5. A constant expectation of eternal reward argues a vigorous exercise of faith, and a sedulous attendance upon all the duties of obedience; for without these it will not be raised nor preserved, 2 Cor. iv, 16, 17; 1 John, iii, 1-3.

VERSE 11.

Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age; because she judged him faithful who had promised.

§1. Transition and connexion. $2. (I.) Exposition. Sarah. $3. Remarks on her faith. $4. The effects, and $5. Foundation of it. §6. (II.) Observations.

§1. HERE he proceeds to the instances of his faith with respect to the promise made him, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. And these also are two;-that which concerneth the birth of Isaac, by whom the promise was to have its accomplishment; and what he did by faith in offering up the son of the promise at the command of God.

In the first of these, Abraham was not alone, but Sarah his wife was both naturally and spiritually no less concerned than himself. Wherefore the apostle in the midst of his discourse concerning Abraham and his faith, in this one instance introduceth Sarah, with great propriety, in conjunction with him.

§2. (Kai avîn Zappa) and, or also, Sarah herself; as Abraham was the father of the faithful, or the church, so she was the mother of it, so as that the distinct mention of her faith was necessary. She was the free woman from whence the church sprung, Gal. iv, 22, 23; and all believing women are her daughters, 1 Pet. iii, 6; see Gen. xvii, 16. Her working and obedience is proposed to the church as an example, and therefore her faith also may justly be so; 1 Pet. iii, 5, 6; besides, she was equally concerned in the divine revelation with Abraham, and was as sensible of great difficulties in its ac

complishment as Abraham, if not more; to which we may add, that the blessing of the promised seed was confined and appropriated to Sarah no less than to Abraham; Gen. xvii, 16, "I will bless her, yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations." Herein her faith was necessary, and is here honorably recorded.

§3. Something may be remarked in the very proposing of this instance;

1. It is the faith of a woman that is celebrated. Hence that sex may learn, that they also may be examples of faith to the whole church, as Sarah was; and it is necessary for their encouragement, because of the special concernment of their sex in the first entrance of sin; because of their natural weakness, subject in a peculiar manner to various temptations, which in this example they are encouraged to conflict with and overcome by faith. Whence it is that they are heirs, together with their believing husbands, of the grace of life, 1 Pet. iii, 7.

2. Here is a single commendation of the faith of Sarah, even in that very instance wherein it was shaken; yea, being awakened by reproof, Gen. xviii, 13, 14; and receiving a fuller evidence that it was the Lord who spoke to her, she recovered herself, and rested by faith in his power and truth.

3. The carriage of Sarah is twice repeated by the Holy Ghost, here and 1 Pet. iii, 6, and in both places only what was good-her faith towards God on her recovery after the reproof, and her observance of her husband, whom, speaking to himself, she called Lord-is mentioned and proposed without the least remembrance of her failing or miscarriage; and such will be the judgment of Christ at the last day, concerning all those whose faith and obedience are sincere, though accompanied with many failings.

§4. "She received strength;" (λaße) she received it; she had it in a way of free gift; (duvapiv) strength, power, and ability. I believe that this was not a mere miraculous generation, but that she received a general restoration of her nature for its primitive operations, which was before decayed; as Abraham afterwards, who, after his body was in a manner dead, received strength to have many children by Keturah; (Es nælæßoλnv otepμalos) to conceive seed, a child, in a natural way and manner; she conceived and accordingly bore a son, Gen. xxii, 2.

That which is eminent herein, manifesting that it was a mere effect of faith, is, that it was thus with her (apa naιpov aç) after the season of age was past. So the apostle expounds that passage in Moses, "Sarah was old and well stricken in age, and it ceased to be with her after the manner of women," Gen. xviii, 11, 12. She was ninety years old at that time, Gen. xvii, 17; and this at first shook her faith, for want of a due consideration of the omnipotency of God; Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" Gen. xviii, 14. She considered not, that where divine veracity was engaged by promise, infinite power would be also engaged to make it good.

$5. "Because she judged him faithful who had promised; (Exe, quoniam) because; signifying the reason of what was before asserted; (nynalo) she judged; she reckoned, esteemed, reputed him to be so. And herein the nature of true faith in general doth consist, viz. in "the mind's judging and determining upon the evidence proposed;" when she recollected herself, and took off her mind from the thing promised to the special object of her faith; (TOY εTayyελhoμevov) the promiser, who was God himself, faith prevailed; she then came to this resolution-whatever difficulties or oppositions lie in

the way of accomplishing the promise, he who made it is able to remove them all; and she farther concluded, on the surest grounds, that he would make good his word wherein he had caused her to put her trust; "because she judged him who had promised (TV) faithful." Is any thing too hard for the Lord?

$6. (I.) From this account of Sarah's faith observe; 1. Faith may be sorely shaken and tossed with difficulties, at their appearance, lying in the way of the promise, which yet at last it shall overcome; sometimes the weakness of faith ariseth to a distrust of the event of promises, or their accomplishment, because of the difficulties that lie in the way, Luke i, 18-20. So was it with Sarah on this occasion, for which she was reproved; and this at times is found in us all. It is therefore our duty to watch that our faith be not surprised, or shaken by the appearance of difficulties and opposition; and not to despond utterly on account of any partial failure, for it is in its very nature, by the use of means, to recover its vigor and efficacy.

2. It is no defect in faith not to expect events and blessings absolutely above the use of means, unless we have a particular warranty for it; as Sarah had in this

case.

3. The duty and use of faith about temporal mercies are to be regulated by the general rules of the word where no special providence makes the application of a promise.

4. The mercy here spoken of concerning a son to Abraham by Sarah his wife was absolutely decreed, and absolutely promised; yet God indispensably requires faith in them for the fulfilling of that decree and the accomplishment of that promise.

5. That the formal object of faith in the divine promises is not the things promised in the first place,

but God himself in his essential excellencies of truth or faithfulness and power. To fix our minds on the things themselves promised, to have an expectation or supposition of the enjoyment of them, (suppose mercy, grace, pardon, glory,) without a previous acquiescency of mind in the truth and faithfulness of God, or on God himself, as faithful and able to accomplish them, is but a deceiving imagination.

6. Every promise of God hath this consideration tacitly annexed to it, "Is any thing too hard for the Lord?" There is no divine promise, when it comes to the trial, as to our closing with it, but we apprehend as great a difficulty and improbability of its accomplishment to us, as Sarah did of this. Poor, humbled, broken souls, burdened with sins, and entangled in their own darkness, find insuperable difficulties, as they apprehend, in the way of accomplishing the promises. But "is any thing too hard for the Lord?"

7. Although the veracity and faithfulness of God be in a peculiar manner the immediate object of our faith, yet it takes in the consideration of all other divine excellencies for its encouragement and corroboration; and all of them together are that name of God, whereon a believing soul stays itself-in all extremities, Isa. i, 10. And,

8. This is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; that is, the righteousness of Christ as tendered in the promise, is made known and communicated from the faith of God therein to the faith of them by whom it is believed.