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THE SINFULNESS OF UNBELIEF.

REV. G. SPRING, D.D.

ST. THOMAS'S SQUARE, HACKNEY, MAY 17, 1835.

"And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin, because they believe not on me." JOHN, xvi. 8, 9.

THERE is a sin alleged only against sinners of the human race: it is of so aggravated a character that it cannot be perpetrated except by the inhabitants of this lower world. In ten thousand forms of secret and overt iniquity have men disregarded the divine authority, and refused divine forgiveness: but these are all venial offences compared with the sin to which I refer. Hence the sin to which I refer, is one of which it is the work of the Spirit of truth specially to convince men. "When the Comforter is come," said the Saviour," he will reprove (or convince) the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment." Why will he convince the world of sin? Not because men have disregarded the claims of their Creator; not because they have thrown off allegiance to his authority; not because they have abused his goodness, and trifled with his threatenings: but because they believe not in Jesus Christ. This, says the aggrieved Saviour is the enormity of their crime-" They believe not on me.”

We propose, therefore, to consider in the present discourse the nature and sinfulness of unbelief: hoping that, by so doing, we may all, beloved hearers, have more just impressions of our religion; and that those who have hitherto rejected the Divine Redeemer may no longer reject his great salvation.

Our first object is to consider, with great brevity, THE NATURE OF UNBE

LIEF.

Not to believe the Gospel appears, at first view, to be a mere want of faith, and therefore a very harmless thing: and if unbelief consists in the mere absence of faith, it is certainly very harmless; it is a mere nothing, and has no moral character whatever. There can be no criminality in mere negation, or want of volition. There is no harm for example, in inanimate things not believing; and there is no harm in the animal creation not believing. Nay, there is no harm in some of mankind not believing. This the Apostle intimates when he enquires respecting the heathen, "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" Those who have never heard Christ cannot be blamed for not hearing or for not believing: their guilt lies elsewhere, and not in rejecting the Saviour.

The Scriptures obviously mean by unbelief some positive criminal act of the mind.

What then is that act of the soul which the Bible denominates unbelief?

Is it speculative infidelity merely? Speculative infidelity no doubt involves it; but the spirit of unbelief is often found where speculative infidelity has no place. And we would be slow to affirm, that unbelief consists in that diffidence of one's own good estate, and acceptance with God, which many a conscientious man feels. It may not be true, that in the same proportion in which a man doubts of his interest in the blessings of salvation he is an unbeliever: nor, on the other hand, that in the same proportion in which he is persuaded he is interested in the blessing of salvation, that he is a believer. Unbelief may exist where there is strong and presumptuous assurance; while there may be true faith, though weak and trembling, where there is much diffidence, fear, many clouds, and much darkness.

Unbelief is the opposite to belief; that is, disbelief: it is the opposite to believing; that is, rejecting. When a man believes the gospel he receives, loves, obeys it; when he disbelieves, he sincerely and heartily rejects it. Hence it is written, "He came to his own, and his own received him not: but to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." "Did you never read in the Scriptures," says our Lord, "that the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the chief of the corner?" Speaking of the promulgation of the Gospel after his death, he says, "First the Son of man must be rejected by this generation." We are told that the pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves. The Gospel is the method which God has devised for the salvation of man, and to reject this counsel is to disbelieve the Gospel. Such is the view of the nature of unbelief in several of the parables; and particularly the parables of the marriage feast, the gospel supper, and the husbandman and the vineyard. Our Lord describes this sin in that memorable declaration to the Jews, "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life."

This is the true character, beloved hearers, of unbelief: it is rejecting and opposing with all the heart, the gospel of the grace of God. It is resisting this truth; rebelling against its authority; refusing its mercy; opposing its terms, and rejecting its holy salvation.

With this view of the nature of unbelief, we proceed to that which is the main design of our discourse, to speak, in the second place, of ITS EXCEEDING SINFULNESS. "And when he is come he will convince the world of sin, because they believe not on me."

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"If I had not come among them," elsewhere the Lord Jesus said, "they had not had sin but now they have no cloak for their sin." This was the front of their offending but for this their iniquity had been comparatively small but this is the great sin, the damning sin; the sin that binds the guilt of all their sins upon them. There must therefore be something peculiarly aggravating in the sin of unbelief, whether we can discover it or not. If we mistake not, there are some things discovered in this sin which may give us a view of its enormity.

