which the will makes to those truths that are opposed to selfishness. It is the will's stern opposition to them. When these truths are revealed to the intelligence, the will must either yield to them and relinquish selfishness, or it must resist them. Remain indifferent to them it can not. Therefore unbelief always implies selfishness, because it is only selfishness manifesting itself or acting like itself in the presence of truth opposed to it.

3. Unbelief implies a state of present total depravity. Surely there can be nothing but sin in a heart that rejects the truth for selfish reasons. It is naturally impossible that there should be any conformity of heart to the will and law of God when unbelief or resistance to know truth is present in the soul.

4. Unbelief implies the rejection of all truth perceived to be inconsistent with selfishness. The unbelieving soul does not, and remaining selfish, can not receive any truth but for selfish reasons. Whatever truth is received and acted upon by a selfish soul is received for selfish reasons. But this is not faith. Whatever truth the selfish soul can not apply to selfish purposes, it will reject. This follows from the very nature of selfishness.

5. On a former occasion it was shown that where any one attribute of selfishness is, there must be the presence of every other attribute either in a developed state or in waiting for the occasion of its development. All sinners are guilty of unbelief and have this attribute of selfishness developed in proportion to the amount of light which they have received. Heathen reject the light of nature and sinners in christian lands reject the light of the gospel. The nature of unbelief proves that the unbelieving heart is not only void of all good, but that every form of sin is there. The whole host of the attributes of selfishness must reside in the unbeliever's heart and only the occasion is wanting to bring forth into development and horrid manifestation every form of iniquity.

6. The nature of unbelief implies that its degree depends on the degree of light enjoyed. It consists in a rejection of truth perceived. Its degree or greatness must depend upon the degree of light rejected.

The

7. The same must be true of the guilt of unbelief. guilt must be in proportion to light enjoyed. But as the guilt of unbelief is to come up for distinct consideration, I will waive the further discussion of it here.

8. Unbelief implies impenitence. The truly penitent soul will gladly embrace all truth when it is revealed to it. This follows from the nature of repentance. Especially will the true penitent hail with joy and embrace with eagerness the blessed truths of the glorious gospel. This must be from the very nature of repentance. When unbelief is present in the heart, there must be impenitence also.

9. Unbelief is enmity against God. It is resistance to truth and of course to the character and government of the God of Truth.

10. It implies mortal enmity against God. Unbelief rejects the truth and authority of God and is of course and of necessity opposed to the very existence of the God of Truth. It would annihilate truth and the God of truth were it possible. We have an instance and an illustration of this in the rejection and murder of Jesus Christ. What was this but unbelief. This is the nature of unbelief in all instances. All sinners who hear and reject the gospel, reject Christ, and were Christ personally present to insist upon their reception of him and to urge his demand, remaining unbelieving, they would of course and of necessity sooner murder him than receive him. So that every rejecter of the gospel is guilty of the blood and murder of Christ.

11. Unbelief implies surpreme enmity to God. This follows from the nature of unbelief. Unbelief is the heart's rejection of and opposition to truth. Of course the greater the light, unbelief remaining, the greater the opposition. Since God is the fountain of truth opposition to him must be supreme. That is it must be greater to him than to all other beings and things.

12. Unbelief implies a degree of wickedness as great as is possible for the time being. We have seen that it is resistance to truth; that it implies the refusal to receive for benevolent reasons any truth. Entire holiness is the reception of and conformity to all truth. This is, at every moment, the highest degree of virtue of which the soul for the time being is capable. It is the entire performance of duty. Sin, is the rejection of the whole truth, this is sin in the form of unbelief. The rejection of all known truth, or of all truth perceived to be inconsistent with selfishness, and for that reason, must be present perfection in wickedness. That is, it must be the highest degree of wickedness of which the soul with its present light is capable. It is the rejection of the whole of du ty. It is a trampling down of all moral obligation

13. Unbelief implies the charging God with being a liar. "He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar because he hath not believed the record that God gave of his Son." Unbelief is the treatment of truth as if it were falsehood, and of falsehood as if it were truth. It is the virtual declaration of the heart that the gospel is not true and therefore that the author of the gospel is a liar. It treats the record as untrue and of course God the author of the record as a liar.

14. Unbelief implies lying. It is itself the greatest of lies. It is the heart's declaration, and that too in the face of light, and with the intellectual apprehension of the truth, that the gospel is a lie and the author of it a liar. What is lying if this is not?

15. It implies a most reckless disregard of all rights and of all interests but those of self.

16. It implies a contempt for and a trampling down of the law and demands of the intelligence. Intelligence in its relations to moral truths is only a trouble to the unbeliever. His conscience and his reason he regards as enemies.

