God the all-sufficient object for our spirits, His love, the communication of Himself, the sense of His presence, the depths of His infinite character, of His wondrous ways, of His revealed Truth as an object for thought: of His authoritative will as imperative for will and conscience: aspiration towards Him. God the Eternal Object. To find Him in everything, and everything in Him, is to be at rest. This is what He promises-- Not a life of outward success and ease--much nobler than if He did. Take Abram's as a type. In war He will be our Defence. In absence of other joys He will be Enough. Sphered and included in Him is all sweetness. He sustains all relations, and does for us what these other joys and goods partially do. The possession of His love should put away all fear, since having Him we are not at the mercy of externals. What, then, is Life as men ordinarily make it?--what a blunder! 3. To possess God is enough for heaven. Such a relationship is the great proof of immortality. Christ and Sadducees. The true glory of heaven is in fuller possession of God: no doubt other things, but these subsidiary. The Reward is God. The idea of recompense ample and full for all sorrow. More than adequate wages for all work. That final reward will show how wise the wanderer was, who left his father's house and 'looked for a city.' God is not ashamed to be called their God. Christ comes to us--offers Himself. Think of how rich with Him, and oh, think of how poor without Him! Which will you have on earth? Which will you have in another world? FAITH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS 'And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.' GENESIS XV. 6. It is remarkable to find this anticipation of New Testament teaching so far back. It is like finding one full-blown flower in a garden where all else is but swelling into bud. No wonder that Paul fastened on it to prove that justification by faith was older than Moses, than law or circumcision, that his teaching was the real original, and that faith lay at the foundation of the Old Testament religion. 1. The Nature of Faith.--The metaphor in the Hebrew word is that of a man leaning all his weight on some strong stay. Surely that metaphor says more than many definitions. It teaches that the essence of faith is absolute reliance, and that unites us with Him on whom we rely. Its result will be steadfastness. We are weak, mobile, apt to be driven hither and thither, but light things lashed to fixed things become fixed. So 'reeds shaken with wind' are changed into iron pillars.