heart, to heal the corrosions of remorse, to still the beatings of despair, to give the conscience peace. All experience whispers through all its oracles, "This is not our rest" - it is polluted, and you know it is so. There is not an individual on earth, the most prosperous that I could lay my finger on, who, if he would express himself honestly, could say, I have just reached the spot, where I would wish the wheel to stop, and myself to be for ever. There is nothing that I wish added, and nothing subtracted; just let me live for ever in ceaseless progression, and on the same level on which I now move. There is not a soul who has not something in the future, which he wants to possess, and which he thinks will make him satisfied; but when he has attained it, there is something in the horizon still which he wishes to reach, and then he thinks he will be satisfied. "Man never

is, but always to be blest." In other words, it is the universal experience of humanity, proclaimed in multiplied echoes, "This is not your rest; there remaineth a rest for the people of God." Set your heart upon that rest, sit loose to this world, do not come physically out of the world, but morally rise superior to it. And as this earth, with all that is in it, must soon blaze like Sodom in its devouring flame as the heavens and earth, and all the elements therein, shall be burned up; seeing all these things, these palaces, and cloudcapped towers, and gorgeous things, shall be dissolved, and, like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave, for a season at least, scarce a wreck behind, what manner of persons ought ye to be? Have you, my reader, fled from the world? Are you setting your heart, not upon Zoar, that little paltry city, but upon the city of refuge, whose walls are everlasting salvation, whose gates are unspent praise? Are you fleeing from a law that condemns, from judgments that will soon overtake, and seeking shelter in Christ, the ever near, the ever present, the ever accessible city, into which no flame

can penetrate, across whose threshold no foe can pass—justified by faith, in whom you have peace with God; this on earth is the vestibule of heaven, the first enjoyment of the rest that remaineth for the people of God. As sure as Sodom fell beneath the blaze of God's judgment, so sure your money, your estates, all which you can call yours, shall be swept away; and where will you be then? What is your hope? What manner of persons are you? What destiny do you anticipate? What words do you expect to hear at that judgment tribunal, from which there can be no appeal? I speak as to wise men: judge ye what I say.

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CHAPTER IX.

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH.

"In vain shall Rome her portals bar,

And shut from him her saintly prize,
Whom in the world's great calendar
All men shall canonize.

"Where is the victory of the grave?
What dust upon the spirit lies?
God keeps the sacred life he gave,
The patriarch never dies."

"By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure."— HEBREWS xi. 17-19.

IN that precious chapter, the eleventh of the Hebrews, we see successive instances and illustrations of the power of faith, each rising in intensity, in beauty, and in interest. We have Abel, through faith in the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, offering a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. We behold Enoch walking with God, and in the face and amid the scoffs of the world, and being translated, and now with God. We read of Noah, whose faith in the testimony of God prompted him to prepare an ark for the saving of himself and of his house, and to become an heir of the righteousness which is by faith. We see an instance of the power of faith in Abraham, who, when he

was called to go out to a place which was to be an inheritance, obeyed, and went out, without a single map but the testimony of God, or a solitary light to shed down its guidance on his pathway, relying on the command of God: and an instance of faith in the unseen, though not in the unknown, that overcame the world, and made him father of the faithful. "He looked for a city." Its spires, its homes, its walls, he had not seen, but God had promised it, and, to a Christian, what God says is, if possible, more substantial and enduring than what man does. A word-from the lips of God is more worthy of being rested on than the mightiest work from the hands of man. We read also, that "these all died in faith, not having received the promises," that is, the fulfilment of them. They had the bud; the blossom was to be. They saw them afar off, dawning in light in the distant perspective; they "were persuaded of them:"that is the strongest language employed. Paul says, "I am persuaded, that neither life nor death; that is the strongest possible conviction. And they "embraced them." Why embraced them? Because each promise was a leaf from the tree of life, each prophecy was a syllable from the lips of their blessed Lord. They saw him in the promises, and heard him in the prophecies. And what they saw they held fast; and these became the attractions which drew and elevated them, from the communion of the things that perish, into fellowship with things that were unseen, but enduring. And they confessed-what? "That they were strangers and pilgrims." Abraham was a rich man. read in the previous chapter of Genesis that he had herds and flocks to a great extent. Then, how could he be a pilgrim and a stranger? It is not the pilgrim robe that makes the pilgrim, but the pilgrim heart. There may be a pilgrim's heart beating under a royal robe; and there may be a proud worldling's heart beating under a beggar's cloak. It is not

We

without that the evidence of our pilgrimage and strangership is to be seen, but within. What the heart is, what the heart feels, what the heart hopes, that the man is, and God looks at. And therefore, Abraham, rich in herds, a very rich man, a prince in his place, was yet, while he sat upon his throne, if such there was, and commanded subjects that were obedient to him, amid all his wealth, and riches, and resources, had a pilgrim's heart, and feeling, and experience, and hope. "They desired a better country." The city they looked for is described in the twenty-first and twentysecond chapters of the book of Revelation. They desired also " a better country," -a country without sick-beds, and graves, and broken hearts, and tears, and sufferings, and losses. They were not satisfied with this country as it is; they desired a better one. Better in what respects? This country in its physical configuration is a splendid one; but the thing that mars its beauty is what fevers its very nature, sin. Expel from creation sin, the secret spring of all its misery, and the earth would be beautiful; but so long as sin is in it, and Christ is not here, we must look upward and forward, and in it be not of it, seeking a better country. We come now to the great act of faith on the part of Abraham: By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises" of a numerous offspring, offered up Isaac, through whom that offspring, to all appearance, must come.

the

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Some have argued that Abraham must have been, from very fact recorded of him in reference to Isaac, a man of a very unfeeling and severe temperament of mind. There is no evidence of it, but of the very reverse. It is important for us to see, that whatever of awful heroism Abraham displayed on this occasion did not spring from insensibility, but from faith. It was not, in short, that Abraham loved Isaac less, but that he loved God more.