so far as it is our real intention to please him; and that this intention can only spring from such a firm belief in his being and attributes, discoverable in his works, and confirmed by revelation, as leads us to reverence, love, and serve him.

In discoursing on this passage of Scripture, my object will be to enforce this leading principle of all religion. I shall, therefore, endeavour, in the

FIRST place, to show you what that faith is, without which it is impossible to please GOD.

SECONDLY, why it is impossible without it to please him. THIRDLY, I shall inquire what is meant by coming to God. FOURTHLY, how we, under the gospel, are to come to him. FIFTHLY and LASTLY, I shall make an application of the subject:

But without faith it is impossible to please him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

I. First, I am to show you what that faith is without which it is impossible to please GOD.

Perhaps, my hearers, no single word or doctrine has been the subject of such various and conflicting opinion as faith; nor ought we much to wonder at it, when we consider what precious promises and infinite consequences are annexed to the entertainment of what the word really means.

That present acceptance with GoD and eternal life in the world to come are set forth in the Scriptures as dependent on the sincerity, purity, and constancy of our faith, is evident beyond dispute. That the power of working miracles, and of receiving benefit from miraculous power in others, was according to the faith of the parties, is equally certain, as it also is that the want of faith is always considered as a criminal defect. Hence it has come to pass, that weak and heated minds, losing sight of the true Scripture meaning of the word, have transferred it to as many and as various shades of belief as are to be found betwixt the genuine fruit of the SPIRIT OF GOD and the Antinomian delusion of a dead and barren credulity.

But we might reasonably expect, I think, what was so vitally important to our religious advancement-that a duty to which we

are so frequently and earnestly exhorted in the Scriptures, would not be rendered ineffectual, by the obscurity and uncertainty with which its nature and object was declared and explained. And had the plain words of Scripture, in their obvious meaning, been duly attended to, most, if not all, of the unsound, enthusiastic, and corrupt notions of this doctrine, entertained in the world, would have died away with the inventors. This I trust to make manifest to all present, from the explanation given of it by the apostle in the chapter from which my text is taken.

Faith, says the apostle, in the first verse of this chapter, is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. The word translated substance, means, in the original, the firm and assured expectation of things hoped for, such a substantial reliance on what revelation makes known and reason confirms, as rules the life. What those things are, which not being evident to sense are yet made manifest by faith, he declares in the words of my text. They are, saith he, the being of GoD and the rewards of the life to come. He that cometh to GOD, must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Faith, therefore, is that firm belief of things at present not seen; that conviction upon the mind of the truth of the promises and threatenings of GOD, made known in the gospel; of the certain reality of the rewards and punishments of the life to come, which enables a man, in opposition to all the temptations of a corrupt nature and sinful world, to obey God, in expectation of an invisible reward hereafter. This is that faith which, in Scripture, is always represented as a moral virtue-indeed, as the principal moral virtue, and the living root of all other virtues; because it is an act, not of the understanding only, but also and chiefly of the will, so to consider impartially-so to approve and embrace the doctrine of the gospel, as to make it the great rule of our lives and actions. With this meaning of the word faith all the examples of its influence and effect, set forth in this chapter, agree.

The faith of Abraham was, that he believed God, not only in the promises which were special and personal to himself, but in those also which apply equally to all mankind.He looked for a

city which hath foundations, even the heavenly Jerusalem, spoken of in the prophecies, whose builder and maker is GOD. The faith of the other patriarchs was, that confessing themselves strangers and pilgrims on the earth, they declared plainly that they sought a better country, that is an heavenly. The faith of Moses was, that he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of GOD, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; for he had respect unto the recompense of reward, and endured as seeing him who is invisible. The faith of the martyrs was, that they were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Now, my hearers, is not this a most plain and intelligible notion of faith, is there any thing in it to puzzle or offend the understanding? And may not we, as well as these Old Testament worthies, give the most full and fixed belief to the truth of GOD? Yea, may we not, even in a higher sense than they could do it, realize the invisible but revealed things of GOD; for they saw the promises only obscurely and afar off, while we live under their fulfilment. The same GoD-the same world of his workmanship-the same providence of his government, which they had, we have. While in the proofs of his faithfulness and love, his tender mercy and compassion, in the knowledge of his holy will, and in the clear discoveries of a future state, we as far exceed them as the certainty of knowledge exceeds the dubious conjectures of ignorance. And yet, by confounding this plain and practical meaning of the word faith with the oftentimes unintelligible doctrines of men, its power and influence over the life and conversation of Christians comes far short of their bright example; although we are fully assured, that unto whom much is given, of the same shall much be required.

