of grace and felicity, and received glory. For this cause the holy patriarchs, though they abounded in earthly possessions, yet lost not their salvation. For indeed, they referred all their fortune, their prosperity, their abundance, to God. Thus Noah, saved from the deluge, ‘builded an altar unto the Lord;’ thus Abraham, having received a promise of the land for a possession, ‘built an altar unto the Lord.’ Thus did Isaac when he received the promise of the seed; thus did Jacob when delivered from the fear of Esau; thus, too, in acknowledgment of the good things they acquired, they called these things gifts of God; as Joseph called his sons, and as Jacob his sons and his flocks.
“If those who sail in prosperity, would but imitate these, and sing praises to God, they would reach the port of safety without difficulty.”
I have said that Faber did not excel in simile. I must instance a few of his attempts at illustration of this nature, to corroborate my statement.
In one sermon, already quoted, he speaks of persons who begin repentance, and then soon break off from their pious exercises, to return to their old state of torpor and indifference, and he says they resemble frogs, which crawl a little way out of their swamp, but, at the least sound to alarm them, flop into their slough again.
In another sermon, Faber rebukes those who ask thoughtlessly in prayer, and make no use of the blessings given them in answer, and he tells them they are like the boys who on bonfire night go about begging wood with the song,—
