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of Christ; now faith is the substance of this' Christ dwells in the heart by faith, Ephes. iii. 17, and will never quit his dwelling place to all eternity.

3. The third thing hoped for is eternal life; and faith is the substance of this, for there is spiritual life in every grace; hence Peter calls it the grace of life, 1 Pet. iii. 7. We read of the life of faith, and of a lively hope.

4. The fourth thing hoped for is glory; and by glory light in the general is meant, as Paul says, "And, when I could not see for the glory of that light, I was led to Damascus." Again,

By

Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." Now faith is the substance of this; it is an eye to the soul; "By faith Moses saw him that is invisible." faith the patriarchs saw the promises at a distance, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, &c. And Christ's promise is, that, "Whosoever believeth on me shall not abide in darkness,' John xii. 46, "but shall have the light of life,' John viii. 12. Thus faith is the substance of things hoped for.

Malice

"The evidence of things not seen." in the heart of a persecutor is called an evident token of perdition; and faith in the mind and conscience of a saint is an evident token of salvation, and always accompanies it; nor can there be any salvation without it; for, "He that believeth not is condemned already." Moreover,

things evident are things made plain, as in Job, "For it is evident to you if I lie." So the eye of faith in the soul sees divine things clearly, and makes them evident and plain to the soul; and, as faith purifies the heart, and puts on an imputed righteousness, by which the soul is justified freely from all things in the sight of God, so joy and peace follow in believing; all which realize these divine things to the heart, and make them so plain and evident as not to leave a doubt or scruple upon the mind about them; which powerful persuasion silences all gainsayers, carnal reason, unbelief, devil, law, and an evil conscience; for who against faith and a good conscience can be heard? Thus, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." It therefore remains for Onesimus to invert this order, by proving that faith is the substance of things fully enjoyed, and the evidence of things already revealed and clearly seen in heaven; and if he cannot do this, we shall conclude with the wise man, that the lips of a fool have swallowed up himself.

2. Faith is, by the apostle, contrasted with sight; "We walk by faith, not by sight." Faith, in this present state, is opposed to sight in heaven. "God hath given us the earnest of the Spirit; therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight: we are confident, I say, and willing rather

to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord," 2 Cor. v. 5—8. Here faith is confined to this life, and is opposed to all sight in heaven; and the believer is said, though he is so confident, to be at home in the body, and absent from the Lord; but, believing in Christ, he is represented as being willing to be absent from the body, in order to be present with the Lord. All that can be said of this account is, that a life of faith is opposed to a life of glory in every sense. For, when compared to the glories of heaven, it is a walking without sight; a being at home in the body, a being absent from the Lord; and yet this confidence is so strong, that they are willing to be removed by death out of this body, so as to be present with the Lord in glory. Let Onesimus disprove all this, and tell us that we walk by sight here, and by faith in heaven, and that now we live present with Christ, and absent from the body; and that when we get to heaven we shall by faith be absent from Christ, and of course be at home in the body. And this no doubt he can do, for none make so bold with God and truth as those hardened and blinded by Satan. ،، Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him. ".

3. Believing in this life is called looking through a glass; "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face," 1 Cor. xiii. 12. Faith is this eye, and the holy scriptures are this glass; in which we see the creation of the world,

the government of it, the judgments of God in the earth, the footsteps of his Providence, the mysteries of God's kingdom in the word, and the glorious work of God in our own souls; all which, when compared to the heavenly glory, is no more than a peep through a spy-glass: which dim sight through a glass is opposed to all sight in heaven, which is called seeing face to face, without either faith or the scriptures of truth; which proves that faith's eye and glass will both be laid aside there, as of no further use to the saints; and as sure as the saint's faith ceases, so sure will the lamp of fools go out; so that false confidence and real faith will both cease together.

4. I read of no faith as exercised by the saints beyond this present life, nor did Onesimus ever find any description of faith beyond it in all the Bible: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life."

In this passage our Lord requires the obedience of faith as long as a man lives, as long as this warfare asts, and no longer; and this is enough for me, for this secures the crown of life, which is all that the saints fight for. And, as for fighting, warring, groaning, crying, hoping, and looking through a glass darkly, in heaven, I shall leave that to Onesimus and other mussulmen, who cannot form ideas so bright of that heavenly country as an enlightened saint can of the garden of Eden.

5. The utmost that is said of the faith of the

saints of old is, that, "These all died in faith." This was the last act of the obedience of faith; but that it followed them beyond the grave, that it served them there instead of sight, that they lived by it in the other world, or that they exercised it in heaven, the scriptures know nothing of, but are altogether silent about any such thing: all these are begotten by Satan upon the vain imaginations of this mystical Onesimus.

6. Now, as the scriptures already cited speak of faith's last act of obedience being exercised in death, so also the Holy Ghost affirms that faith ends, as to the works and actings of it, on the death-bed of the saints: "Receiving," says Peter, "the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls," 1 Peter i. 9. We are saved from the guilt of sin, from the destroying power of it, from the curse of the law, from the wrath of God, and from this world, upon our believing in Christ; and at death the soul is saved from the very in-being of sin; for not the salvation of the body from the grave, but the salvation of the soul from the inbeing of sin at death, is what the apostle means; though Onesimus has found effrontery enough to contradict and give the lie to the Holy Spirit of God himself; for he says that faith and hope are to abide in heaven for ever; but the Spirit says that the salvation of the soul is the end of faith. When once men become wise above what is written, God soon makes them foolish enough below it.

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