Bible Commentaries

The Beginning of Faith

Hebrews 11:1

As we hear these words we seem to penetrate down through all the differences and distinctions of outward forms and ceremonies to that which lies at the very root and foundation of religion—the sense that beyond and behind the visible there is an invisible; that all that we see is but a reflection, a broken image of an unseen Divine ideal; that all around us and above us and within us there are mighty agencies ever working, regulating, creating, controlling not only our own little lives, but the entire universe of things from eternity until now, and from now until eternity.

I. This is the Beginning of Faith.—Without such a consciousness religion does not and cannot exist Before man can take any step at all in religion he must feel convinced of the reality of the unseen world and of spiritual things. He must not only have a mere vague belief in their possibility, but he must learn to feel as sure of this as he is of his own existence. And when once this assurance becomes realised, then, but not before, is the foundation solid on which to rear the superstructure of that definite creed, the materials for which are provided in that revelation of Himself which it hath pleased the High and Holy One Who inhabiteth Eternity to make to us Himself in the pages of the Book which is known to us as the Bible or Holy Scripture.

II. It follows as a Corollary to this that it is because such faith is either altogether wanting or very imperfectly developed that the attitude of so many minds towards the Holy Scriptures as a Divine Hebrews 11:1

All religious conviction proceeds from God and cannot proceed from Hebrews 11:1

To walk staunchly by the best light one has, to be strict and sincere with oneself, not to be of the number of those who say and do not, to be in earnest—this is the discipline by which alone man is enabled to rescue his life from thraldom to the passing moment and to his bodily senses, to ennoble it, and to make it eternal. And this discipline has been nowhere so effectively taught as in the school of Hebraism. The intense and convinced energy with which the Hebrew, both of the Old and of the New Testament, threw himself upon his ideal of righteousness, and which inspired the incomparable definition of the great Christian virtue, faith—the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen—this energy of devotion to its ideal has belonged to Hebraism alone.

—Matthew Arnold, preface to Culture and Anarchy.

"He had faith in God," says Dr. John Brown, in Horae Subsecivae, of Dr. Chalmers; "faith in human nature—faith, if we may say Hebrews 11:2

Good men are the stars, the planets of the age wherein they live, and illustrate the times. God did never let them be wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of the world, and contemned the play of fortune.

—Ben Jonson, Discoveries (LXXXVI.).

Reference.—XI:2.—J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No1633 , p109.

Hebrews 11:3

We prescribe Him limits, we lay continuall siege unto His power by our reasons. We will subject Him to the vaine and weake appearances of our understanding: Him Who hath made both us and our knowledge. Because nothing is made out of nothing: God was not able to frame the world without matter. What? hath God delivered into our hands the keyes, and the strongest wards of His infinit puissance? Hath He obliged Himselfe not to exceede the bounds of our knowledge? Suppose, oh Hebrews 11:4

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews begins the series of examples, by which he illustrates his conception of faith, with the case of Abel. There are various difficulties raised by the passage into which I need not enter, since I have discussed them elsewhere. Nor do I deal with the problems which the narrative of Genesis presents, since I am concerned not so much with it as with the view taken of it by the author. It is not clear in what he considered the superiority of Abel's sacrifice to lie, but probably it was for him less a question of quantity than of quality. In other words, while his language might well be interpreted to mean that Abel presented a more lavish sacrifice than the niggardly offering of Cain, it is perhaps rather more likely that he laid the stress on the fact that it was an animal and not a vegetable offering. The sacrificial efficacy of blood is prominent in his thought, and it is quite natural that the distinction in the material of the offerings should seem to give the clue to the acceptance of one and the rejection of the other.

While the death of the animal and the manipulation of its blood could not liberate man's conscience from the burden of his guilt or restore to him communion with God, it brought home to him the fact of guilt and the problem of reconciliation. It thus prepared the way for the supreme sacrifice of Christ by which the problem received its adequate and final solution. And its very inadequacy was itself an unconscious prophecy, for the tormenting sense of alienation from God which it expressed was itself a prediction that God would ultimately deal with the question in a radical way. The constant reminder which men received of their sins and their helplessness in dealing with them deepened the sense of sin and quickened the longing for an adequate redemption. It would not therefore be contrary to the general drift of the writer's argument to consider that he detected in Abel's selection of an animal victim the outcome of his faith.

I. This faith did not go without Divine recognition. The word of God bore witness to him. We read, "And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering". The writer apparently understood this to mean that Abel's sacrifice secured the approval of God because it exhibited the quality of faith. This is suggested by what he says in connection with the next example, that without faith it is impossible to be pleasing unto Him. The problems which this raises were, perhaps, not before the writer's mind, though they can hardly fail to strike ourselves. At present, however, it is our task to look at things from his point of view. That witness was borne to those who had faith is a thought which has been already expressed in the words, "By it the elders received a good report," and much the same is said with reference to Enoch.