And here, let it be remarked, in the first place, unbelief is the rejection of the highest degree of knowledge in regard to our obligations and duties.

Sin is a violation of our obligations, whether those obligations are known or unknown but in its highest and most aggravated forms, it is the violation of

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our known obligations. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." There is nothing which so greatly aggravates the sins of a man as light and knowledge; and no where are these concentrated as in the Gospel. The Gospel of Christ plainly set before the minds of men, plainly sets before them their obligations and duties. All that is solemn and affecting in the relations which subsist between God and his creatures; all that is binding in the precepts and prohibitions of his law; and all that is odious in transgression, are there set before the mind. No matter what the precept or prohibition which the sinner violates, the Gospel enforces it; and in rejecting this, the sinner transgresses under the highest aggravation. With the Gospel in his hand it is impossible to disregard any of the claims of God and duty, excepting under strong and complicated circumstances of guilt. The heathen have very little knowledge with regard to their obligations and duties, compared with that which is possessed by those in Christian lands; and have therefore comparatively very little sin. When the Gospel is rejected, men sin against every divine requisition, and shew that they mean to sin at every possible hazard. The terms on which Jesus Christ in the Gospel freely offers to save them are, that they shall forsake their sins, and submit themselves to his authority and grace. The salvation he offers consists, in no small degree, in deliverance from the reigning power of sin: and when they reject his offer, is it not obvious that they virtually declare that they will not forsake their iniquity? Do they not vindicate and justify all their former sins by the very act of unbelief: nay, do they not glory in them, and, in defiance of all knowledge of their duty, repeat and express them, as it were, afresh, in every act of rejecting the Saviour?

Again, unbelief is a resistance of the loudest calls and strongest motives to holiness. The wickedness of men is always enhanced by the calls and motives which they resist. Where are there so many calls and invitations, so many motives to holiness, as are found in the Gospel? How shall we enumerate them? Think, dear hearers, of the excellence, the unspeakable excellence, of the divine nature, as it is there displayed; of the rectitude of the divine government; of the reasonableness and authority of the divine law; of the beauty of holiness; of the deformity of sin; of the loveliness of the Saviour; of the all-sufficiency of his atonement; of the offers of his mercy; of the lenity of his mediatorial reign; of the honourable exercise of his power and of his favour, communion, and presence; of sins forgotten; of the wrathful curse removed; of adoption into the divine family; of inheritance in the divine kingdom. These are some of the motives by which the Son of God would persuade the sinner to believe. Then think of that rebuke, of those terrors, that bondage of the curse, and those forms of horror, that exclusion from the divine favour, that abhorrence of the holy God in this world, and everlasting damnation in the world to come, which are the inheritance of all who reject the Gospel. These are some of the motives by which he would dissuade the sinner from his unbelief. But all this the unbeliever tramples under his feet; he either hates, or depreciates, or despises it all. Wherever he directs his course, considerations like these, warmly urged, and often repeated, supplicate him to return home. But he is "stout-hearted and far from righteousness:" no precept can control, no penalty can restrain him; no promise can allure him-no chains of darkness nor vials of wrath

terrify him into obedience. By all without and all within he is addressed in vain. Nothing moves that reluctant, resisting heart: unbelief has transformed it into a stone: there is an obstinacy which renders him unyielding and impenetrable, and which, if unrepented of, must seal his account in an awful retribution.

Again: unbelief involves the highest contempt of God, whether we consider him as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. When the light of the Gospel shines upon the mind, it brings God directly to view, in all the persons and offices of the Gospel. As the Father, he formed the method of redemption, and sent the Son to be the Saviour of sinners. And no where is he brought into the view of sinners, so directly and distinctly, and no where is he treated with such indignity, as in the rejection of this method of mercy. As the Gospel is the highest expression of his authority, so unbelief sets at nought all his divine authority. As the Gospel is the highest expression of his love, so the unbeliever sets at nought all the love of God. As the Gospel is the highest expression of divine wisdom, so unbelief sets at nought all the unsearchable riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God. As the Gospel is the highest expression of the divine justice, so unbelief sets at nought that amazing exhibition of the justice of God made on the cross. As the Gospel is the highest expression of the entire excellence of the Deity, so there is no expression of the enmity of the human mind against God, to be compared with unbelief: "If I had not done among them works which none other man did," says the Saviour, "they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father." As the Gospel is the highest expression of the divine glory, so whatever there is of determined opposition to the divine honour and glory, is found in unbelief. The rejection of the Gospel is the rejection of that great and glorious method of redemption which comprises all the designs of Deity. All things, we are taught, that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, all things in creation and providence, are but the retiring features of this marvellous design. No where is there so much of God, and no where is there an exhibition of his nature so overwhelming and so perpetual, as in the development and issues of this wonderful method of mercy. Greater honour will be paid to God, and more exalted ascriptions of praise, for this redemption, than for every thing else he has accomplished. And yet all this is set at nought by the spirit of unbelief. The glory and pride of the divine nature are set at nought, and the great Supreme degraded and dishonoured in the eyes of his creatures, and his holiest and best designs opposed and scandalized by the man who rejects the Gospel.

