT. the mean while the moral of the whole doctrine hitherto delivered, is to look, as they did who went before us, unto Jefus the author and finisher of our faith; that feeing him to be the beginning of our ftrength, and the end of our hope; we may follow him through the dangers of life and the terrors of death to that reft which remaineth for the people of God.

END OF LECTURE II.

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