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God by faith in his beloved Son. Some believed not: Why? Because they were exactly such men as the foreknowledge of the Holy Ghost had described by the mouth of Ifaiah. Their heart was waxed grofs, and their ears were dull of hearing, and their eyes they had closed; left they fhould fee with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and be converted, and God should heal them. Their heart, fixed upon ceremonial ordinances and worldly purfuits, was averse to spiritual religion, humility, and holiness. Their ear gave no attention to doctrines which contradicted their prepoffeffions, and proclaimed the iniquity of the self-righteous. Their eyes, they wilfully shut against that light from above, by which ignorance was detected, and guilt expofed. Therefore it was that Mofes and the prophets testified before them, and produced not conviction. Therefore it that hearing they heard, and did not understand; and seeing they faw, and did not perceive. Therefore it was, that they withstood the evidence of the Gofpel. Therefore it was, that they would not be converted and healed. Therefore it was, that they would not accept the falvation of God. How

was,

How stands the cafe with respect to Christians? To them univerfally is the Revelation of Jesus Christ addreffed. To them Moses and the prophets, and all the infpired writers of the New Testament, deliver their teftimony concerning the Redeemer of mankind. To them the Sabbath, as well as many an intervening day, opens the houses of God, that, with humble fupplication and fincere thanksgiving, they may hear the words of eternal life. To them, the minifters of religion cease not to direct appropriate instruction; cease not to unfold the whole counfel of God; to unveil the radical corruption of human na ture; to make manifeft the power, the deceitfulness, and the confequences of fin; to display the grand doctrines of redemption and fanctification; to explain and enforce the precepts, admonitions, and exhortations of Holy Writ; to animate the righteous by the examples of faints of ancient days; to alarm the guilty by the fate of former rebels against the Most High; to ftrengthen the feeble, to confirm the wavering, to convince the gainfayer, to comfort the afflicted, to inftil caution into the rash, humility into the presumptuous. The ministers of religion, those at least who

cordially

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cordially enlarge their views to the extent of their duty, to the unequivocal import of the vows which are upon them, cease not to labour from house to houfe; and privately to impress on each individual, as prudence and opportunity may allow, the injunction, the warning, or the encouragement of which he more especially stands in need. Thus, to all throughout the Christian world is the Gospel of salvation fent. How is it received? As it was among the Jews at Rome: Some believe the things which are spoken; and some believe them not. If there be any difference between the two cafes, it is this. Among the Jewish nation, collectively confidered, there was, on the one hand, more open unbelief; and, on the other, more fincerity in Christian profeffion, than exists at prefent. They who did not believe that Jesus Christ came from God, feeling no worldly motive to induce them to diffemble their unbelief, avowed it, and acted upon it. They who were convinced of the truth of the Gofpel, and embraced the Christian faith, having no worldly motive to lead them to profess a religion which was every where spoken against and perfecuted, ufually became Christians under the

influence

influence of decided piety. But in these days, when to be a declared unbeliever, is commonly regarded as difgraceful; there are to be found within the pale of the Chriftian church many perfons who have no ftedfaft belief in the Gospel. And as in these more mild and enlightened countries, no danger hangs over the head of any man in confequence of his being outwardly a disciple of Chrift; there is feen among profeffed Chriftians a far greater propor

tion of the careless and the lukewarm than was to be discerned by the Apostles among their converts. Now let it be always and ftedfastly remembered, that the Scriptures universally represent as unbelievers not only those whofe blindness and impiety treat the Christian revelation as a falfehood, as a cunningly devised fable, as an invention of men but thofe alfo who hold the truth in unrighteousness; those who believe abstractedly, but not practically; those who believe, and do not obey; those who believe with the understanding, but believe not with the heart unto juftification*. A dead faith is no faith. It has no claim through Chrift to the rewards of faith. It may become even more finful and dan

* Rom. i. 18.-x. 10.

gerous

gerous than open unbelief. To fin against knowledge may be, under poffible circumftances, more flagitious than to offend through wilful ignorance. Not to believe in Christ may fometimes be owing chiefly to guilty unconcern. To believe that he came from God, and defpife his commandments, muft be, in the language of the Pfalmift, the great offence, must be presumptuous fin. Why are the Gentiles pronounced to have been Atheists, without God in the world*? Because though they knew God, they glorified him not as God. He may be the worst of Atheists, who acknowledges that there is a God, and will not obey him. He who outwardly confeffes Christ, and practically denies Him, may be the worst of unbelievers.

Confider the characteristic features of the two claffes, into which the multitudes to whom the Gospel is now preached are divided. Some believe the things which are fpoken, and fome believe them not.

I. Advert primarily to those who believe. When you caft your eyes upon the mass of profeffed Chriftians, you obferve among them a fet of men manifeftly separated and

Eph. ii. 12. Αθεός εν τω κόσμω.

diftin

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