II. The author proceeds to tell us that through the faith he thus manifested he still speaks to us. In order to understand this we must bear in mind the writer's doctrine of Scripture. Scripture is for him the living and active word of God, so that its utterances belong not simply to the past but to the present. And therefore, although from the point of view of the historian the speech of Abel might seem to belong to the past, to the author it belongs to the present in virtue of its record on the page of Scripture. The voice of Abel is the voice of his blood which called to God from the ground. It is a thought for which we have many parallels that blood spilt upon the earth cries for vengeance. We find it in Job's passionate appeal to the earth not to cover his blood and thus stifle his cry, and in Ezekiel's reference to the blood of Jerusalem which had been set on the bare rock by God that it should not be covered and thus go unredressed.

III. To ourselves no doubt the words of the author convey more naturally the impression that even though he is dead, Abel still speaks to us by his example. And though this does not quite hit his meaning, the thought itself is one which ought not to be forgotten. Shakespeare put into the mouth of the sophistical Antony the words:—

The evil that men do lives after them,

The good is soft interred with their bones.

Happily that is not the case. While it is true that evil things and evil memory are a baleful legacy left by the wicked, yet it is also true that the memory of the just is an inspiration and their deeds are still potent for good after they have been taken from us. And thus the memory of those who, in the dim twilight of Hebrews 11:4

Men cannot benefit those who are with them as they can benefit those who come after them; and of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave.

—Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture (VI).

References.—XI:4.—J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No1681 , p487. D. Young, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p350 , and vol. liv. p54.

The Escape From Death

Hebrews 11:5

I. Although the author gives us no explicit help in solving the problem why the treatment of Enoch was so exceptional, we can perhaps detect to some extent the link that was in his mind between the faith of Enoch and his translation. Faith, I have said, is a conviction of the unseen realities. In the next place, it is a stronger power than hope, since it makes the future present Even before the veil is removed, it, so to speak, abrogates it. It carries us in spirit within the veil, and makes us even now participate in the joys of the world to come. Then as the wings of faith grow more feeble, our strong flight draws to its close, and we find ourselves back again on the earthward side of the veil.

Perhaps, however, it might be possible, the writer may have thought, for that faith which gives us this transient experience of heaven to secure a permanent triumph. Thus a man whose faith was of unusual intensity might escape to the unseen realm without passing through death, and find in it his abiding home. The thought may seem fanciful, but it may be along these lines that we ought to look for our solution. The statement that he walked with God helps us rather more. It testifies to the close, unbroken intercourse between God and His servant which death could not destroy. The thought that faith conquers death comes out elsewhere in the chapter. Yet we are told of others, to whom this exceptional privilege was not vouchsafed, that they walked with God. I have accordingly no complete explanation to offer of the unique experience through which Enoch is said to have passed.

II. It was not unnatural that the words "Enoch walked with God" should have led to the belief that God took him into His confidence, and revealed to him many mysteries. These mysteries, which touched the constitution of the universe, the fate of the wicked, the world's future history, were enshrined in an elaborate literature which began to grow up about him in the second century before our era. Quotation is made from it in Hebrews 11:6

"Faith," says Lacordaire in one of his Paris Conferences, "is not only a virtue—that is to say, a generous and efficacious effort towards what is good—it is the sacred portico through which all the virtues pass. There is no act of devotedness, no act of love, no honourable or holy action which was not at first an act of faith.... Therefore when St. Paul pronounced that sovereign sentence, "without faith it is impossible to please God," we may add—and men."

References.—XI:6.—R. J. Campbell, City Temple Sermons, p1. J. Laidlaw, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix. p214. S. Cox, Expositions, p226. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No107; vol. xxxv. No2100; vol. xliii. No2513 , and vol. xlvii. No2740. J. Keble, Sermons for Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday, p75. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year (2Series), vol. ii. p33. J. Cumming, Penny Pulpit, No1690 , p559. J. Stalker, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p188. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p429. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 11:7

Noah had to maintain his faith in face of an unbelieving world. He alone among his contemporaries was pronounced righteous by God. The narrative gives us no hint of active opposition. It is often a stimulant to a man's faith when he has to suffer persecution and hostility. He is thrown on his defence, his combative instincts are aroused. It may not always be easy to face a frowning world, but it is certainly much harder to face a scoffing world.