But while this is undeniably the principal and most important sense of the word faith, yet it is not the only sense in which it is used in Scripture. Sometimes it signifies that peculiar trust and confidence in the power of GOD, to which, in the apostles' times, was annexed the gift of working miracles; and as it was an extraordinary effect of the HOLY SPIRIT, was required only of those upon whom it was conferred. In other places the word faith is used to denote faithfulness to any trust reposed in men. Thus, in our LORD's charge against the Pharisees—ye

have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. Another and much more usual signification of the word faith, is, to denote the whole gospel of CHRIST, in opposition to the ritual works of the law given by Moses, to distinguish the Christian from the Jewish religion. Thus we read, the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith, that is, embraced the gospel. Again, a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law; that is, by the conditions of the gospel. We are, indeed, justified by faith only-by faith in JESUS CHRIST, as the propitiation and atonement for the sins of the whole world. By this faith, however, we are not to understand a mere confident reliance on the merits of CHRIST, to do that for us which he expressly requires we should do for ourselves, through his grace enabling us; but a thankful reception of him as revealed in the gospel, with a faithful observance of the commands and example he hath left us. This, indeed, is the most general meaning of the word throughout the writings of the apostles; and the reason why the whole gospel is so often expressed by the word faith, is, because the great motives and promises of the gospel are the invisible things of a future state, which can be discerned by faith only. But with whatever variety of meaning and application the word may be used in the New Testament, of which a careful consideration of the context will inform us, the most general and practically useful meaning of the word is, in its plain, literal, and most natural sense, a rational persuasion and firm belief of the being of GOD, of the truth of his promises made to us in and by his Son JESUS CHRIST, and of the rewards and punishments of the life to come. By this to govern and direct our lives is to dig deep, and build upon a rock that cannot be moved; while any and every other dependance will prove but shifting sand before the sweeping storm of his righteous judgment. For without faith it is impossible to please GOD.

II. Secondly, I am to show you why it is impossible without faith to please GOD.

The short and simple reason why it is so, is this, that what is done without a motive, purpose or intention, in a moral sense, is not done at all, and is no more capable of praise or reward, VoL. II.G

or of pleasing the unclouded intelligence of the great Moral Governor of the universe, than the casual motions of lifeless matter. The apostle does not mean to say, that virtue or righteousness can, under any circumstances, be displeasing to GOD, or require to be spiced and seasoned with any addition, to meet his favour; but he means to assert and enforce the great governing principle of religion, that without a right motive there cannot be a right action, and without faith in God no possible motive to serve him. Was this attended to as it ought to be, there never could have been any room for the senseless disputes about the value of faith without works, and works without faith, which have occupied so much time and thought that might have been better employed. For the truth is, neither is of any value without the other, it being the union of a proper motive with a right action which alone causes it to be good and pleasing to GOD. Now, let us ask ourselves, my brethren and hearers, what principle can be devised equally reasonable, comprehensive, and effectual in its application to moral agents, with the one required by my text? Who can consider himself as the creature and servant of GoD until he believes that there is a GOD, or who can set himself to act with a view to the favour of a being whose existence he does not realise? The idea is absurd, and though millions under the light of the gospel are in this predicament, owning with their lips that there is a GoD, (though the awful fact has never influenced a single action of their lives,) yet the truth of the argument is not in the least shaken thereby, but strengthened, and the principle itself illustrated, for to such persons there might as well be no God. Until this belief is fixed in the mind we continue, in fact, atheists, and how an atheist can possibly please God has yet to be found out by the liberal free-thinkers of the age; as it also has to be determined by those who make light of the doctrine of faith, and rest upon the morality of their lives, how an action. which, neither in its elements or performance, is originated or influenced by a regard to GoD and a future state, can be pleasing to him or rewarded by him.

But there is yet another ground on which to show why without this faith it is impossible to please God.