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thefe Things are debating: And, though they can only be tried at the Bar of Reason, yet the Heart will be Counsel on one Side or other: And even in these Cases there is Reason to remember the Apoftolical Admonition, Take heed, left there be in you an evil Heart of Unbelief.

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DISCOURSE

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Proceed to confider the Character given in the Text of an unbelieving Heart; namely, That it makes us depart from the living God. What may be proper to be faid on this Subject may be reduced, I think, under these three Heads:

First, To fhew, that it is for want of Faith, confidered as a Principle of Religion, that Men depart from the living God.

Secondly, That Faith cannot be a Principle of Religion, until it has its Effects and Operations in the Heart.

Thirdly, That the Motions and Operations of the Heart are in great measure under our own Power and Government.

And

And from hence it will evidently appear, how much it is the Business and Concern of a religious Life to be watchful over the Heart, to guard against all fuch Affections as will destroy the Influence of Faith, and render the Heart uncapable of receiving the Impreffions of the Spirit of God.

First then, We are to fhew that it is for want of Faith, confidered as a Principle of Religion, that Men depart from the living God. What is meant by departing from God, will appear by comparing this with other equivalent Expreffions made use of in this Chapter. In the eighth Verse the Apostle introduces the Holy Ghost speaking in the Language of the Pfalmift, and thus forewarning the People, Harden not your Hearts. In the tenth Verfe God complains of the rebellious Ifraelites in the Wilderness, faying, They do always err in their Hearts, and they have not known my Ways. In the Verfe immediately after the Text the Apostle thus explains his Meaning: But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, left any of you be hardened through the Deceitfulness of Sin. So then, to be hardened in Heart, to err in Heart, not to know or walk in the Ways of God, to be hardened through the Deceitfulness of Sin, are one and the fame

Thing as departing from the living God: And the Meaning of these figurative Expreffions is clearly explained at the seventeenth Verse: But with whom was he grieved forty Years? was it not with them that had finned? As Sinners are faid to depart from God, fo thofe who forfake Sin, and are converted, are faid, in the Language of Scripture, to turn to God. Of the holy Baptift, who came preaching Repentance from dead Works, it was foretold, That he should turn many to the Lord their God, Luke i. 16. And the Apostles Paul and Barnabas thus describe the Purpose and End of their Mis, fion: We preach unto you, that ye should turn from thefe Vanities unto the living God, Acts xiv. 15.

The Propriety of thefe Expreffions will appear, if we confider God, under the Representation made of him by our Saviour in the Parable of the Prodigal, as the Father of the Family; and Sinners as prodigal Sons, who, weary of their Father's Government, forfake his Houfe, and reduced by Luxury and Riot, enter into the Service of strange Masters, till the Senfe of Want and their own Mifery brings them back to beg Admittance again into their Father's House. Thus the Nations of old forfook the Service

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