I. When we consider the lapse of time, the constant wear to which his faith was exposed from trivial incident and unheroic commonplace, the strain placed upon it from the prolonged and prosaic character of his task, the keen shafts of ridicule, and the wet blankets of indifference, we may rate highly the patience of his faith. The things of which he was warned were not seen as yet when the warning was given, but they still remained unseen through all the slow process of construction until the whole was complete. And still no sign was made as, amid the blank unconcern or the unrestrained hilarity of his doomed contemporaries, he entered into the ark. Then, when he was safe, the windows of heaven were opened, that the waters from the heavenly ocean above the firmament might pour through, and the fountains of the great submarine abyss might be broken up. Thus the waters which had been separated at Creation were mingled once more, and Chaos for a brief period resumed her ancient sway.

II. The writer tells us that thus Noah condemned the world. He does not mean that by constructing a shelter simply for himself and his family he doomed the rest of mankind to destruction. His thought is rather that the faith of Noah stood out in glaring contrast to the world's unbelief. Just as Lot seemed to those who were to marry his daughters as a mere jester when he told them that God would destroy Sodom, so Noah must have seemed to those who heard his prophecies of disaster. They could not believe his prediction of judgment, they met it all with incurable optimism. And so in our Lord's words, "They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all". And how often history repeats itself, how many there are whose blind infatuation has carried them gaily forward to the very brink of ruin, and cast them down to destruction in a moment!

III. Noah condemned the world by the spectacle of his unshrinking faith, but he made no impression upon it. And it is this quality in the world which makes the effort to reform some people seem so hopeless. I always feel that we have least hope of success with those whom we cannot get to take life seriously. Those who are set in their antagonism to goodness, who throw themselves into active opposition, are less to be despaired of. For with them there is a certain earnestness and seriousness, a concentration of purpose, though directed to wrong ends. In short, they have character, though it be bad character. And there are numerous examples to show what valiant and loyal soldiers of righteousness they may prove if they can once be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. But what are we to do with the flippant and the frivolous, in whose nature there is no depth, no reserve to which one can appeal? What can be done with the shallow, irresponsible people to whom the gravest moral and spiritual issues are less than an idle tale? There are many Sunday school teachers who would gladly prefer the bad boy, as he is called, to the frivolous boy, and too often the frivolous boy becomes a frivolous man.

It is now many years since I read a passage in Demosthenes which made a permanent impression on me. The great orator, looking back over the time when the power of Philip was steadily growing, says that the Greek States realised that trouble was coming, only, he adds, "not upon themselves". In other words, they could read the signs of the times with sufficient clearness to perceive that the power of Macedonia threatened the independence of the other Greek communities, but they could never bring themselves to believe that they would be the victims of the same disaster. Such is the unwillingness of human nature to face the stern realities of life, such men's incredulity that the disaster they see to be inevitable for others will overtake themselves.

By our noble seriousness we may condemn the world's frivolity. By our steadfast conviction of the unseen we may reprove its crass incredulity, and become heirs "of the righteousness which is according to faith".

Hebrews 11:7

Belief in principles is the only intelligible interpretation I have ever been able to attach to the word faith. A man with faith in principles, even if they be not first-rate, is sure to succeed. The man who has no faith in them is sure to fail. Nothing finer, after all, can be said of faith than that which is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:9-10

The faith which we profess should dominate us as Abraham was dominated. That man is not to be reckoned a religious man whose religion is shown in a few shining hours. Like the glow of health which spreads through a man's whole being, it must show itself in every deed and every day. The temple may manifest it, but so must the tent Abraham, then, was a dweller in a tent; that fact had made a deep impression on the writer; and immediately he tells us the secret of that tent-life—he looked for a city whose builder and maker is God.

I. It is the tent which makes the city precious. We see at a glance that it was so with Abraham. It was the very insecurity of that tent-life, the isolation of it and its thousand perils, that made the dream of a city so infinitely sweet After all the important thing is not what we live in; the supremely important thing is what we look for. If life is to be redeemed from sense and time, and brought under the powers that are eternal, the eyes must be opened somehow to God's city. How shall I open them? says the Almighty. How shall I make the unseen city precious? The answer to that lies in the tent of Abraham—so insecure, so perilous and so frail. From which I learn that much of life's harder discipline, and many a dark hour that men are called to, is given to humanity, by Abraham's God, that hearts may begin to hunger for the city. (1) For example think of sickness in that light. Is it not often the tent that makes the city precious? (2) In the same light also we may look on death. (3) Nor can I leave this subject without pointing out how it bears evangelically upon the fact of sin. Many a man is brought to see his need of Christ by the same experience as was vouchsafed to Abraham.

II. It is the city which explains the tent You will never understand that tent, never know why Abraham chose it, until you are told the secret of his heart. It is his vision which interprets his conduct. You will never know a man until you know the hopes which animate him. It is because we are ignorant of the secret of our brother, and of all that is stirring and calling in his heart, that so often we judge him very falsely. It makes all the difference in the world what you and I are looking for. It is by what our hearts are set on and by what our thoughts are given to that the tent we dwell in is glorified or cursed.

—G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, p122.

