March 29

For we walk by faith, not by sight.—2 Corinthians 5:7.

GET an eye of faith, to look through and above the creature. A man shall never get to look off from the world, till he can look beyond it. For the soul will have holdfast of something; and the reason why men cling so much to the earth, is, because they have no assurance, if they let go that hold, of having any subsistence elsewhere. Labor, therefore, to get an interest in Christ, to find an everlasting footing in the steadfastness of God's promises in him, and that will make thee willing to suffer the loss of all things; it will implant a kind of hatred and disestimation of all the most precious endearments, which thy soul did feed upon before. St. Peter saith of wicked men, that they are purblind, "they cannot see afar off:" they can see nothing but that which is next them; and therefore no marvel, if their thoughts can not reach unto the end of the creature. There is in a dim eye the same constant and habitual indisposition, which sometimes happeneth unto a sound eye by reason of a thick mist: though a man be walking in a very short lane, yet he sees no end of it: and so a natural man can not reach to the period of earthly things. Death and danger are still a great way out of his sight: whereas the eye of faith can look upon them as already expiring; and, through them, look upon him who therefore gives the creatures unto us, that in them we might see his power, and taste his goodness. And nature itself methinks, may seem to have intended some such thing as this, in the very order of the creatures. Downwards a man's eye hath something immediately to fix on; all is shut up in darkness save the very surface, to note, that we should have our desires shut up too from those earthly things which are put under our feet, and hid from our eyes, and buried in their own deformity. All the beauty and all the fruit of the earth is placed on the very outside of it, to show how short and narrow our affections should be toward it. But upward the eye finds scarce any thing to bound it: all is transparent and diaphanous, to note how vast our affections should be toward God; how endless our thoughts and desires of his kingdom; how present to our faith the heavenly things should be, even at the greatest distance. The apostle saith, that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for;" that it gives being and present subsistency to things far distant from us; makes those things which, in regard of natural causes are very remote—in regard of God's promises, to seem hard at hand. And therefore though there were many hundred years to come in the apostle's time, and for aught we know, may yet be to the dissolution of the world,—yet the apostle tells us, that even then it was the last hour,—because, faith being able distinctly to see the truth and promises of God, and the endlessness of that life which is then presently to be revealed,—the infinite excess of vastness in that, made that which was otherwise a great space, even seem as nothing,—no more in comparison, than the length of a case or trunk, through which a man looks on the heavens, or some vast country. And ever the greater magnitude and light there is in a body, the smaller will the medium or distance seem from it. The reason why a perspective glass draws remote objects close to the eye, is, because it multiplies the "species." We, then, by faith apprehending an infinite and everlasting glory, must needs conceive any thing through which we look upon it, to be but short and vanishing. And therefore though the promises were afar off, in regard of their own existence, yet the patriarchs did not only see, but embrace them; their faith seemed to nullify and swallow up all the distance. Abraham saw Christ's day, and was glad: he looked upon those many ages which were between him and his promised seed, as upon small and inconsiderable distances in comparison of that endless glory into which they ran: they were but as a curtain or piece of hangings, which divide one room in a house from another. Labor therefore to get a distinct view of the height and length, and breadth and depth, and the unsearchable love of God in Christ, to find in thine own soul the truth of God in his promises, and that his word abideth for ever; and that will make all the glory of other things to seem but as grass.

"Faith lends its realizing light; The clouds disperse, the shadows fly; Th' Invisible appears in sight, And God is seen by mortal eye."