In the same manner is this vile sin fraught with contempt of the Redeemer and Saviour. This incarnate, once crucified, and now raised Saviour, is the one particularly rejected: he is the stone of stumbling and rock of offence; he is the sign that is spoken against; he is the disowned and despised. The rejection of the Gospel is a deliberate rejection of Christ. We profess to disapprove and condemn the unbelief of the Jews, and especially their violence and malignity; while every act of unbelief is an essential approbation of their conduct, and originates from the same corrupt source. The man who, in these . ends of the earth, my hearers, and in these ages of the world, will not believe the Gospel, crucifies the Son of God afresh, and puts him to an open shame.

Nay, he does all in his power to annul his mediation, frustrate the designs of his atonement, and rob him of his reward. And then such denial of his love; such indifference to all the tenderness of his compassionate heart; such ingratitude, amazing ingratitude, for his condescension and mercy-what an emphasis does this give to the crime of rejecting him! There is nothing against which men array all the indignity of their unbelief so much, as against the infinite love and grace of Jesus Christ. Who could have believed there was such wickedness in the human heart? When you see the adorable Son of God passing by angels, and stooping to the seed of Abraham; when you behold Him who thought it no robbery to be equal with God, agonizing in the garden and expiring on the cross, and all this for his enemies; did it never occur to you that there is something unspeakably vile in refusing him your confidence? This gracious Saviour has no such complaint against men, as that, after all he has done and suffered for them, they should think him unworthy to be intrusted with their salvation.

Equally true is it, that this sin is the highest contempt for the Holy Spirit. The particular office of the Holy Spirit is to bear testimony to the truths and obligations of the Gospel: to take of these things that are Christ's, and shew them unto men to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Since the completion of the sacred Scriptures, his sphere of influence and action is the human soul. He enlightens the understanding to receive the truth of God, and awakens the conscience to feel the force of moral obligation: he sets the iniquities of men before them, so that their sins revive, and their hopes die; and while thus sinful and thus guilty, and in danger, he unfolds to them the method of redemption by Jesus Christ: he shews them its reality and fulness; he sets before them its freeness and love: and, with a powerful and tender persuasion, he urges on him the offer of this mercy. The Holy Spirit throws the whole weight of his authority against their unbelief, and in favour of Jesus Christ, and his redemption. So that the rejection of Christ involves the highest contempt of the Holy Spirit. And this is their condemnation; this adds fearful aggravation to their crime: they do always resist the Holy Spirit. Thus, whether we consider him as Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, does unbelief involve the highest contempt of God.

Again: unbelief is directed against the best interests of the divine kingdom. The Gospel is adapted to make men holy and happy, and to diffuse the highest degree of holiness and happiness throughout the kingdom of God. To disbelieve the Gospel, therefore, is virtually to oppose all the holiness and happiness which it is adapted to secure. The man who himself rejects the Saviour, is not only willing that all others should reject him, but does all that his example can do to induce them to reject him: and it would be no grief of heart to him, if all should treat the Son of God as he treats him, and if every son and daughter of Adam should be as unholy in this world, and as miserable in the next, as he. Unbelief has no better spirit than this: you may call it by a better name, but here is its heart: and when unbelievers see others pressing into the kingdom of God, they feel unhappy, and their hearts arise against God, as well as against those who accept his mercy. They enter into the views, and they sympathize with the feelings, and they unite with all the enemies of God against the Gospel of his Son. When the great mass of men around them make

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