References.—XI:9 , 10 ,—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxix. No2229. A. Maclaren, Exposition of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 11:10

I am a wanderer: I remember well

One journey, how I feared the track was missed,

So long the city I desired to reach

Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar

Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive

My transport. Soon the vapours closed again,

But I had seen the city, and one such glance

No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present—

A few dull hours, a passing shame or two,

Destroy the vivid memories of the past.

—Browning, Paracelsus.

"By what methods," asks Carlyle in his essay on Boswell's Johnson, "by what gifts of eye and hand, does a heroic Samuel Johnson, now when cast forth into waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest of things, a mingled Phlegethon and Fleet-ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, and mud-spectres—shape himself a voyage; of the transient driftwood, and the enduring iron, build himself a sea-worthy Lifeboat, and sail therein, undrowned, unpolluted, through the roaring "mother of dead dogs," onwards to an eternal Landmark and City that hath foundation? This high question is ever the one answered in Boswell's Book... Glory to our brave Samuel! He accomplished this wonderful problem; and now through long generations, we point to him and say: Here also was a Man; let the world once more have assurance of a Man!"

The vision of the prophets differed from the vision even of the greatest of the philosophers in the ever increasing clearness with which its reality was apprehended. The spirit of hope, so distinctive of the Jewish people, the invincible optimism which survived every disappointment, sustained them to the last. They laid hold of the future as their own possession with a confidence unapproached by any other nation, unless we may find a distant parallel in the exhilaration of tone with which the Roman poets forecast the imperial greatness of Rome. To the Greeks the future is dim and inscrutable. The future is the secret belonging to the gods, and it were presumptuous for man to seek to penetrate it. His duty is to seize the present with its limitless possibilities, and to use it with that rational energy and forethought which are born of an enlightened experience. It is a temper of mind wholly unlike that of the Jew, the loss of whose earthly country seemed to point him forward with a more victorious certitude to the city which hath foundations, to the heavenly Jerusalem.

—Prof. Butcher in his Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects, pp40 , 41.

References.—XI:10.—J. A. Alexander, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, p458. XI:12.—Expositor (5th Series), vol. iii. p271.

Hebrews 11:13

"And thus closes," says Sir James Stephen, in his essay on the Clapham Sect, "though it be far from exhausted, our chronicle of the worthies of Clapham, of whom it may be said, as it was said of those of whom the world was not worthy, "these all died in faith". With but very few exceptions, they had all partaken largely of those sorrows which probe the inmost heart, and exercise its fortitude to the utmost.... They died in the faith that for their descendants, at no remote period, was reserved an epoch glorious, though probably awful, beyond all former example. It was a belief derived from the intimations, as they understood them, of the prophet of Israel."

All true good is Christian by its goal and by its origin, though neither may be seen by the doer, Christ, "whom He hath appointed heir of all things" (the goal), "by whom also He made the worlds" (the origin). The development of the race corresponds to this. There was a world travelling to Christ, of which it is said, "These all died in faith". They were judged by their direction.

—Dr. John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, p107.

Hebrews 11:13

Speaking, in the fourth chapter of his volume On Compromise, of these "who attempt, in however informal a manner, to construct for themselves some working system of faith, in place of the faith which science and criticism have sapped," Mr. Morley adds: "In what ultimate form, acceptable to great multitudes of men, these attempts will at last issue, no one can now tell. For we, like the Hebrews of old, shall all have to live and die in faith, "not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and being persuaded of them, and embracing them, and confessing that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth".

References.—XI:13.—T. Arnold, Christian Life; Its Hopes, p231. T. Stephens, Sermons by Welshmen, p340. R. W. Church, Village Sermons, p268. Expositor (5th Series), vol. i. p143. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 11:15

In Defoe's Seasonable Warning and Caution, he expostulates thus with Britain on her tendency to relapse into Popery. "Let us reason a little together on these Things, and let us inquire a little, why, and for what Reason, Britain so lately the glory of Europe; so lately the Terror of France, the Bulwark of Religion, and the Destroyer of Popery, should be brought to be the Gazing-Stock of the World? And why is it that her Neighbours expect to hear every hour that She is going back to Egypt, and having given up her Liberty, has made it her own Choice to submit to the Stripes of her Taskmasters, and make Bricks without Straw."

Reference.—XI:15 , 16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No1030.

Hebrews 11:16

After preaching (at Alnwick) I rode on to Newcastle. Certainly, if I did not believe there was another world, I should spend all my summers here; as I know no place in Great Britain comparable to it for pleasantness. But I seek another country, and therefore am content to be a wanderer upon the earth.

—Wesley's Journal (4th June, 1759).

