PREFACE.

THE Apostle declares: Without faith it is impossible to please God. Faith is the foundation of the spiritual edifice; the beginning of man's salvation. Without faith no man can obtain justification here, or glorification hereafter. If any man walk not by faith in this world, he cannot arrive at the reality in the world to come; apart from faith, a man's whole labor and good works are barren and fruitless. The man who would without the true faith strive to please God, is like the man in quest of his happy home; he never arrives there, if he know not the true way, but goes by crooked and devious paths that will surely lead him to the precipice and doleful death. But the faith is smothered and lost amidst the briars and thistles, amidst worldly cares and sensual pleasures for they who desire to grow rich, fall into temptation and into the snare of the devil, and into many unprofitable and hurtful desires, which drown men into destruction and perdition, I. Tim. VI. As the frivolous youth amuses himself with the empty and fleeting bubbles on the pool, so worldings take delight in false riches and sensual pleasures, which will vanish from their hands, like the transient shadow, at the hour of death. Morever, these riches and pleasures which infatuated man so eagerly pursues and covets