^ 1 John v. 4. X Acts xv, 0.
y Tit. ii. 11, 12. 2 1 John ii. G. and iii. 3.
Heb. xi. 32 — 35. ^nd ivhat shall I more say ? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae ; of David also, and Samuel, and of the pro- phets : who through faith subdued kingdoms, ivrougld right- eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the stvord, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. fFometi received their dead raised to life again : and others ivere tortured, not accepting deliverance ; that they might obtain a better resurrection.
THIS is a surprising chapter altogether. Respect- ing faith, as a principle, the generality of men think but little. Indeed, a considerable degree of prejudice exists against it in the minds of many ; as though it were a mere conceit, which tended to discourage all human efforts, and to generate delusions in all who give themselves up to its influence. But the account
here given of it is truly surprising. The Apostle himself seems to have been at a loss for utterance on so vast a subject. The instances of it which he had enumerated, and those which crowded upon his mind, almost overwhelmed him : " What shall I more say ? for the time would fail me to declare " all tliat my recollection suggests to me.
That we may enter in some little measure into the Apostle's views of this divine principle, let us con- sider, I. How marvellous are its records —
We will not go to the instances above recited ; for then indeed the time would fail us : nor will we enter at all minutely into those which are heaped together in my text ; for then also it would be impossible for us to do justice to them in one discourse. I will only, and as briefly as possible, call your attention to,
1. The persons enumerated — [These are not placed in the order of time in which they lived ; for Barak was before Gedeon, and Jephthae before Samson, and Samuel before David : the Apostle mentions them just as they occurred to his thoughts : as he did also the facts to which he afterwards refers: for they also are pro- miscuously specified, without any reference to the persons whom he had mentioned, or the times at which the events themselves occurred. But they all afford most astonishing- instances of the power of faith. Gedeon, with only three hun- dred men, and with no other weapons than trumpets, and pitchers with lamps concealed in them, and these broken, with a shout, " The sword of the Lord and of Gedeon," with no other weapons, I say, than these, prevailed over all the hosts of Midian*. Barak, with no more than ten thousand men, subdued an immense army, of whom not so much as one was left alive ^ Samson also, when the Spirit of God came upon him, slew thirty Philistines, and one thousand more with the jaw-bone of an ass, and three thousand more at his death'^. Jephthae, too, under the same divine influence, subdued the Ammonites'^. As for David, his victories were numberless. And Samuel, though not a warrior, shewed himself strongly under the influence of faith''; as did Elijah, and Elisha, and
« Judg. vii. 7, 19 — 22. with viii. 10. ^ Judg. iv. 6 — 16.
<= Judg. xiv. 19. and xv. 15. and xvi. 27 — 30.
d Judo-, xi. 23—33. ^ 1 Sam. xii. IG— 25.