References.—XI:16.—J. J. Cox, A Lent in London, p93. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons (3Series), p26. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlv. No2633. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture— Hebrews 11:17

"The faith of Abraham," says Mr. Gladstone, "with respect to this supreme trial, appears to have been centred in the one point, that he would trust God to all extremities, and in despite of all appearances..... He who had probably learned through the tradition of Enoch that God had modes of removal for his children other than death, may well have believed that some such method would at the critical moment be devised for Isaac; and what is commended in him by the Bible is not the intention to slay his own son with his own hand, but the ready assent to the privation he was to undergo in the frustration of the promise that the Messianic line should descend from him."

Death-bed Faith

Hebrews 11:20; Hebrews 11:22

There is a peculiar eminence attaching to a deathbed faith, to the faith which triumphs over the weakness of nature; and, while the vital forces are dying down to a glimmering spark, itself burns with a clear and steady flame. It is faith maintained under supreme difficulty. And whereas a deathbed repentance implies a previous life of sin, the kind of deathbed faith to which I am referring implies that faith has been the rule of life. It must have strong roots in a man's past to face unbroken the final storm. Hence, when the author singles out in the case of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph the closing scene, he is tacitly saying to us that here we have a life of faith on which death placed a fitting crown. Indeed, he has already told us as much about two of them when he said that Abraham dwelt in tents, with Isaac and Jacob heirs with him of the same promise. Their faith in God's fulfilment of His promise had been manifested in this that, like Abraham, they clung to the nomad's mode of life, refusing to seek on earth a fixed abode. And in the case of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph it is specially with the promise that the author is concerned.

I. Of the first we read, "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come". At first sight the statement is very puzzling, for the story in Genesis tolls us that Isaac blessed Jacob in mistake for Esau. The whole story jars upon us as we read it. First of all, there is the favouritism betrayed by the parents towards their children. In the case of Isaac this quality, always reprehensible, seems to become even contemptible because of the reason which is given for it Esau was a hunter, who gratified his father's selfish love for savoury food, and on this squalid basis his preference for Esau reposed. But Jacob turned away from the adventurous life which charmed his brother, and led a quieter, tamer life. In the author's significant words, "He sod pottage". He was what we should call a domesticated man; he dwelt in tents, we are further informed, and we can read between the lines that he had won his mother's heart, and become her favourite by stopping at home and helping her in the house-work.

We need have no hesitation in recognising that the faith of Isaac was at least displayed in this, that he held fast to the confidence that God's promise would be fulfilled. The fact that he made a mistake as to the Divine designation is not of such moment. It is true that we may put down his mistake to a lack of insight, yet his lack of insight is of an intellectual rather than of a spiritual kind. And there was much to suggest that Jacob could not be the heir to the promise. Yet it is true that he blessed Jacob by faith; for, when he was undeceived and learnt how he had been duped, he did not call back his blessing and substitute a curse. Indeed, the whole attitude of antiquity towards the curse and the blessing would have been against his doing so. Men of the ancient world thought of the curse and the blessing as passing beyond a man's control once he had uttered them. And Isaac also felt that, once the blessing had been pronounced, he could not recall it: it would surely work out its own accomplishment. "I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed." We may indeed suppose that, in the exalted utterance with which he had blessed his Hebrews 11:24-26

It is noticeable that the Old Testament heroes mentioned in this chapter are exhibited to us, not in the general tenor of their lives, but each at a single turning-point The light is flashed always upon one moment in the story.

Here, then, one moment in the life of Moses, like the rest, is lifted into the light. We are made to see the crisis at which he decisively flung himself on God's side, so fixing the destinies of life.

I. Note first the choice asked of Moses. It was a choice rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. To put it otherwise, his act was not the outcome of mere impassioned heat; it had a moral meaning; it was based on resolute and grave determination. The blow that struck down the petty tyrant may have fired the mine unexpectedly; nevertheless what the two parties before him stood for was clear enough. On the one side the people of God, unresisting, craven, trodden under foot, but with a destiny stretching out illimitably in the future; on the other side, sin, with its fleeting pleasures, in the court and life of Egypt This was the parting of the ways for ever; and we have to think of him weighing the issue, reckoning the price—"this accomplished courtier, this child of luxury and pride, this man of letters and of mighty deeds".

In the essentials of the matter it might have happened yesterday; perhaps it did happen yesterday, to you or me. Human nature changes little with the ages, and moral issues never vary. The distinctions of right and wrong, faced by these old fathers of grey time, are like the stars or the mountains to which they lifted up their eyes, and on which men look still and find them eternal and unchanging. Then or now, he who would buy everlasting life must pay for it with sacrifice. The gate that leads to life is narrow; which signifies at least this, that many things must be left outside that we would fain carry through. To a few the sacrifice is easy; by some happy gift of nature they find an instinctive joy in choosing Christ; but to many more, perhaps to most, the thing is hard. How often is a noble life built on the grave of a darling sin!

