We choose for the subject of this chapter the faith of Abraham. But we shall not dismiss in silence the faith of Abel, Enoch, and Noah. The paragraph in which Abraham’s deeds are recorded will most naturally divide itself into three comparisons between their faith and his. We venture to think that this was in the writer’s mind and determined the form of the passage. From the eighth to the tenth verse the Apostle compares Abraham’s faith with that of Noah; after a short episode concerning Sarah, he compares Abraham’s faith with Enoch’s, from the thirteenth verse to the sixteenth; then, down to the nineteenth verse, he compares Abraham’s faith with that of Abel. Noah’s faith appeared in an act of obedience, Enoch’s in a life of fellowship with God, Abel’s in his more excellent sacrifice. Abraham’s faith manifested itself in all these ways. When he was called, he obeyed; when a sojourner, he desired a better country, that is, a heavenly, and God was not ashamed to be called his God; being tried, he offered up Isaac. Two points of surpassing worth in his faith suggest themselves. The one is largeness and variety of experience; the other is conquest over difficulties. These are the constituents of a great saint. Many a good man will not become a strong spiritual character because his experience of life is too narrow. Others, whose range is wide, fail to reach the higher altitudes of saintliness because they have never been called to pass through sore trials, or, if they have heard the summons, have shrunk from the hardships. Before Abraham faith was both limited in its experience and untested with heaven-sent difficulties. Abraham’s religion was complex. His faith was “a perfect cube,” and, presenting a face to every wind that blows, came victorious out of every trial. Let us trace the comparisons. _First_, Noah obeyed a Divine command when he built an ark to the saving of his house. He obeyed by faith. His eyes saw the invisible, and the vision kindled his hopes of being saved through the very waters that would destroy every living substance. But this was all. His faith acted only in one direction: he hoped to be saved. The Apostle Peter[258] compares his faith to the initial grace of those who seek baptism, and have only crossed the threshold of the spiritual life. It is true that he overcame one class of difficulties. He was not in bondage to the things of sense. He made provision for a future belied by present appearances. But the influence of the senses is not the greatest difficulty of the human spirit. As the lonely ship rode on the heaving waste of waters, all within was gladness and peace. No heaven-sent temptations tried the patriarch’s faith, He overcame the trials that spring out of the earth; but he knew not the anguish that rends the spirit like a lightning-stroke descending from God.