SEAM. XXXVIII.a THE CHRISTIANS TREASURE. 141 frame of things, the sun in his daily circuit, and the moon and stars in their nightly courses, my faith assures me they are all employed in rolling the months and hours away, that stand between me and immortal happiness : And when the morning of the resurrection dawns upon the earth, the gospel tells me, that I have a share in all the rising glories of that day. Should the heavens and the earth be shortly set on fire, if I have but my faith awake within me, I shall have no fear nor surprise; I myself, and all my best interests are out of the reach of these flames; my treasures are of an unpe- rishing kind. The period. of all things here below shall but usher in my brightest hours, and begin the years of my eternal pleasure ; for the book of God assures me, that things present and things to come are mine. " Make haste then, all ye remaining revolutions of nature; and days, and months, and ages make haste : Time cannot fly too fast for me, who have such an eternity in view.' My Lord hath told me in his word, surely I corne quickly, and my heart echoes to that voice of my beloved, "Amen, even so come Lord Jesus." Fourth Use., This doctrine requires the believer to be found in the constant exercise of faith, that so he may be able always to survey his inheritance, and take solid delight in it. Otherwise, when he sustains loss in temporalthings, and sickness and trouble' attend him in the flesh, he will be ready to judge by the mere princi- ples of sense, and to think his comforts all gone, and that he has nothing left. It is faith alone can teach a be- liever to rejoice in this treasure given him by the cove- nant of grace, when the world has taken almost all sen- sible comforts from him. The natural man with an eye of sense looks on things just as the eye of a brute animal beholds them, and sees nothing more than according to the common impressions they make on flesh and blood : But the eye of faith is aided by the divine glass of the co- venant, which as a microscope, discovers many beauties, where the natural eye, unassisted, çan see nothing but roughness and deformity. It is nothing but faith fixing its eyes on sanctified losses and crosses, sanctified pains, and sickness, and dis- tresses, that can enable us to reckon these among our treasures. It, is nothing but the spirit of faith that can
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