II. Note, secondly, some features of Moses" act.

(1) Hebrews 11:25

In the preface of his essay on Milton, De Quincey speaks of the sacrifice cheerfully made by the English poet in returning from Italy's pleasures to take part in his own country's service. "The sacrifice was—that he renounced the heavenly spectacle of the Ægean Sea and its sunny groups of islands, renounced the sight of Attica, of the Theban districts, of Judea; next of that ancient river Nile, the river of Pharaoh and Moses, of the Pyramids, and the hundred-gated Thebes; finally he renounced the land of Syria, much of which was then doubtless unsafe for a Frank of any religion, and for a Christian of any nation. But he might have travelled in one district of Syria, viz, Palestine, which for him had paramount attractions. All these objects of commanding interest to any profound scholar, Greece, the Grecian isles, Egypt, and Palestine, he surrendered to his sense of duty; not by any promise or engagement, but by the act then and there of turning his face homewards; well aware at the time that his chance was small indeed, under his peculiar prospects, of ever recovering his lost chance."

Hebrews 11:25

Only those who despise the pleasures can afford to despise the opinion of the world.

—R. L. Stevenson.

Hebrews 11:26

A man will undergo great toil and hardship for ends that must be many years distant—such as wealth or fame—but none for an end that may be close at hand—as the joys of heaven.

—Hawthorne.

References.—XI:26.—R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. li. p150. J. Bunting, Sermons, vol. i. p276.

The Secret of Greatness

Hebrews 11:27

What we call public men, men who are in the public eye, are well known to us all, yet in another sense they are unknown. In their official public life they are known to us, but in what is called the inner life, the hidden life of the soul, they are absolutely unknown. In this inner life they are known thoroughly and truly only to God. In it they hardly know themselves. And it is in this inner life that the power of God is made manifest. So lung as man is true to his spiritual life and inspiration, so long will his public life be regulated by God. Moses was what is called a public man. All his actions in the sight of the people were dictated by God.

I. If we Look to the Inner Life of this Great Man we find the key to his greatness. I think we find the key to it in this text, "He endured as seeing Him Who is invisible". He lived by faith. He lived the hidden life of the soul. He was no mere organiser, no mere materialistic performer; he had an intense love for the spiritual life. He might have said with St. Paul, "The things that are seen are temporal, and the things which are not seen are eternal". Moses endured that life which you all know so well. He went on day after day, week after week, month after month, with all the trials and troubles and worries which then, as now, are the characteristics of a statesman's life. He endured. He endured because he had the power which comes of spiritual being. He saw Him who is invisible.

II. It is for us to see Him Who is Invisible.—We all believe, and rightly Hebrews 11:27

What is the outward discipline for him who, bidden to travel on the highways of life, can take no step heavenwards, unbeset or unobstructed by wealth, power, admiration, or popularity? How shall faith preserve her dominion over Him to whom the world is daily offering whatever can most kindle the imagination, engage the understanding, or gratify ambition? There is but one corrective. It is to be found in that unbroken communion with the indwelling God, in which Mr. Wilberforce habitually lived. He "endured as seeing Him Who is invisible," and as hearing Him Who is inaudible. When most immersed in political cares, or in social enjoyments, he invoked and obeyed the voice which directed his path, while it tranquillised his mind. That voice... taught him to rejoice as a child in the presence of a Father whom he much loved and altogether trusted, and whose approbation was infinitely more than an equivalent for whatever restraint, self-denial, labour or self-sacrifice, obedience to his will might render necessary.

—Sir James Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography.

The conceptions of most of us are dull; the power of presenting the future to our minds (in the accurate and analysed sense of the expression), of making it present to us, of "seeing Him Who is invisible," is a faculty whose strength depends greatly on training, which is vouchsafed to different individuals in very different measure, and to most of us in very scanty measure.

—W. Rathbone Greg, Enigmas of Life, p248.

References.—XI:27.—H. H. Henson, Godly Union and Concord, p113. H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2Series), p361.

Hebrews 11:30

"It is surely very remarkable," wrote Mr. Gladstone in his essay on Ingersoll, "that, in the whole of this recital, the Apostle, "whose feet were shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace," seems with a tender instinct to avoid anything like stress upon the exploits of warriors. Of the twelve persons having a share in the detailed expositions, David is the only warrior, and his character as a man of war is eclipsed by his greater attributes as a prophet, or declarer of the Divine counsels. It is yet more noteworthy that Hebrews 11:32

Such men are raised to station and command,

When Providence means mercy to a land,

He speaks, and they appear; to Him they owe

Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow,

To manage with address, to seize with power

The crisis of a dark decisive hour.

So Gideon earned a victory not his own,

Subserviency his praise, and that alone.

—Cowper, Table Talk (355 f.).

