While thus remaining in your dark infidelity, you are making light of God's own message of love. Arise, while yet the day of mercy shines around you. Get you out of the country of your idolatries, to serve the living God. Get you from your kindred, the children of this world, who are lying under the sentence of his curse. Get you from your father's house-the house of the god of this world, where you have no birthright, except that of wrath and condemnation; and betake yourselves unto that land, which the Holy Ghost waits to show you, in the length and breadth of its beauty. Take your part with the saints of God, whose portion is the all-sufficient Saviour; and be blessed with them, both in your pilgrimage and your rest.

II. Are any sojourning in Haran, by the way, instead of pressing on towards Canaan? Abram waited there five years; probably induced by the increasing infirmities of his father: and when the grave had closed over Terah, he needed a second message, before he struck his tent, to complete the remainder of his way, and to follow the bidding of his Lord. O believers in Jesus, whose fleetness in the Christian course hath been dishonourably slackened, you have much need to exercise strict vigilance and honest

dealing with yourselves; lest your dearest earthly duties become your hindrances. Let the dead bury their dead; but go ye and follow Jesus. You did run well, who hath hindered you? Redeem the time. Intreat God the Spirit to, plume again the wings of your failing faith; and to bear you above the earthliness which hath checked your heavenly flight, and made your souls cleave to the dust, "Count not yourselves to have already attained, either to be already perfect." Observe the activity of many before you; and the joy and peace wherewith they are blessed and strengthened. "Arise ye and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted." You have no abiding city, until after a finished course, and a good fight of faith, triumphantly finished, you shall be led within the borders of Immanuel's land. If God hath removed any dear friend, while you have been loitering in your spiritual race, should not the bereavement address you in the voice of his love, and with the solemnity of a merciful solicitation, for your recovery and restoration? Doth not that voice say to you, as it said to the prophet in Horeb," What doest thou here?" And

1 Phil. iii. 12.

2 Micah ii. 10.

have you a better answer than that of the prophet's timid and slothful withdrawal from his post of duty? If you love fellowship with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ-if you would be strengthened with might by God's Spirit in the inner man-if you would grow in grace, and in the knowledge of your Lord and Saviour-if you would have an entrance ministered unto you abundantly into his everlasting kingdom, turn your faces Zionward at once; and arise to follow the call of God. And then, as the gales of Arabia send forth the fragrance of its spices, to refresh the traveller thitherward, and to strengthen him for his remaining journey, so will consolations from the land of blessedness refresh you, and enable you to go on your way rejoicing.

SERMON VI.

THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF FAITH.

HEBREWS XI. 8.

BY FAITH ABRAHAM, WHEN HE WAS CALLED TO GO OUT INTO

A PLACE WHICH HE SHOULD AFTER RECEIVE FOR AN INHERITANCE, OBEYED, AND HE WENT OUT, NOT

WHITHER HE WENT.

KNOWING

It is remarked by an eminent moral writer,1 'that whatever withdraws. us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.' The assertion is unquestionably true; and when extended to embrace the relations which men bear to the invisible world, and to comprehend the laws of their spiritual being, together with their responsibilities Godward, as creatures under a gracious revelation of their

1 Dr. Johnson.

Maker's will, it is their greatest safety, their best wisdom, and their highest honour, not to look to the things which are seen, which are temporal, as their dearest good, but to the things which are not seen, which are eternal. This is the life of faith,-the life of every Christian, renewed by the Spirit of God, and made one in mind and membership with his Saviour Jesus Christ. It is the life of wisdom, and blessedness, which St. Paul had realized, when he cried, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.

"1

This principle of faith was the mighty leverage whereby Abram was separated from all the natural and habitual attractions, that bound him to his country, his kindred, his father's house, and his father's idols. It was the impelling motive of all his future journies, and abidings; the staff whereon he leaned; and the wisely chosen guide of all his procedures. Such is the testimony given of him by the Apostle-such the good report made of him by

1 Gal. ii. 20.