Do not such considerations as these show us how necessary it is to attend to the instruction of our hearts, that they may in time know and love the things which belong unto their eternal peace, and not prefer earth, and even hell, to heaven, and death to life? Our heart has not naturally a taste for heaven, for it is naturally corrupt. It has to learn, and form this. And thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that He has given us a teacher in Him, that our hearts may be turned from a vain and sinful world, to the holy and everlasting joys of the world to come. Heaven has been opened to the view of our hearts in his Gospel; the Holy Spirit has come down from heaven to put into them good desires, so that they may value the treasures which have been laid up for men in Christ our Saviour. Thus both the treasure has been provided, and the means of seeking and finding it have been supplied. Our hearts then must be in heaven, while our bodies are yet upon earth. There they must have entered in with their affections, and have both become used to the sights and to the company, to the words and to the works which are there, and must have loved them, and found that it is good to be there. There they must have entered through a death unto sin together with Christ crucified, that they may look upon Him, and love Him glorified, and desire never to be separated from his love.

There they must have entered through the new birth unto righteousness, being risen together with Christ, that they may live for ever together with Him. There they must have entered, by setting their affections on things above, even as Christ hath gone up on high, leading death and hell captive, that they may sit together with Him for ever in heavenly places. Thus the heart must have been with its treasure, and thus the man who hath laid it up will find it ready for him in all its fulness of spiritual and heavenly riches on that day, when Christ shall return in his glory to take unto Him his peculiar people, who have been zealous of good works, and discharged a faithful stewardship. Then their bodies shall defy the worm, corruption, and all adversaries, as their treasure shall be proof against the moth, corruption, and the robber. And they shall, in an eternity of joy, experience the blessedness of the promise of their Lord, who said, that where He was there they should be also.

SERMON XX.

THE WALK OF FAITH.

2 COR. v. 7.

"For we walk by faith, not by sight."

ST. PAUL is laying down the difference of our present and future states in the body. The present being one in which the children of God groan, being burdened with sinful flesh. The future being one to which they look forward for being clothed with incorruption and immortality', anxiously waiting the day of adoption, when the sons of God shall be openly declared, and there shall be the redemption and deliverance of the body from the corruption of the flesh. In the latter state they will be bodily present with the Lord. In the former they are necessarily bodily absent from Him, sitting as He is at the right hand of God in heaven. And therefore, while in the former they will have communication with Him perfectly and imme

11 Cor. xv. 53.

2 Rom. viii. 23.

diately by sight, and see Him face to face in the latter they can commune with Him only through faith, which presents Him to them mediately, as an object seen imperfectly, by means of the reflection of a glass.

And one of these states leads to the other. We must prepare for the state of sight by a state of faith. What then is this state of faithis a question which we are deeply concerned to understand.

Faith has been defined by St. Paul himself as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." That is, it is a certain assurance, which puts as it were into our hands the substance of those things which we should otherwise have but in unsubstantial hope. It is a certain conviction, which affords us evidence of the existence of things which we cannot see. Behold then our Guide, our fiery pillar through the night of the wilderness of our present state in the body. Thus the children of God are enabled to enjoy his presence—thus to walk with Him. And it is evident that by this quality they must have their very first communion with Him, and that therefore their justification necessarily depends upon it.

But what a new, what a glorious world, does it open to our eyes; how does it refresh them, pained as they are with the miserable sights of

31 Cor. xiii. 12.

4 Heb. xi. 1.

5

It

this world, and wipe every tear away. carries us forward in thankful adoration, in joyful resignation, in cheerful obedience, from the look back upon the day when the worlds were framed by the word of God, to the look forward to the day when the elements of the world shall be dissolved, and the Creator shall appear as the Judge. It has made a new creature of the man. What wonder if he find "old things put away, and all things become new '; "If he look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness?" And then for its nearer objects, such as are neither past, nor yet to come, but still going on, behold Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, exalted from the humiliation of the cross, and sitting at the right hand of God as Son of man, and offering continually the prayer of intercession for his people. Such, in brief, are the objects of faith. Now let us turn to the walk which is ordered according to them.

In walking through this outer world of the body, do we not keep its objects carefully in sight? can we go right or straight without looking at that which lies before us? Make we not all use of the sun, all advantage of the direction of roads, and put to account continually our knowledge of the places, and experience of the ways? It is not so very different in the walk by