TldrcUy, These being the conditions, the belief of the promise, and tliorough obedience to submit to the appointed way ; lest we deceive ourselves with a notion, God loves to try us, to see if we have received the promise sincerely, whether we thoroughly believe his word, and are fully obedient to his commands: James i. 12, 'Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for Avhen he is tried he shall re- ceive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to tliem that love him.' The Lord loves a tried obedience, because it is most for bis honour when his people are tried, and they are faithful to him ; and it is most for our comfort to make our sincerity evident to us. Sometimes the difficulties lie against our assent to the truth of the promise ; at other times, against our resolution to follow God's way, cleaving to him and Christ, and not looking back.
VeR. 29.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XL 11
1. Against the strength of our assent, whether we can believe such unlikely things as God hath promised (for so it seems to carnal reason), as that he can carry his people through the deep waters, and they shall not ovei-flow them. Certainly many doubts arise in our minds concern- ing unseen things, which we cannot enjoy till we shoot the gulf of death. Now Abraham, the father of the faithful, was so called because he could assent so strongly to the promises, and give glory to God ' by believing in hope against hope : ' Eom. iv. 18-20, ' And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb ; he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God/ Faith can expect a deliverance when it seems impossible to reason. When Abraham was childless, and had been so for many years, yet he expects an issue that for number shall be as the sand upon the sea-shore. If there be not some difficulty in the thing to be believed, it is not an object of faith ; for things present within the view of sense, and things easy and next at hand, are, as it were, already enjoyed. It is no trial of your faith to look for probable things ; but if you can believe when the case is never so difficult, if you can depend and rest yourselves upon the word of God, that you shall be carried through the sea and not be drowned, because you have God's word for it, this is faith. Many difficulties may be objected against such things as God hath revealed in his word ; yet it is enough to a believer that God hath revealed them. Our inquiry, when we come to look into the things we are to believe, should not be, How can these things be ? No ; but. Are these things revealed by God, yea or nay ? How can these things be ? is the voice of unbelief, at the least, of a weak and stagger- ing faith. Nicodemus said, ' How can these things be ? ' John iii. 9. AVe are to receive supernatural truths as men take pills, not chew, but swallow them, take them upon the credit of the revealer ; if the testi- fier be God himself, his word should be more to us than the greatest evidence in the world.
2. Sometimes the difficulties lie against our resolution to take God's way. A total resignation of ourselves to the will of God is required of ' all that will be saved. Now by dangers we are tried whether we will keep this resolution. Strength of assent excludes speculative doubts and errors ; strength of resolution fortifies us against worldly tempta- tions, both on the right hand and on the left. On the right hand temptations do arise from worldly profit, pleasure, and glory ; on the left hand temptations do arise from fears of danger and terrors of sense. Now, when these come with full power upon the soul, they are ready to shake the most confirmed resolution , but a christian is to maintain the vigor of his faith, and cherish such a confidence in God's promises as may check all fear, and cause him, when God calls him thereunto, to venture on the greatest dangers rather than quit his duty: Fs. xxiii. 4, ' Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil' It was a comfortless journey in the midst of waves for so many men, women, and children to hold it ; yet a be- liever that ventures upon God's command fears nothing : Dan. iii. 17, 18, • If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from^ the burning fiery furnace, and he wHl deliver us out of thine hand, 0 king !
12 SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. [SeR. LXIII.
But if not, be it known unto tliee, 0 king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up,' Thus are we to show our undaunted confidence of God's protection and deliverance.
Fourthly, Because we are fickle creatures, God will have us, by the solemn profession of such a faith, visibly to enter into his covenant. As God meant to season Israel for after trials, therefore they were baptized in the cloud and in the sea, as was said before, that they might the better stibmit to his conduct throughout the wilderness, be- fore he brought them into the land of promise ; so all those that are willing to take Christ and his cross, Christ and his yoke, the Lord will not leave them under the tie of a bare purpose and resolution, but will have it solemnised in the baptismal covenant, wherein we profess a belief of God's promises, and vow to run all hazards with Christ in our warfare against the devil, the world, and the flesh. We cannot forsake the devil, but he will make as hard pursuit after us as Pharaoh did after Israel, to bring us back again into bondage ; he doth violently assault new converts. We cannot renounce the world, and the vain courses thereof, but it will hate us, and be exasperated against us. The world only loveth its own, and those that are of a worldly strain, and will not part company with them ; they hate others, speak evil of them, and do evil to them. The flesh will entice us to some unfaith- fulness to Christ, and compliance with the world, and disobedience to God, and it will be troublesome to resist its motions. Therefore God will have us solemnly roll ourselves in this calendar, and as soon as we are baptized we put on our armour : Eom. vi. 13, 'Wherefore yield ye your members instruments, oVXa, weapons of righteousness ; ' and Rom. xiii. 12, ' Let us cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.' Then we are solemnly listed in Christ's service. He was baptized as the captain of our salvation, and we as his soldiers : and when we are baj)tized soldiers we are to arm ourselves with this resolution, through many tribulations to enter into the kingdom of God. Christ's first work is to lead us into the waters, that we may be seasoned for other encounters, or that fight of afflictions and troubles we are likely to meet withal before we get to heaven : Heb. x. 32, ' After ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of affliction.' Baptism was heretofore called an enlightening, because there was wonderful grace given in the use of that ordinance in the primitive times. Now, when we are enlightened, we presently enter upon our warfare, and we must look for a fight.