will not save mankind, unless they exert themselves to obtain salvation. Had it been his will to extend indiscriminating favor, he had only to open, without reservation, the path to heaven: he had only to exert the supreme power, which he pos sesses over our souls, to infuse into them virtue and emulation, and to put us in possession of a felicity already completely acquired, without subjecting us to the necessity of employing indefatigable and unintermitting efforts, in order to the acquiring of it. But his views respecting man are altogether different from this. Hence it is that he is pleased to represent the life of a Christian, as a narrow path, in which he must walk; as a race which he must run; as a task which he must perform; as a warfare which he has to accomplish. For this reason it is, that salvation is represented to us, as a victory to be won, as a prize to be gained, as a kingdom which can be taken only by the violent. God, then, has placed us in this world, as in a place of probation and sacrifice: it is his sovereign good pleasure, that the manner in which we correspond to his gracious views, shall decide our everlasting destination.

Let us apply this principle to the subject under discussion: to that obscure faith, which discerns, in the darkness of the past, those facts on which the great truths of religion rest, as the building on its foundation to that obscure faith, which penetrates into the darkness of futurity, there to discover the blessedness which religion proposes to us as the object of hope.

1. Let us apply the principle laid down to that obscure faith, which discerns, in the darkness of the past, those facts on which the great truths of religion rest. There is more difficulty in attaining a discernment of the truth in the darkness of the

past, than in beholding the object with a man's own eyes. It is admitted. Had Jesus Christ appeared alive to his judges and executioners, after his resurrection; were he to appear to us, at this day, as risen from the dead, we should have much less difficulty in believing the certainty of an event on which the whole Christian religion hinges. It is admitted. There would be no occasion, in order to attain the conviction of it, to employ extensive reading, to consult doctors, to surmount the trouble of profound meditation, to suspend pleasure, to interrupt business. It is admitted. But the very thing which constitutes your objection, furnishes me with a reply. The trouble which you must take, before you can acquire conviction of the resurrection of the Saviour of the world, the extensive reading that is necessary, the consultation of learned men, those efforts of profound meditation which you must employ, that suspension of your pleasures, that interruption of your worldly business-all, all enter into the plan of your salvation: it is the will of God that you should exert yourselves diligently for the attainment of it.

Let us suppose the case of two Christians: the first shall be St. Thomas; the second a Christian of our own days. Let us suppose both the two equally convinced of the resurrection of the Saviour of the world; but acquiring their conviction in two different ways: Thomas convinced by the testimony of his senses, the modern Christian, by the attentive examination of the proofs which establish the truth of it: Whether of these two Christians, according to your judgment, expresses the greater love of the truth? Whether of these two Christians makes the greater sacrifice, in order to arrive at the knowledge of it? The one has only to open his eyes, the other must enter on a course

of deep and serious reflection. The one has only to reach forth his hand, to touch the print of the wounds of Jesus Christ; the other must exert all the powers of his mind, in sifting the proofs, on which the doctrine is established. The one expects that the Saviour should present himself to him, and say Be not faithless, but believing, Jo. xx. 27. The other goes forth seeking after the Lord Jesus, through the darkness in which he is pleased to involve himself. Is it not evident that this last expresses incomparably greater love for the truth, and offers up to it greater sacrifices than the first? This last, then, corresponds better to the idea of probation and sacrifice, to which we are called, during the time which, by the will of God, we are destined to pass in this world. Blessed therefore, with respect to the obscurity of the past, blessed is he who has not seen, and yet has believed.

2. The same principle is applicable to what concerns the night of futurity. It would require but feeble efforts, and would exhibit no mighty sacrifice, for a man to deny himself the delights of a present life, if the joys of the Paradise of God were disclosed to his eyes.

But how great is the magnanimity of the Chris tian, how wonderful the fortitude of the Martyr, and, in propriety of speech, all Christians are martyrs, who, resting on the promises of God alone, immolates to the desire of possessing a future and heavenly felicity, all that is dear and valuable to him upon the earth? The present, usually, makes the most powerful impression on the mind of man. An object, in proportion as it becomes exceeding remote, in some measure loses its reality, with respect to us. The impression made upon the mind by sensible things, engrosses almost its whole capacity, and leaves little, if any, portion of its at

tention, for the contemplation of abstract truths. Farther, when abstract meditations dwell on wellknown objects, they possibly may fix attention. But when they turn on objects of which we have no distinct idea, they are little calculated to arrest and impress.

A Christian, a man actuated by that obscure faith, whose excellency we are endeavoring to unfold, surmounts all these difficulties. I see neither the God who has given me the promises of an eternal felicity, nor that eternal felicity which he hath promised me. This God conceals himself from my view. I must go from principle to principle, and from one conclusion to another, in order to attain full assurance that he is. I find still much greater difficulty in acquiring the knowledge of what he is, than in rising up to a persuasion of his existence. The very idea of an infinite Being confounds and overwhelms me. If I have only a very imperfect idea of the God who hath promised me eternal felicity, I know still less wherein that felicity consists.

I am told of a spiritual body, 1 Cor. xv. 44: a body glorious, incorruptible: I am told of unknown faculties: of an unknown state of an unknown economy. I am told of new heavens and a new earth: I am promised the society of certain spirits, with whom I have never enjoyed any kind of intercourse: I am told of a place entirely different from that which I now inhabit; and when I would represent to myself that felicity, under ideas of the pleasures of sense, under ideas of worldly magnificence, I am told that this felicity has no resemblance to any of these things. Nevertheless, on the word of this God, of whom I have a knowledge so very imperfect, but whose existence and perfections are so certain, I am ready to sacrifice

every thing, for a felicity of which I have a still more imperfect knowledge, than I have of the God who hath promised it to me.

There is nothing more delightful to me than to live in the bosom of my country and kindred. My native air has in it something congenial to my constitution; nevertheless, were God to call me as he did Abraham; were he to say to me, in the words which he addressed to that Patriarch: Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, Gen. xii. 1. I will, without hesitation, obey: I will depart, without delay, for the land which he shall please to shew me.

Nothing can be more delightful to me, than the possession of an only and beloved son: nothing appears to me so dreadful, as separation from a person so dear to me; but, above all, there is nothing which inspires so much horror, as the thought of plunging, with my own hand, the dagger into his bosom. Nevertheless, when it shall please God to say to me: Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a burnt-offering, upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee off, Gen. xxii. 2. I will take that son, that object of my tenderest affection, that centre of my desires, and of my complacency; I will bind him; I will stretch him out upon the pile; I will lift up my arm to pierce his side, persuaded that the favor of God is a blessing beyond all comparison, more precious, than the possession of even that beloved portion of myself.

There is nothing capable of more agreeably flattering my ambition and self-love, than to talk with authority than to govern a whole world with despotic sway than to rule over the nations, which look up to their sovereigns as so many divinities; nevertheless, were a competition to be established