2. Very excellent things are spoken of faith, and whosoever is a partaker thereof, may well say with the apostle, _Thanks be to God, for his unspeakable gift_. Yet still it loses all its excellence, when brought into a comparison with love. What St. _Paul_ observes concerning the superior glory of the gospel, above that of the law, may with great propriety be spoken of the superior glory of love, above that of faith. _Even that which was made glorious, hath no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away is glorious, much more doth that which remaineth exceed in glory._ Yea, all the glory of faith before it is done away, arises hence, That it ministers to love. It is the great temporary means which God has ordained to promote that eternal end. 3. *Let those who magnify faith beyond all proportion, so as to swallow up all things else, and who so totally misapprehend the nature of it, as to imagine it stands in the place of love, consider farther, That as love will exist after faith, so it did exist long before it. The angels, who from the moment of their creation, beheld the face of their Father that is in heaven, had no occasion for faith, in its general notion, as it is the evidence of things not seen. Neither had they need of faith, in its more particular acceptation, faith in the blood of Jesus: for he took not upon him the nature of angels; but only the seed of _Abraham_. There was therefore no place before the foundation of the world, for faith either in the general or particular sense. But there was for love. Love existed from eternity, in God, the great ocean of love. Love had a place in all the children of God, from the moment of their creation. They received at once from their gracious Creator, to exist, and to love. 4. Nor is it certain (as ingeniously and plausibly as many have descanted upon this.) That faith, even in the general sense of the word, had any place in paradise. It is highly probable, from that short and uncircumstantial account which we have in holy writ, That _Adam_ before he rebelled against God, walked with him by sight and not by faith. “For then his reason’s eye was strong and clear, And as an eagle can behold the sun, Might have beheld his Maker’s face as near, As th’ intellectual angels could have done.” He was then able to talk with him face to face, whose face we cannot now see and live. And consequently had no need of that faith, whose office it is, to supply the want of sight.