is now accomplished prevent you from obtaining your reward. Ever remember that this world is the theatre of conflict, not repose. Those unfortunate Hebrews who fell in the wilderness all started from Egypt with bright prospects and strong confidence; but having failed by the way, they were cut off from the promise. Rest not satisfied with your present attainments in holiness; but fix your steady gaze upon the crown, and fight until it is won.Never give over the struggle until your faith is changed to sight, and the sorrows of time give place to the bliss of eternity.

From this mo

Probably however, you have never given your attention to sacred things-never submitted yourselves to the Lord Jesus-and never thought of relying upon him for salvation. "To-day then, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." ment determine to remain no longer insensible to the claims of God. and your souls-no longer turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of the compassionate Jesus-and no longer slight his calls to penitence and holiness. Be careful-I beseech you, be careful how you deal with sacred things, or tamper with Jehovah. The voice of warning addresses you most solemnly from this subject. And admonished by friendship and the misfortunes of others, conclude at once to turn your faces Zionward. Let this be the day-nay, the hour from which you shall hereafter date the beginning of the work of your redemption. Delay not; this is the time. The Bible says now the Spirit says now-Jesus bending from the mercy-seat says now each moment as it flits by you on rapid wing to eternity says now, now, now! Do you only say now. Now give your hearts to God. Now let the heavenly stranger in. Now obey your Savior's call. Now embrace the bleeding Lamb. And an eternity of rest, and love, and peace shall be your fadeless inheritance.

LECTURE VII.

THE SIN OF UNBELIEF.

Heb. iii. 12-19. Take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end; While it is said, To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation. For some, when they had heard, did provoke : howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses, But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

In the last lecture your attention was called to the apostle's argument upon Christ's superiority to Moses, and to a few remarks growing out of it. In the words just read, the application of that argument and the train of reflections which it excited is still continued. We find here 1st an evil spoken of, 2nd a direction given how to avoid it, and 3d, motive urged for attending to this direction.

This will then be the proper order to be observed in studying the import and bearings of the text.

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heartof unbelief, in departing from the living God."

Unbelief literally means, a want of confidence. Sometimes it is restricted to a want of confidence in the truth and sufficiency of the Gospel, or a want of trust in the Lord Jesus for salvation. In the case of the Jews alluded to in the text, it consisted in distrust in the verity of Divine promises. It had been declared by Moses, that the Lord had prepared and intended to give to his chosen people a land of rest, upon the conditions that they complied with his commandments. Of the truth and sincerity of these declarations they had the most ample evidences. But in the face of all those stupendous manifestations of Divine power attending their deliverancefrom the land of bondage, many murmured-distrusted-rebelled-and perished in the wilderness. The cause of their fall was unbelief.

In the present day may be enumerated three classes of unbelievers. The first class comprises all those persons who either parti

ally or entirely reject the Gospel as unworthy of serious attention. Here are to be ranked infidels, who disbelieve the truths of revelation altogether; Jews, who reject the Messiahship of Christ; and all who question the Deity of Christ-deny the atonement of Christ -associate human merit with the righteousness of Christ—or in any way trust to themselves and their own efforts for salvation. All these are represented in the Scriptures, and are to be regarded by us, as unbelievers who have no title to everlasting life.

Another and more numerous class embraces all those persons who give a kind of verbal assent to the truths of Christianity, but who do not consider to what they are assenting, or give themselves any concern as to whether they are influenced or not by the great truths which they apparently admit. The vast majority of those who live in christian countries have a sort of general belief in religion. According to their own way they believe the Gospel. They have no disposition to doubt its Divine authority. They give their assent to all the evidences on which it rests, and are ready to hurl back with indignation any charges of infidelity which might be brought against them. Their only, but their great deficiency is, that they do not embrace it with the proper warmth. They do not ponder its momentous teachings, nor yield obedience to its requirements. They coolly admit it to be the word of God and the only guide to substantial happiness, but manifest no concern as to what it contains, and never bring home its sublime doctrines with the urgency of personal application. They esteem religion well enough in its place, or for those disposed to embrace it, but they are not impressed with the necessity of taking its obligations upon themselves, or of joining in the observance of its sacred rites. All such, though theoretical believers are practical infidels. They have no claim acknowledged by the Scriptures to the blessings of salvation.

