5. Unbelief is one of the sins which God punishes with the most awful judgments. The church of the Jews, before and after our Saviour, is a pregnant proof hereof. The generation in the wilderness were, for their unbelief, absolutely excluded from entering into the promised land. God entered a caveat against them, with no less solemnity than that of an oath. They were doomed to pass a miserable and inglorious life for forty years in the wilderness, and then their carcases were to fall to dung it. And as for that generation which filled up the measure of their fathers, in rejecting the Messiah, you know what was their fate. Our Lord told them of it, and it came to pass not long after his ascension. Their whole polity, civil and ecclesiastical, was overturned; their city was besieged; their temple destroyed, insomuch that one stone of it was not left upon another; and all this because of their unbelief. Therefore I say to you, as in Rom. xi. 20, “Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear.”

6. Unbelief is that sin, which, above all others, excludes multitudes of the hearers of the gospel from the rest promised therein. Mark xvi. 16, "He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." As faith is the precise point upon which our salvation turns, so unbelief is the precise point upon which our condemnation turns.

Moreover, when the Lord comes in flaming fire, he is to take vengeance upon them that obey not the gospel. Now, what is the obedience that the gospel requires? Why, it is the obedience of faith; it is believing. This is the only obedience which the gospel requires; and those who refuse to obey it are unbelievers; and as such, God will judge and condemn them at the last day.

It is a sin against the remedy of all sins. And what is his remedy? It is the blood of Christ, or free grace. belief is levelled directly against them; so that the unover cannot, or rather will not be saved. Yea, whence that the sin against the Holy Ghost is said to be un

pardonable? is it from any defect in the blood of Christ? is it because there is not enough of grace and mercy in God to pardon such a heinous sin? By no means. It flows from the unbelief and impiety of those that are guilty of this sin. There is no sin so great, but God will pardon it, upon the sinner's believing in Christ and turning from it; but the nature of this sin is such, that the sinner, wilfully, deliberately, and maliciously rejects Christ and all the salvation purchased by him. So that the unpardonableness of this sin is absolutely owing to the sinner, and not to the God of all grace.

7. Unbelief is the great disturber of the saints' peace and comfort while they are in this world. Saints, though they have not evil hearts of unbelief, yet they have unbelief in their hearts in a greater or lesser degree; and this is the procuring cause of all their wilderness provocations, and consequently the procuring cause of all their wilderness tribulations. I know not indeed but that God may sometimes afflict his people out of mere sovereignty; and I think there is something like it in Job's case. Observe what the Lord says of him to Satan:-"Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in all the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause." Howbeit, if there be such a thing as God's afflicting his people out of mere sovereignty, it happens very seldom; for he "does not afflict willingly." There is generally some particular transgression for which he contends with them; and that particular transgression is either unbelief itself, or some of its fruits. Nay, were it not for unbelief, the saints might have a very heaven here upon earth. But unbelief, though it cannot break the peace, (for he that made it maintains it,) yet it frequently darkens the evidence of it; and this throws them into great distress. It is the prevalence of unbelief that makes them frequently cry out, "Has he forgotten to be gracious? is his mercy clean gone? does his promise fail for

evermore?" It is unbelief that fills them with jealousies against God, as if in some dispensations he designed their ruin, when he really aims at their good. "All these things are against me," says Jacob. "All men are liars," says David. Thus you see it is a great enemy to the saints. No wonder that they complain heavily of their unbelieving hearts, for they are the source of much sin and much sor

row.

8. Unbelief is such a sin that the oath of God is engaged against it. He speaks against other sins in severe threatenings; but the oath of God is engaged against no sin but unbelief, Heb. iii. 18. The murmurings and rebellions of Israel in the wilderness were very provoking sins; but that which gave them such a height of provocation, that God entered a caveat against them with no less solemnity than that of an oath, was their relation to unbelief.

Thus, my brethren, if you continue in unbelief, you shall be as really excluded from the heavenly Canaan, as the murmuring Israelites were from the earthly Canaan. It shall not be in your power to enter into it; for the oath of God stands as a bar in your way.

9. I observe, that for as horrid a notion as we generally have of atheism, it is but unbelief in its highest degree. An atheist is one who does not believe a God, a providence, and a future state: and is not such an one an unbeliever? so that a common and ordinary unbeliever among the hearers of the gospel, is a sinner of the same kind with a professed atheist. He has the same principle of sin in him; and were it not for the divine restraint, that principle would be winded up to the height of atheism.

As people do not become vicious in their practice all of a sudden, so neither do any become immediately debauched in their principles. They proceed from lesser to greater: they inure themselves to a disbelief of the promises of the gospel; then they disbelieve the threatenings of the law against sin, and this necessarily leads them to a disbelief of the Lawgiver, and then they commence atheists: they say, at least they wish in their hearts there were no God.

SERMON XII.

THE NATURE OF UNBELIEF OPENED UP, AND ITS PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE UPON PROFESSORS OF THE GOSPEL ILLUSTRATED.

HEB. iii. 12.—“ Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God."

[Second Sermon on this Text.]

THE method proposed was, in the first place, I. To mention some things plainly implied in the text and doctrine. II. To open the nature of unbelief, and show you wherein it consists. III. To lay down some propositions regarding unbelief, which may further discover its heinous nature and hurtful tendency. IV. To inquire into that influence which unbelief has upon some professors, to make them apostates from their profession, and so depart from the living God; and, Lastly, To apply.

The three first of these heads have been fully considered already. I now proceed, in the fourth place,

IV. To inquire into the influence which unbelief has upon some professors, to make them apostates from their profession, and so depart from the living God.

1. Let it be observed concerning such professors, that unbelief, having always been the prevailing principle in their hearts, they never had the root of the matter in them.

They never had anything of Christianity, but what might be lost as easily as it was obtained. They never went far

ther in it, that what might well enough consist with an absolutely prevailing principle of unbelief. As for the life of Christianity, those who have attained unto it, can never fall from it totally or finally; for unbelief, as to its absolute prevalency, is subdued in them, and a contrary principle is planted in their souls, 1 John iii. 9. But as for an outward profession of Christianity, which people maintain by a form of godliness, they may fall from it; yea, they cannot well continue long in it, while unbelief absolutely prevails in their hearts; for that principle is always upon the growing hand; it is rising higher and higher, until it come to such a height, that the person throws off the very profession of Christianity.

2. Unbelief prevailing in the heart, gives the loose, as it were, to all other corrupt lusts and affections that are there. Unbelief has the throne in their hearts: there it sits as king: all the other lusts are its servants, which it commands to go or come as it pleases. Hence, though other sins, as love of this present world, or love to carnal ease, may be the proximate and immediate causes of apostacy, yet it is unbelief that engenders these sins in the heart, and strengthens them to such a degree, that they throw off that profession of religion which is like to be dangerous to them. Demas forsook Paul, for the love of this present world. But had Demas had a principle of faith in him, it would have subdued his love of this present world, and would have made him look for a better and more enduring inheritance in the heavens. But instead of that, he had a reigning principle of unbelief, which gave the loose to those and all his other lusts, that were like to be starved, if he had continued in the profession of Christianity.

3. Unbelief casts all noble and generous principles out of the heart. It dispirits a man, and makes him a downright coward, so that he dare not go forward in the way of religion, but draws back. Hence, in Rev. xxi. 8, the fearful and unbelieving are ranked together, as being near akin: fear is the child, and unbelief is the parent. The