gives is by the fpirit, and the spirit works by the promises, putting those weapons into our hands; and faith is properly that fpiritual hand into which they are put. Every promife is indeed a spring of living water; but it is water in a well, and faith is the bucket that must fetch it up both for our use and comfort. There is enough in every promife, if apprehended by a lively faith, to enable any intelligent nature to defy and look all the powers of hell in the face. That one promife, Revel. ii. 10. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life, is enough to render the strongest affault of the devil vain and ineffectual, and the most alluring temptation flat and infipid; if fo be, faith takes in the truth of it by a firm perfuafion.

For God having fo framed the nature of man, that every one of his actions is the profecution of fomething first defired; and fince nothing moves defire, but fo far as it is apprehended good and beneficial; it follows, that fince the devil has engaged our actions and defires in his fervice, by the pleasures and profits of the world, and fuch other things

affect the fenfe; if ever thofe defires be took off from thence, and pitched upon the fervice of God, it must be by propofing to them fome greater good, obtainable in such a course, than can be had in the other: and greater good there feems to be none, but hea

ven and immortality. Which things falling not under the apprehenfion of fenfe, but only being reprefented in the divine promife, they are only apprehenfible by believing, and by that faith that apprehends the promise: for till I either know or believe that there is an heaven, and a state of immortal glory, these can have no more influence upon my practice than if there were no fuch things at all. So that it is faith that does, as it were, realize and make these things as prefent to a rational understanding, as the eye makes a defirable object prefent to the fenfe. Whereupon, in Heb. xi. 1. faith is, both with great elegance and fignificance, ftyled the fubftance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not feen. That is, when we really believe the certain event of any good, though it be indeed future, yet it has as ftrong an influence to move the foul, as if it were actually prefent; and though it be indeed invifible, yet it does as really affect a man's defires, as if it were placed before his eyes. So that thofe heroical conquefts obtained by the faints over the devil and the world, and there fo fully defcribed by the Apoftle, are all at tributed to the ftrength of their faith in the promises; as, that they had feen the promifes afar off, and were perfuaded of them, and embraced them, in the 13th verfe. And particularly that glorious, triumph that Mofes made, over the proffer of all the grandeur of a court and

I

kingdom,

kingdom, is folely afcribed to the mighty efficacy of the fame faith, as the only thing that could enable him to have refpect to the recompence of reward, in the 26th verse, and even to fee him who was invifible, in verfe 27.

Thus, therefore, does faith empower believers to stand it out against all the fiery onfets of their spiritual enemies; namely, by enabling them to fee better and more defireable things in God's promifes, to engage to obey his precepts, than any that the devil can propose to them in his temptations, to allure them to the commiffion of fin.

them

Wherefore it being evident, from what has been delivered, both that believers will be fiercely encounter'd in their spiritual course, and that faith is the only thing that can preferve and defend them in those encounters; we collect hence both the neceffity and excellency of this grace: for it is this alone, that will bear us victorious through all that oppofition, that would otherwife wholly crush and extinguish us. It is this that will fet us above all our enemies, by fetting us above our own weakneffes. It is this that will make us more than conquerors; and that by carrying us out of ourselves, and pitching us upon Chrift. For, in all these spiritual conflicts, it will be found, that he that stands upon no other legs but his own, will certainly fall; there being no fure station for poor finners, but in him, who is the rock of ages, and the great Saviour

of

of mankind; and so able to fave, to the uttermoft, all those that by faith rely upon him.

To whom, therefore, be rendered and afcribed, as is moft due, all praise, might, majefty, and dominion, both now and for evermore.

Amen.

SER

(62)

SERMON III.

PSALM cxlv. 9.

The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.

H

'E that undertakes to discourse of any of God's attributes, must profess that he undertakes to discourse of that which he does not thoroughly understand, if fo be that he underftands himself. For how can a finite comprehend an infinite? or how can any one express what he cannot comprehend? But of all God's perfections, his mercy especially is a theme fo great, that none but an infinite perfon can worthily enlarge upon it. However, fince God is pleased to call us to the study and contemplation of himself, we may (I conceive) without any prefumption or injury to his greatnefs, frame to ourselves the beft apprehenfions and difcourfes, that the condition of our nature can afford us of a thing, of which we have no explicit knowledge.

Now