17. But before I dismiss this part of the subject, I must not omit to say that unbelief also implies the will's embracing an opposite error and a lie. It consists in the rejection of truth or in the withholding confidence in truth and in the God of truth. But since it is naturally impossible that the will should be in a state of indifference to any known error or truth that stands connected with its duty or its destiny, it follows that a rejection of any known truth implies an embracing of an opposing error.

There are multitudes of other things implied in unbelief; but I can not with propriety and profit notice them in this brief outline of instruction. I have pursued this subject thus far for the purpose of showing the true and philosophical nature of unbelief; that whosoever will steadily contemplate its nature, will perceive, that, being what it is, it will and must develope as occasions occur in the providence of God every form of iniquity of which man is capable, or in other words that where unbelief is, there is the whole of sin.

VII. CONDITIONS OF BOTH FAITH AND UNBELIEF.

1. The possession of Reason. Reason is the intuitive faculty of the soul. It is that power of the mind that makes those a priori affirmations concerning God which all_moral agents do and must make from the very nature of moral agen

cy, and without which neither faith as a virtue, nor unbelief as a sin were possible. For example: Suppose it were admitted that the Bible is a revelation from God. The question might be asked, why should we believe it? Why should we receive and believe the testimony of God? The answer must be, because truth is an attribute of God and his word is to be accredited because he always speaks the truth. But how do we know this? This we certainly can not know barely upon his testimony, for the very question is why is his testimony worthy of credit. There is no light in his works or providence that can demonstrate that truth is an attribute of God. His claiming this attribute does not prove it, for unless his truthfulness be assumed his claiming this attribute is no evidence of it. There is no logical process by which the truth of God can be demonstrated. The major premise from which the truthfulness of God could be deduced by a syllogistic process must itself assume the very truth which we are seeking to prove. Now there is no way for us to know the truthfulness of God but by the direct assumption, affirmation, or intuition of reason. The same power that intuits or seizes upon a major premise from which the truthfulness of God follows by the laws of logic, must and does directly, irresistably, necessarily and universally assume and affirm the fact that God is truth and that truth must be an attribute of God.

But for this assumption the intelligence could not affirm our obligation to believe him. This assumption is a first-truth of reason, every where, at all times, by all moral agents necessarily assumed and known. This is evident from the fact, that it being settled that God has declared any thing whatever, is an end of all questioning in all minds whether it be true or not. So far as the intelligence is concerned, it never did and never can question the truthfulness of God. It knows with certain and intuitive knowledge that God is true and therefore affirms universally and necessarily that He is to be believed. This assumption and the power that makes it are indispensable conditions of Faith as a virtue or of unbelief as a vice. It were no virtue to believe or receive any thing as true without sufficient evidence that it is true. So it were no vice to reject that which is not supported by evidence. A mere animal, or an idiot or lunatic are not capable either of faith or of unbelief, for the simple reason that they do not possess reason to affirm the truth and obligation to receive it.

2. A revelation, in some way, to the mind, of the truth and will of God must be a condition of unbelief. Be it remem

bered that neither faith nor unbelief is consistent with total ignorance. There can be unbelief no farther than there is light.

3. In respect to that class of truths which are discerned only upon condition of Divine illumination, such illumination must be a condition both of faith and unbelief. It should be remarked that when a truth has been once revealed by the Holy Spirit to the soul, the continuance of the Divine light is not essential to the continuance of unbelief. The truth once known and lodged in the memory may continue to be resisted when the agent that revealed, is withdrawn.

4. Intellectual perception is a condition of the heart's unbelief. The intellect must have evidence of truth as the condition of a virtuous belief of it. So the intellect must have evidence of the truth as a condition of a wicked rejection of it. Therefore intellectual light is the condition both of the heart's faith and unbelief. By the assertion that intellectual light is a condition of unbelief is intended, not that the intellect should at all times admit the truth in theory; but that the evidence must be such that by virtue of its own laws the mind or intelligence could justly admit the truth rejected by the heart. It is a very common case that the unbeliever denies in words and endeavors to refute in theory that which he nevertheless assumes as true in all his practical judgments.

VIII. THE GUILT AND ILL-DESERT OF UNBELIEF.

1. We have seen on a former occasion that the guilt of sin is conditionated upon and graduated by the light under which it is committed. The amount of light is the measure of guilt in every case of sin. This is true of all sin. But it is peculiarly manifest in the sin of unbelief; for unbelief is the rejection of light; it is selfishness in the attitude of rejecting truth. Of course the amount of light rejected and the degree of guilt in rejecting it are equal. This is every where assumed and taught in the bible and is plainly the doctrine of

reason.

Light is truth, light received is truth known or perceived. The first-truths of reason are universally known by moral agents, and whenever the will refuses to act in accordance with any one of them, it is guilty of unbelief. The reason of every moral agent intuits and assumes the infinite value of the highest well-being of God and of the universe, and of course the infinite obligation of every moral agent, to embrace