And now let each man compare what he is with what we have just found he would be if he had seen what he professes to believe. And are you like it? Is there any striking resemblance? No doubt the impressions would be much more lively and powerful if they had been actually seen. It is scarcely to be expected that we should attain so great a degree of spiritual excellence, as if we had seen them face to face; but the simple question that every man of plain common sense has to ask himself, is this-Whether there is to be so very great a difference between a man who had seen these things, and a man who from his heart and soul believed these things to be true, and that one day or other he shall see these things? Is your life (I will not say equal to, but is it) like that which we have been just describing? Does it fall short of it in degree, not in kind? or (what is the true and most important question) is it continually approaching it? Is it more and more like it, though you may not hope to attain it on this side of the grave? Remember, there were two different men that applied to our Saviour for relief; they were both fathers, and came to ask it for their children. As soon as Christ had said to one of them, "Thy son liveth," he went his way, believing the word that Jesus spake, and accordingly he found his son fully restored;-now this man's faith, in this instance, was the substance of what he hoped for, the perfect evidence of what he had not But when Christ asked the other father, "Believest thou that I am able to do this thing?" the father answered, with tears in his eyes, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief!" He felt that his faith was not as it should be, that it was not the evidence of what he did not see; but he felt humbled under the sense of his weakness, eager to have it remedied and removed, -and he prayed with all his heart that his faith might be confirmed and invigorated. And was he disappointed? The good and benevolent Being who never yet rejected the prayer of humble earnestness, said unto him, even as unto the other, "Thy son liveth."

seen.

But there is an actual difference between the common faith of a man of the world and of a real and genuine Christian. The one is the business of a moment; it begins and ends with a repetition of his creed, -it is despatched in the service of the day. But with the other it is a living principle, always growing and increasing; always approaching the state of one who had actually seen what he believes, and of controlling, directing, and animating his whole conduct. He will always have those future things, which God has assured him he shall one day behold, so fully before him, as to have all the effect of reality upon his life and conversation. Just conceive what would be your manner of speaking and acting, if on every Sabbath, instead of coming to hear of these truths, you had them actually disclosed to your contemplation; would you spend the ensuing week as you now intend to spend it? And yet be assured you do not virtually believe these truths, unless your faith in some degree performs the office of your sight, and discloses heaven and hell before you.

But do not mistake; as your faith improves and advances it will lose more of the threats and the terrors of religion, and draw closer and closer to its hopes, its promises, its pleasures and enjoyments; for observe, faith is not described to be the substance of things feared, but the "substance of things hoped for." For after the soul of a sinner has been thoroughly awakened both to its guilt and its danger, and has fled from God's justice to the love of a Redeemer, it soon forgets the punishment from which it is escaping, in the glories to which it is approaching; and though faith represents before us both heaven and hell, yet as the spirit advances in its path of duty, and rises upwards towards its God, the mansions of misery are left farther and farther beneath; the flames grow fainter, and the groans die away; while, at the same time, the gates of heaven are more clearly discerned, and the voices of the redeemed more distinctly heard.

Thus fear gives way to hope; and the Christian who

has taken up his cross, and followed his Redeemer, has seldom to look behind at the wrath that he is escaping, but onward and upward, at the Saviour who is his hope and his conductor. This is the grand practical principle of the Gospel, the moving-spring of the Christian's duty, and the rich fountain of his obedience; that faith which displays his Redeemer as actually present, and the glorious blessings which he has purchased, full in view. This is no fable, no nice fanciful speculation; it is a principle that has been acted upon since the foundation of the world.

The chapter before us contains a splendid catalogue of those that were moved, inspired, and invigorated by its mighty energies;-men that "forsook their country,' went out, not knowing whither they went, and became strangers and pilgrims upon the earth-Abraham and all the patriarchs; men who, through the distance of a thousand years, saw the Redeemer afar off, before he had descended upon earth, and followed the bare and distant promise of God, as if it were the full and living substance: they submitted to exile, suffering, and reproach; and what is the reason that is assigned? “As seeing Him who is invisible." The Redeemer, to them, was a dim and twinkling star; and yet cheerfully and gratefully did they steer their lonely course by its mild and sacred influence. But upon us the Sun of Righteousness has risen.

The apostle (after closing his glorious list of those who saw Him that was invisible, long before he came,) turns round upon those who believe that he has come, and summons them to imitate their example: "Wherefore, seeing we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us: and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith;" unto Jesuswho was invisible !

you

that

And gloriously did he who tells your faith must be the substance of things hoped for," and who

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summons you to look unto the invisible Redeemer-gloriously did he fulfil his own injunction; for, looking unto him, did he and the whole company of the apostles, and the glorious army of martyrs, precipitate themselves through peril, persecution, and death. The description of what they suffered makes the blood run cold;and yet how do they speak of it? "This light affliction! this light affliction, which endureth but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen." It was by looking at things invisible as if actually present, that they proved more than conquerors in all their struggles.

Another of that glorious company, exhorting his converts to give trial of their faith, points to Him that is invisible "whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."

May we, as we value the souls that he has purchased -as we value the blessings that he offers, so keep him living in our view, that we may run the race that is set before us; and whether it be our destiny to perish by the slow and icy hand of disease, or by the angry violence of man, may we be found looking unto the Author and Finisher of our faith, with our eye fixed on Him that is invisible !"

SERMON III.

GENESIS, i. 26.

And God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness.

Ir a man were suddenly asked, To what created being he would compare the Almighty; what object, among all those that surrounded him, he conceived to have been originally intended by its Creator for his peculiar image and representative? he would probably point to the sun, and would say, that there he saw God at once most faithfully and most gloriously represented. He would say, that in it we seemed "to live, and move, and have our being;" that every where, and at every moment, its influence is felt; that it appears to possess the power of calling things into existence, and of consigning them to nothing again; that all creation seems to depend upon it for sustenance, comfort, and enjoyment; that by its kind and gracious light we become acquainted with each other, and with the objects by which we are surrounded; that it both gives us all that we enjoy, and afterwards enables us to enjoy it; and that, like its Almighty Creator, it has no respect of persons, but scatters its rich blessings abroad with generous and impartial liberality. This would be a very natural answer: and thus we find that the first kind of idolatry of which men were guilty, was the worship of the sun; and in some nations it is still continued, and he is there regarded not so much the image of the Divinity, as the Divinity himself.