because they expected of God what they could never receive, till their works upon earth were finished. Therefore it is truly said of them; these all died in faith, not having received the promises; but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth*. The land of Canaan was not the object of their hope: it was only a sign and a pledge of the goodness of God, an earnest of what they were to expect after this life; therefore they desired a better country, that is an heavenly, and their mortal life was a pilgrimage in quest of it. There never was an age, in which it was not required of the children of God, that they should renounce the world, and prepare themselves by that discipline which should fit them for a better state. Such is the language of the Scripture to them all, under the several names of Patriarchs, Jews, or ChristiansMy son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth †.

7. What I proposed to consider in this lecture hath been sufficiently proved; namely, that the religion of the people of God was the same for substance under the Old as under the New Testament; so that, in fact, we find but one true religion from the beginning of the world to the end of it; a religion of faith and dependence upon God, for his protection here, and his rewards hereafter.

The apostle having taught us throughout the Epistle that the spiritual things of the gospel, called the good things to come, were described as a body is by its shadow, under the priesthood and services of the * Chap. xi. 13, &c. + Chap. xii. 3.

law; and that outward forms of worship were ordained to keep up an inward principle of faith in the promises of God; sums up his whole doctrine, by shewing 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 Jesus Christ is the same 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 Testament is one consistent scheme for the salvation of man; and consequently, that Christianity is indeed, as some in mockery have advanced, as old as the creation. This is the design of the 11th chapter, which begins with a definition of faith, as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It is the substance of things hoped for because 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 seen, because they are capable of no other; the ear is the witness of sounds, and the eye is the witness of visible objects; but faith alone is the faculty which discerns 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 succeed by reasoning with them. Spiritual things must be received by a spiritual sense, which sense is called faith, and the scripture 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 so vain as to think, that his arguments will persuade those whom God hath not persuaded.

After his description of faith, the apostle proceeds

to shew how it operated in the saints: first, in Abel, who offered a bloody sacrifice for the remission of sins; while Cain brought only of the fruits of the earth, not signifying his faith in the remission of sin by the shedding of innocent blood. Enoch is said to have walked with God; which no man can do but by faith, because God is invisible: therefore he walked by faith and not by sight. Noah believed that the flood would come upon the earth, when as yet there were no signs of it; and that his house might be saved, when the world should be drowned, by the preparing of an ark. Abraham gave himself up to God's direction, and went out in search of a land he had never seen, and did not so much as know the name of it. He laid Isaac upon the altar to be slain, though he had no other son to inherit the promises; whence his faith concluded, they would be secured by his son's resurrection. Joseph, when he was dying, commanded that his bones should 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. Moses gave up his project of preferment at court; knowing that the ministry of God and the reproach of Christ would be attended with a better recompence. The fear of God, whom he did not see, 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 sight of things invisible, and the expectation of what is to come after death. It was this faith which subdued and cast out the kingdoms of Canaan, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the

violence of fire, escaped 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 Apostle hath set before us abundantly in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as I may shew you hereafter. In the mean while the moral of the whole doctrine hitherto delivered, is to look, as they did who went before us, unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; that seeing him to be the beginning of our strength, and the end of our hope, we may follow him through the dangers of life and the terrors of death to that rest which remaineth for the people of God.

LECTURE III.

ON THE CHURCH, AS A SPIRITUAL SOCIETY, WHICH IS THE SAME THING AT ALL TIMES.

OUR enquiry into the faith of the ancient fathers shewed us, that there never was more than one true religion in the world: we shall now discover, that there never has been more than one true religious society, called the Church: and this I shall endeavour to prove,

First, by considering the nature of the Church, as a society.

Secondly, by considering the form of it.

The Church, in its nature, always was what it now is, a society comprehending the souls as well as the bodies of men; and therefore, consisting of two parts, the one spiritual, answering to the soul, the other outward, answering to the body. Hence some have written much upon a visible Church and an invisible, as if they were two things; but they are more properly one, as the soul and body make a single person.

In the 12th chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apostle gives such a description of that society, into which Christians are admitted, as will shew us the nature of it. "Ye are come, says he, unto Mount "Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the hea

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venly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of "angels, to the general assembly and Church of the "first born which are written in heaven, and to God