consists in not assenting to the truth of Christianity, from such a love to some vice or vices, as prevents a due inquiry after truth, and sincere obedience to the Divine commands.

REASONS WHY UNBELIEVERS ARE PUN. ISHED.

"If we consider the matters of practice which are commanded in the Gospel, they are so suitable to our reason, they are so plainly good for the world, they do so evidently design our happiness, they are every way so becoming God, that it can be nothing but the prejudice of men's unreasonable lusts and passions that can persuade any man in the world, that the laws prescribed us in the Gospel are not the laws of the living God.” OUTRAM.

IN assigning the reasons why punishment is denounced against, and will be inflicted upon unbelievers, the justice of their sentence and condemnation will also sufficiently appear.

Unbelief is a wilful sin, of great atrocity, and attended with numerous aggravations. Our Saviour charged it on the Jews as a wilful offence: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." With reference to the inhabitants of the holy city, he said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not." He charged other people, who embraced not his doctrine, with incredulity, as a wilful crime. "Then began he to upbraid

the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done; because they repented not. Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes."

Thus it plainly appears, that unbelief is not supposed to arise from weakness of capacity to discern the truth, but from the obstinacy of the will, in refusing to consider those evidences of it, when fairly proposed. No man deserves blame for not believing, when the truth is not offered to him, or when he is not competent to perceive the grounds upon which it rests; but for refusing to examine it, when honestly offered for his mature consideration, he may be justly condemned. For this is a wilful fault, which he might avoid, and which therefore will be deservedly laid to his charge.

It is, without doubt, the duty of reasonable beings to love the truth, and to employ their faculties in discovering it; and though they cannot believe contrary to evidence, yet they may refuse to attend to, and impartially weigh those arguments which are proposed to them. Thus obstinately to neglect the means of information, is a moral evil, because such persons, endued with reason, do not make that use of their intellectual powers which they ought to do.

It is certainly the will of God, that his rational creature should not be unconcerned about the subject of the Christian religion, but solicitously endeavour to form an accurate judg

ment of matters relating to their everlasting welfare. It was criminal therefore in the Jews to deviate from the established laws of God, by the adoption of traditions; also in the Gentiles, to renounce the dictates of sound reason by attending to idolatrous superstitions. But when God was pleased to send Jesus Christ to declare his will, and to afford mankind such clear and demonstrative evidences of his mission; when He professed that he came from God, and his apostles avowed that they acted by his authority and according to his direction, and required them to renounce their sins, and live in obedience to the Divine commands, on pain of future condemnation; then their sin in opposing the truth, without due examination, was greater in proportion to those means of knowledge and conviction which were afforded them. Neglecting to inform themselves showed that they were determined to live in practical impiety; they would not embrace the religion of Christ, because they would not reform their conduct, by means of its principles and precepts. They believed not, because they would not renounce their criminal attachments and pursuits, nor live according to the holy and righteous laws of Christianity.

In their unbelief therefore were comprehended many evils: an obstinate disregard to truth in the most important concerns; a perverse neglect of inquiry, when it was proposed to them in the most awakening manner; contumacious perseverance in the commission

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of those sins they were required to forsake: together with a voluntary disobedience to the laws of Christ. Now for men not to examine such weighty matters fairly and impartially, but stubbornly to resist all means of conviction, through a vicious indolence and fond attachment to vice, or an immoderate love of earthly things, is an enormous and bold sin, and must justly offend a God of infinite purity and integ rity. Such was the offence and criminality of the Jews; "Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; as your fathers did, so do ye." Such likewise was the case of the Gentiles": "If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."

The justice of the condemnation of unbelievers will appear, if we consider that the punishment denounced against them is the natural and unavoidable consequences of the sin of unbelief. For if they continue in the practice of transgression, they cannot obtain pardon and therefore as unbelief prevents their repentance, it must of course render them incapable of enjoying future happiness. This was undoubtedly the miserable state of the unbelieving Jews. Pride and ambition, covetousness and extortion, spite and malice, were the causes of their unbelief, rendered them

unfit for receiving true felicity, and inevitably exposed them to endless misery. Though the Gospel had not been preached to them, their vile hypocrisy, and other equally abominable sins, would have prevented them enjoying the favour of God, and most certainly brought upon them the punishment they justly deserved. So long as they remained impenitent, they could not be fit for a state of consummate happiness in the heavenly world. And, therefore, they were required to believe in Christ, as the means of procuring forgiveness of sins, as well as all other "benefits of his passion;" and had they lived according to the precepts of Christianity, and realized the accomplishment of its promises, they would have been accepted with God, rendered pure, charitable, just, meek, and lowly, as the Christian religion obliges its professors to be; and thus they would have been prepared, by the good effects of their faith in Christ, for everlasting salvation. No less incapable of true happiness were the Gentiles, by persisting in their stupid idolatries and vicious customs, and not correcting their sentiments, reforming their worship, and changing their manners in obedience to the Gospel of Christ, preached to them by his apostles.

It is impossible, therefore, that such unbelievers as the punishments mentioned in the Scriptures are denounced against, should be saved; unless a wilful contempt of the truth, when plainly proposed, and an obstinate disobe