September 30

Faith is the evidence of things not seen.—Hebrews 11:1.

I SHALL briefly tell you whether you have any faith that is true and saving, though in the least degree. Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe, yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things, will have these four signs of faith within them.

1. A sound belief of things unseen, will cause a practical estimation of them, and that above all earthly things. A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass, will cause the soul deliberately to say, This is the chief desirable felicity; this is the crown, the pearls, the treasure; nothing but this can serve my turn. It will debase the greatest pleasures, or riches, or honors of the world in your esteem. How contemptible will they seem, while you see God stand by, and heaven as it were set open to your view; you will see there is little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world; you will pity them as miserable in their mirth, and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence, and as strangers to all solid joy and honor. You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery, when they are braving it among men, and domineering for a little while; and you will think, Alas! poor man! Is this all thy glory? Hast thou no better wealth, no higher honor, no sweeter pleasures than these husks? With such a practical judgment as you value gold above dirt, and jewels above common stones; you will value heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world, if you have a living, saving faith.

2. A sound belief of the things unseen, will habitually incline your wills to embrace them, with consent, and complacence, and resolution, above and against those worldly things, that would be set above them, and preferred before them. If you are true believers, you have made your choice, you have fixed your hopes, you have taken up your resolutions, that God must be your portion, or you can have none that is worth the having; that Christ must be your Saviour, or you can not be saved; and therefore you are at a point with all things else. They may be your helps, but not your happiness. You are resolved on what rock to build, and where to cast anchor, and at what port and

25 prize your life shall aim. You are resolved what to seek and trust to: God or none; heaven or nothing; Christ or none, is the voice of your rooted, stable resolutions. Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted, and have a part in Christ, or no; and whether ever you shall attain the glory which you aim at; yet you are off all other hopes; having seen an end of all perfections, and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures, even on the most flattering state on earth; and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master, and your hopes, and your whole course, for any other life or hopes. Whatever come of it, you are resolved that here you will venture all; knowing that you have no other game to play, at which you are not sure to lose, and that you can lay out your love, and care, and labor on nothing else that will answer your expectations, nor make any other bargain whatsoever, but what you are sure to be utterly undone by.

3. A sound belief of things invisible, will be so far an effectual spring of a holy life, as that you will "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;" and not in your resolutions only, but in your practices, the bent of your lives will be for God, and your invisible felicity. It is not possible that you should see by faith the wonders of the world to come, and yet prefer this world before it. A dead, opinionative belief, may stand with a worldly, fleshly life; but a working faith will make you stir, and make the things of God your business. And the labor and industry of your lives will show whether you soundly believe the things unseen.

4. If you savingly believe the invisible things, you will purchase them at any rate, and hold them faster than your worldly accommodations; and will suffer the loss of all things visible, rather than you will cast away your hopes of the glory which you never saw. A human faith and bare opinion will not hold fast when trial comes. For such men have taken heaven but for a reserve, because they must leave earth against their wills, and are loth to go to hell. But they are resolved to hold the world as long as they can, because their faith apprehendeth no such satisfying certainty of the things unseen, as will encourage them to let go all that they see, and have in sensible possession. But the weakest faith that is true and saving, doth habitually dispose the soul to let go all the hopes and happiness of this world, when they are inconsistent with our spiritual hopes and happiness.

Let conscience tell you: What eyes do you see by, for the conduct of the chief employments of your lives? Is it by the eye of sense or faith? I take it for granted that it is by the eye of reason. But is it by reason corrupted and biased by sense, or is it by reason elevated by faith? What country is it that your hearts converse in? Is it in heaven or earth? What company is it that you solace yourselves with? Is it with angels and saints? Do you walk with them in the spirit, and join your echoes to their triumphant praises, and say, Amen, when by faith you hear them ascribing honor, and praise, and glory to the Ancient of days, the omnipotent Jehovah, that is, and that was, and that is to come? Do you fetch your joys from heaven or earth? from things unseen or seen? things future or present? things hoped for, or things possessed? What garden yieldeth you your sweetest flowers? Whence are the spirits and cordials that revive you, when a frowning world doth cast you into a fainting fit or swoon? Where is it that you repose your souls for rest, when sin or sufferings have made you weary? Deal truly, is it in heaven or earth? Which world do you take for your pilgrimage, and which for your home? I do not ask you where you are, but where you dwell? Not where are your persons, but where are your hearts? In a word, are you in good earnest when you say, you believe a heaven and hell? And do you speak, and think, and pray, and live, as those that do indeed believe it? Deal truly, your endless joy or sorrow do much depend on it. The life of faith is the certain passage to glory. The fleshly life on things here seen, is the certain way to endless misery.