390 LIFE OF FAITH. dignity and power of faith, dg principal1,, insist on that part of its description, which is takenfrom this final object. As Christ himself in his humiliation was rejected by the Gen- tiles, and a stumbling-stone to the Jews, despised and not esteem- ed ; (Isa. lui. 2, 3.) having "made himself of no reputation ; " (Phil. ii. 7.) so faith in Christ as incarnate and crucified, is de- spised and counted foolishness by the world. But as Christ in his glory, and the glory of believers, shall force them to an awful admiration, so faith itself, as exercised on that glory, is more glorious in the eyes of all. Believers are never so reverenced by the world as when they converse in heaven, and " the Spirit of Glory resteth on them ;" 1 Pet. iv. 14. How faith, by beholding this glorious end, doth move all the faculties of the soul, and subdue the inclinations and interests of the flesh, and make the greatest sufferings tolerable, is the work of the Holy Ghost in this chapter to demonstrate, which, beginning with the description,proceeds to the proof by a cloud of witnesses. There are two sorts of persons (and employments) in the world, for whom there are twocontrary ends hereafter. One sort subjects their reason to their sensual or carnal interest. The other subjects their senses to their reason, cleared, conducted and elevated by faith. Things present or possessed are the riches of the sensual, and the bias oftheir hearts and lives : things absent, but hoped for, are the riches of believers, which actuate .their chief endeavors. This is the sense of the text which I have read to you ; which, settingthings hoped for in opposition to thins present, and things unseen to those that sense doth apprehend, assureth us that faith (which fixeth on the first) Both give to its object a subsistence, presence and evidence ; that is, it seeth that which supplieth the want of presence and visibility. The 5n6oaocc is that which, quoad effectum,' is equal to a present subsistence. And, the iieyzo;, the evidence is somewhat which, ' quoad effectum,' is equal to, visibility. As if he had said, Though the glory promised to believers, and expected by them, be, yet to come, and only hoped for, and be yetunseen and only believed, yet is the sound believer as truly affected with it, and acted by its attractive force, as if it were present and before his eyes, as a man is by an inheritance, or estate in reversion, or out of sight if well secured, and not only by that which is present to his view. The Syriac interpreter, instead of a translation, gives us a true exposition of the words, viz. ` Faith is a certainty of those things that are in hope, as if they did already actually exist, and the revelation of those things that are not seen.' Or you may take the sense in this proposition, which I. am next to open further, and apply, viz. That the nature and use of faith
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