References.—XI:28.—A. S. Peake, The Heroes and Martyrs of Faith, p143. Expositor (7th Series), vol. v. p348. XI:30.—H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2Series), p222. XI:31.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iii. No119 , and vol. xviii. No1061. A. Martin, Winning the Soul, p47. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vii. p98; ibid. (6th Series), vol. iii. p419.

Hebrews 11:32

"It is not a little remarkable," says Mr. Gladstone in the fifth chapter of his Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture, "that the enumeration by name of the great historic heroes of faith, in the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:32-34

Compress it as much as he would the writer of the great history of the heroic deeds of faith felt that it was impossible to tell half the story. Time would fail even to run through the names of the Old Testament saints, and show how faith shaped the lives of those great workers, and laid the foundation of their heroic exploits.

I. The crowded canvas teaches that every life devoted to God is an illustration of the power of faith. The writer who wishes to inculcate this lesson of faith is able to lay his hand on every life of the Old Testament which was acceptable to God, and to show that it was an illustration of that principle. These are the names of men whose heroism sends a thrill of wonder through every heart. Each of the names that he mentions lives for evermore, and names that he has not been able even to mention rise to one's mind as the glorious passage rolls on. No truly acceptable life but is an illustration of the might of faith. Into all the various walks of life which God's providence calls us to tread we may bear the Spirit which will win us a place in the roll of faith's heroes. II. The great deeds of faith include the loftiest achievements in every field. Set together here they dazzle mind and heart. All the great workers were men of faith; all these great deeds, for which the annals of the world have no parallel, were trophies of faith's mighty working. What realm of life is not lighted up by the heroic deeds of faith? The grandeur of these results overwhelm us. What light shines around the saddest and roughest road when we remember what faith has done! No trouble can overwhelm, no enemy can overthrow the life that has this foundation. Faith was strong for these great deeds because she had hold of the arm of God. She moved the arm that moved the world. Be strong in such thoughts for your life-struggle.

—J. Telford, The Preacher's Magazine, vol. v. p269.

Hebrews 11:32-34

There is a remarkable chapter in the Epistle to the Hebrews 11:33

There are three religious ideas, the connection of which with one another I will try to set forth: Promises, Faith, Prayer.

I. Promises.—What are the promises? Those of you who are diligent readers of the Bible do not need to be told that a large proportion of God's Word consists of promises. All who can discern the inspiration of the Scriptures at all would allow that nowhere is Divinity more visible and unmistakable than in these passages. The very mind of God, the very heart of the Most High comes out in these promises, and it is not only by this that their Divinity can be recognised, but also by their humanity. In reading a book on the teaching of Jesus, I recently came across this remark: "If Godly people keep books of promises, why do they not also keep books of commandments, especially the commandments of Jesus?" I venture to say that if you want the commandments to be well attended to, the best thing you can do is to attend well to the promises. If the promises of religion have free course and are glorified, there is little fear but the commandments will get their chance likewise.

II. Faith.—Faith is the second idea to connect in your minds with the promises. Faith is that in man which corresponds to promises in God. It is the human hand which grasps the promises as they hang down from on high, or rather, if I might say Hebrews 11:33

Gerard Roussel, the learned but timid Canon of Meaux, who was the friend of Bishop Briconnet and Margaret of Angoulême, left Meaux for Strasbourg in1525. He was too cautious to join with men like Farel, Zwingli, and Œcolampadius. To the last of these three reformers he wrote, after reciting the list of his opponents—the bishops, the doctors, the universities, the populace, the Parlement—Quid faciet homuncio adversus tot leones? "What shall a little man do against so many lions?" Prof. Baird, in quoting this letter, remarks: "A reference to the book of Daniel might have enabled the Canon of Meaux to answer his own question".

References.—XI:33.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii. No435. J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p312. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p361.

Heroes and Martyrs

Hebrews 11:33-34

From the persons whom he has just mentioned, the Hebrews 11:37

The suffering of martyrdom was in some respects peculiar. It was a death, cruel in itself, publicly inflicted: and heightened by the fierce exultation of a malevolent populace. When we are in pain, we can lie in peace by ourselves. We receive the sympathy and kind services of those about us; and if we like it, we can retire altogether from the sight of others, and suffer without a witness to interrupt us. But the sufferings of martyrdom were for the most part public, attended with every circumstance of ignominy and popular triumph, as well as with torture. Criminals indeed are put to death without kindly thoughts from bystanders; still, for the most part, even criminals receive commiseration and a sort of respect. But the early Christians had to endure "the shame" after their Master's pattern. They had to die in the midst of enemies who reviled them, and in mockery, bid them (as in Christ's case) come down from the cross. They were supported on no easy couch, soothed by no attentive friends; and considering how much the depressing power of pain depends on the imagination, this circumstance alone at once separates their sufferings widely from all instances of pain in disease. The unseen God alone was their Comforter, and this invests the scene of their suffering with supernatural majesty, and awes us when we think of them. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me." A martyrdom is a season of God's especial power in the eye of faith, as great as if a miracle were visibly wrought It is a fellowship of Christ's sufferings, a commemoration of His death, a representation filling up in figure, "that which is behind of His afflictions, for his Body's sake, which is the Church". And thus, being an august solemnity in itself, and a kind of sacrament, a baptism of blood, it worthily finishes that long searching trial which I have already described as being its usual forerunner in primitive times.