A third class consists of such as not only assent to the general truths of revelation, but also profess their faith, assume all the obligations of religion, and go through the formal exercises of christian duty, yet live in constant and habitual indulgence in sin. Such maintain an external decency in the church, but have not the life of true christians. Some even go so far as to study the Bible, they almost speak the language of the holy book, but their conduct and private life come short both of its spirit and its letter. I refer now to hypocrites, formalists, and cold professors, who have a name to live but in reality are dead. Nor is this an inconsiderable class.

They are to be found all over christendom disgracing the church and scandalizing the religion of Jesus. They hang as clogging weights to the wheels of the chariot of the Gospel, and linger in putrid masses about every congregational altar. Whatever may be the pretensions of such, whatever may be their outward sanctimoniousness, they are as whited sepulchres full of corruption and rottenness. Their hearts are unbelieving.

Faith is that exercise of mind by which we warmly embrace the Savior in his several offices of prophet, priest, and king—that peaceful reclining of the soul upon the efficacy of Christ's mediation for salvation. It is something which cannot be induced by a mere mathematical demonstration.. Argument can go no farther than to convince of Christ's Messiahship and of our duty to obey and trust him. Faith requires the exercise of will. It is an act of personal appropriation of the merits of Christ which commits us to obedience and makes him our Savior. If it depended upon conviction alone-a mere involuntary assent of the mind to truths which cannot be honestly denied, then we should have but few unbelievers. It is only occasionally that we meet with one so deeply debased as coolly to reject all revealed truth. The evidences which sustain the Divine authority of religion are mighty and overwhelming. The fulfillment of ancient prophecies respecting the genealogy, birth-place, and public life of its great founder-the artless, illiterate, and self-denying character of its first teachersthe purity, comprehensiveness, and blessed tendency of the moral system which they taught the miracles and wondrous prodigies wrought in confirmation of their authority-the perfect harmony of all their doctrines with the discovered laws of nature-with various other facts and collateral considerations, urge home the truth with such resistless power as to render it impossible for any candid mind not to believe the Gospel. The giant intellects of such men as Bacon, Newton, Locke, and others who have moved the master wheels of science and philosophy, and whose works still remain to guide the onward march of mind, were made to bow in humble reverence to the truth as thus established and sustained. And but few, if any, who, with all their internal corruption and predisposition to infidelity, can honestly withhold their assent to the leading truths of revelation. Thus far nearly all believe. But a man can conveniently be brought to this point, and still have no affectionate reach

ing forth of the soul unto God, or experience the least movement of heart toward a christian obedience. So far as the intellectual assent is concerned, the very devils believe. There are no infidels in eternity. And yet there are wicked spirits there, who never feel the kindlings of holy affections. Such a faith is utterly powerless it is dead. And all those who have advanced no farther are still to be numbered among the ranks and rest under the condemnation of unbelievers.

Unbelief of whatever grade is sinful in the sight of God and ruinous to the soul. Upon this point there is great discrepancy in the public sentiment. Faith is often thought to be of little consequence in the matter of salvation. Men sometimes suppose, if only the general tenor of their lives is on the side of morality, the mere trifling defection upon this point will not exclude them from heaven. Not so are we taught in the Scriptures. The text declares a heart of unbelief to be evil. The apostle in another part of the epistle says, "without faith it is impossible to please God." And the Savior just before his ascension authorized the universal and uncompromising proclamation of this doctrine-" he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Such is "the law and the testimony" on this point; and let every careless worldling hear it with trembling alarm.

The evil of unbelief may be seen in the unwillingness which it evinces on the part of him who indulges it to submit to Divine requirements. The secret of it is not so much a want of conviction that Christ is the great and only Savior, as unwillingness of heart to come to him for life. It is not so much an error of the understanding as wickedness of heart. For the most part men believe and know that there is life, peace, and purity above; yet, like carrion worms, they prefer to riot in stench and rottenness. "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light." They love their pleasures and worldly habits more than the service of God, and relish sin more than holiness. They wilfully and wickedly resist the truth and darken their souls; and it is this which constitutes the great cause of the unbeliever's condemnation and ruin.

The apostle speaks of unbelief as leading away from the great source of happiness, to a departure from the living God. There are in every human breast such restless cravings of soul, such dis