tokens of his approbation, as shall richly recompense all that you may either do or siiffer for him, though it were a thousand times more than was ever yet done or suffered by mortal man ]
2. What should be your comfort in death —
[What is death to a child of God? It is not death : no ; it is a sleep, a " falling asleep in Jesus\" Tliis it is, as it respects the body ; which shall surely " awake from the dust'," and be re-united to the soul". And what shall it be to the soul? A translation, such as Enoch's was. Could you but see what takes place at the departure of a real saint, you would see the angels waiting to catch his spirit at the instant of its departure from the body, and bearing it on their wings into the presence of its God. And is not this an object to be desired ? Do you wonder that Paul " desired to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better''" than any state on earth can be? Regard ye death, then, in this view : and learn to number it amongst your treasures >'; and in the daily habit of your minds, " be looking for, and hasting unto, the coming of the day of Christ^" ]
s 1 Thess. iv. 14. Acts vii. 60. ' Isai. xxvi. 19.
" 1 Thess. iv. 15—18. '^ Phil. i. 23.
y 1 Cor. iii, 21, 22. ' 2 Pet. iii. 12.
Heb. xi. 6. Without faith it is impossible to please [6roc?.]
THIS whole chapter is one continued commenda- tion of faith : which is marked, throughout, as the one source of every good action, and as the certain prelude to everlasting felicity. But, in what is spoken of Enoch, there seems, to a superficial ob- server, to be no connexion with faith : for his trans- lation was a mere act of God's favour : and, though it is said that " he pleased God," it may be supposed that it was by his works that he approved himself to God, and not by any actings o( faith. But, in my text, the Apostle proves that faith was in Enoch the leading principle from which his works proceeded, and the true object of God's pecuhar approbation. His argument may be thus stated in a few words :