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If you would be filled with heavenly thoughts, for all our speeches are only to furnish such thoughts to you, it were well. If the Lord would be pleased to fall in immediately upon your hearts, and fill them with holy and heavenly thoughts, that so you might be also godly without, and especially now at this time, it would be comfortable to you, and it would be an evidence to you of the favor of God. It was by faith that Enoch pleased God,1 for he is one in that roll of believers, because he walked with God, and by his walking with God he pleased God; and he, pleasing God here, he in his own time translated him into heaven, and possessed him there in life everlasting, both in soul and body. So he had faith; for without faith it is impossible to please God, and there is nothing we can do can be acceptable without faith. And, therefore, as there is much spoken of faith here and elsewhere, so I would have you laboring to have it: and, indeed, it is wrought by the Spirit of God; therefore cry to him for it.
If the host of Israel, walking calmly about the walls of Jericho, had called to mind this, that Enoch, after that he had walked a while with God, and pleased him, was then translated into happiness in heaven, so when God’s appointed time came, they might be assured of victory by his example; for he was a witness to them, and every one in the cloud of witnesses was a proof to them. And I would wish that when through unbelief manifold disorders break out into you, and you find strongholds of unbelief that you cannot get brought down, that you would then look to the cloud of witnesses, and read this same chapter, Hebrews 11, and meditate upon every example of it; and then, by the Spirit of God, and that little spark of faith which you had, you would find comfort. Nevertheless Enoch, he was translated that he should not see death. Was this for any possessions he had in earth, or for any honor and excellence he had in the world, or for any natural part in him, or for any supernatural part other than faith? No, it was Christ, by his faith, who did translate him; for he believed in God through Christ, and therefore he was acceptable to God. And therefore let us thank God for any earthly thing that we have, but let us not think that it will make us acceptable to God; but if we be his children, he only gives us these because we are acceptable to him. All these are as ornaments and pearls to the child of God, but faith is a diamond hung upon the breast, adorning all the rest. If we have the grace of faith, we have enough; but if we have it not, then we have nothing.2