2. Employ your reason, serious consideration, and discourse. The devil throws the golden ball in our Avay, of honour, pleasure, and profit, to divert us from heavenly things ; and the intention of the mind being diverted, the impressions of religion are weak and faint ; as when the bird often leaves her nest the eggs are chilled. Inconstancy is as great an enemy to faith as ignorance. The scattering and vanity of the thoughts make our assent but weak and trembling : Deut. xxxii. 29, ' Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end,' not only to know, but to consider it. Men have not such a deep apprehension of the beauty of holiness, and the excellency of Cln-ist, because they do not exercise their thoughts more upon these things. By consideration truths are kept near the heart, and in the view of the understanding.
3. Labour to get a heart purged from carnal affections. Where there is more purity there will be more clearness : Mat. v. 8, ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' Sin doth weaken our faith. We shall always stagger and waver in an uncertain doubtful- ness concerning supernatural verities while we indulge our lusts. Sin blinds our eyes : 2 Cor. iv 3, 4, 'If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost : in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.' We had need keep that eye clear that shall discern things unseen, and the comforts and blessedness of another world. By sin you grieve the Spirit, which should hel}) you in believing : Eph. iv. 30, ' And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption.' And hereby you provoke God to give you up to natural 2:)rejudices : 2 Thes. ii. 11, 'For this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they shall believe a lie.' Men sin away their faith, wound theiif
TeR. 2.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 373
consciences, put out that light that should guide them. And therefore get your hearts purged from sin ; for as faith makes way for holiness, so doth holiness again for faith.
SERMOX YI.
For hi/ it the eldei's obtained a good report. — Heb. xi. 2.
The whole chapter is mainly spent in the praise of sanctifying faith — a necessary grace, and of a univ^ersal influence into all the parts of the spiritual life.
Divers things are attributed to faith, and that several ways : either as acts or as effects, or as fruits and consequences of faith.
1. As acts, which decipher the essence and formal nature of it, ver. 1. These are the elicite, or formal acts of faith, which substantiates things hoped for, and convinceth of things that are not seen.
2. Then there are the effects of faith, or, as the schoolmen call them, imperate acts, which flow from the primary acts, as hope, valour, patience, christian self-denial ; all which are tbe progeny of faith, as in opening the following verse will appear.
3. Then there are the fruits and consequences of faith, which follow faith though they do not flow from it ; as the recompenses and rewards of religion, temporal or eternal, which a believer receives not from the power and worth of his faith, but from the free grace of Grod. Faith is a condition by the ordination and appointment of G-od, but not a cause ; that distinction is necessarv for the clearing many parts of tlie chapter. Such a fruit of faith you have in the text, the appro- bation or testimony which the ancient fathers received from God in the word, ' For by it the elders received a good report.'
To commend that faith which he had before described, the apostle brings the experience of the elders, or of the Old Testament saints. Here you have — (1.) The persons — TJie elders : (2.) The means — By it : (3.) The blessing — The]/ obtained a good report. Or else — (1.) The condition — Faith ; (2.) The consequent — efiaprvpi]6T}aav. they were witnessed to or spoken of with respect in the world ; and (3.) The subject in which both the.'^e do meet and concur.
• The elders ; ' by faith ' the elders obtained a good report.'
' The elders,' Trpecr^vrepoi, tbe patriarchs, fathers ; the word is rather proper to the life of man than to the age of the world. The ancients are called oi TraXaio], homines prisci scecidi, but the words are confounded. And they might well be called elders, not only for their antiquity, and living in the first ages of the world, but because most of them were fiaKpo/Bcoi,, of wonderful long life.
' By it,' ev ravrrj. It is not /o?' faith,"but by faith, for faith is as improper as for works ; but having faith, not by the worth and influ- ence of it as a cause, but through faith as a condition appointed and ordained by God.
374 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR.VI.
' They obtained a good report,' e/j,aprvpi]6r}crav ; tlie word signifies they received a testimony ; they were attested to, or witnessed of. Now this testimony which the faithful receive is double : inward, or the testimony of conscience ; outward, or the testimony of Grod in his word. (1.) Inward, or the testimony of conscience : 1 Jolm. v. 10, * He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself.' (2.) Outward, from God in the word; they received a testimony. What is that ? they were chronicled and set out in the scriptures as a pattern for all future ages. This is most proper, and therefore it is elsewhere rendered 'of good report:' Acts vi. 3, ' Look you out among you seven men' — fxapTvpovixevov^ — 'of honest report.' And it suiteth with the context, for what is spoken here in the general is in particular applied to Abel and Enoch. To Abel, ver. 4, ' He obtained witness tliat he was righteous ; ' it is meant in the scriptures, where his usual title and appellation is, 'righteous Abel,' as I shall show in that verse. So to Enoch, ver. 5, 'He had this testimony, that he pleased God' — a testimony from God in his conscience, and it is now recorded in the word.