SERM. XIV, XV.

The Advantages of · Truth, in Oppositi

on to Error.

1

i JOHN IV. 4, 5. Ye are of God, little Children, * and have overcome them : because

greater is he that is in You, than he that is in the World.

They

They are of the World: therefore Speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

P. 397, 425.

SERM.

[1]

Sermon

SERMON I

Of the Nature of FAITH

co: in general.

The first Sermon on this Text.

HEB. XI. 6.
But without Faith it is impossible to

.*. . please God. ...in

DEFORE I come to the Words
B themselves, in order to our bete

ter understanding of them, we will take into consideration the Design of this Epistle, that fo we may fee more clearly the relation that these Words have to the foregoing Discourse. Who the Penman of this Epistle was

. : B

I

m I shall not tell you, because I do not Volume know, nor is it much material to know XII. it; but whoever wrote it, he had this

very good Design in the writing of it,
to perswade the Jews to hold fást the
Profession of the Gospel, notwith-
standing all the Sufferings and Perse-
cutions it exposed them to. And to
this purpose he shews at large, what
Prerogatives the Gospel hath above
the legal Administration. The Lam
was given by the disposition of Angels,
in the hand of a Mediator, that is,
Moses: but the Gospel is revealed to
us by the Son of God; a Person, not
only above Moses, who was a meer
man; but above Angels. The Go-
spel is the substance and reality of the
Types and Ceremonies, and the very
good things themselves, that were ob-
{curely represented by those Shadows.
It is á Testament establisht upon better
Promises, the clear Promises of eter-
nal Life, which were but darkly re-
vealed in the Old Testament, that
being establish'd either solely or prin-
cipally upon temporal Promises : and
it is a perfect and compleat Dispen-
fation, that hath in it all things requi-
fite to attain its end, and therefore

shall