—J. H. Newman.

References.—XI:37.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No1628. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p118.

Hebrews 11:37-38

Describing, in Under the Syrian Sun (vol. II. pp357 f.), the martyrs of Babism in Persia, Mr. A. C. Inchbold observes that "the Bab proclaimed the new faith, of which he openly avowed himself the Divine mouthpiece, during six years of persecution conducted on lines of a drastic, unparalleled severity. Among his immediate apostles and general adherents were counted many intellectual men of good position, and holding enlightened views. These people were hunted down like wild beasts, put to death by the most horrible torture that the ingenuity of fiendish man could devise. Like the Christian martyrs of old, "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth"."

It is for the suppression of freedom that tortures have always been expressly used. For freedom of life and mind men and women have suffered more than for the filthiest crimes. "They were tortured," says the old writer, "not accepting deliverance. Others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented." And having reached that point, unable to restrain his admiration any longer, he throws in the words—"of whom the world was not worthy". It was the same cause of freedom and the same heroic mind that filled the torture chambers of Europe from Domitian down to Bomba. Always the worst suffering has been reserved for liberty.

—From The Nation, (4May, 1907), p375.

References.—XI:38.—J. G. Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv. p328. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons, p411.

Man Perfected Through Suffering

Hebrews 11:39-40

I. The words teach that the fundamental gifts of the religious life can be received by the individual in isolation and obscurity. We may be ready to ask the question, Was it not hard that these early believers, who had so nobly satisfied God's demand upon their faith, should be shut out from their full and final blessedness for ages? Let it suffice to reply that they received, without a single exception, compensations that in the meantime more than filled up the measure of their desires. (1) Their comparative ignorance and detachment did not bar them from the possession of this precious rudimentary grace. (2) In the absence of the fully accomplished promise, a witness of some sort was vital to their sustained fidelity. The God who had called them to His service could not well leave them destitute of it. (3) And then God could not leave an unnecessary burden on the conscience of His people.

II. The crowning gifts of the religious life can only be received in common with the completed Church of the elect. "That they without us should not be made perfect." (1) The life of nature is social, and its different parts are perfected together. God seems to delight in the magnificence of aggregate effects. And is it not so also in the spiritual world? Not till the golden chime is heard that proclaims the approach of God's ripe summer will the life of all the separate ages receive its highest glory and development. The higher you ascend in the scale of life, the more pronounced is this principle of interdependence. (2) With the setting up of the New Dispensation some new effusion of light and knowledge and spiritual victory has come to the Old Testament saints in the region of the unseen. Progress is not the monopoly of those who are in the flesh. Christ's mediatorial sacrifice was for patriarchs, prophets, and righteous men of old, and it has brought them abreast of us in privilege and insight and power. (3) Besides the richer effusion of joy that came to the first generation of God's servants through the work of God's Incarnate Son, their joy is further perfected with the progressive perfecting of human history. (4) The text suggests that there is a larger fulfilment of the Covenant in the last great day, for which the spirits of the Old and the New Dispensation must alike wait. The noble army of martyrs can only be fully crowned when the last pale recruit to their numbers shall have come in. (5) The fact that God should have determined to perfect the men of all ages together shows how much He thinks of those great principles of mutual association and fellowship which we sometimes esteem so little. He shows honour to those lowly disciples and followers of His Son whom we do not sufficiently honour. (6) God seems to be teaching us in this way the humility which can be best learned and exercised through fellowship. It is a check to our pride to be reminded that we can only be crowned in common with the rest. (7) And then by perfecting His servants together God seems to remind us of the graciousness and beauty of patience. Disembodied saints of the olden time are waiting for us, and we shall have to wait for them. (8) And then God has ordained that the perfecting of our destinies shall be in common, because He wishes to set forth His grace and power upon a scale of incomparable magnificence. The canvas on which God's hand is to work its consummate miracle must be stretched to its utmost dimensions.

References.—XI:39 , 40.—Bishop Boyd-Carpenter, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p40 , and vol. lix. p17. John Thomas, ibid. vol. lviii. p120. Expositor (5th Series), vol. vi. p160. XI:40.—J. R. Bailey, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlviii. p164.