use to Satan for the hurrying souls into other sins, called therefore ' an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from God,' lieb. iii. 12. The devil sets up this sin of unbelief, as a blind betwixt the sinner and God, that the shot which come from the threatening, and are levelled at the sinner's breast, may not be dreaded and feared by him ; and then the wretch can be as bold with his lust as the pioneer is at his work, when once he hath got his basket of earth between him and the enemy's bullets. Nay, this unbelief doth not only choke the bullets of wrath which are sent out of the law's fiery mouth, but it damps the motions of grace which come from the gospel : all the offers of love whicli God makes to an unbelieving heart, they fall like seed into dead earth, or like sparks into a river, they are out as soon as they fall into it. ' The word,' it is said, Heb. iv. 2, ' did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.' The strength of the whole body of sin lies in this lock of unbelief. There is no mastering of a sinner while unbelief is in power : this will carry all arguments away, whether they be from law or gospel, that are pressed upon him, as easily as Samson did the doors, posts, with bar and all, from the city Gaza, Judg. xvi. 2. It is a sin that doth keep the field one of the last of all others, that which the sinner is last convinced of, and the saint ordinarily last conqueror of; it is one of the chief strengths and fostnesses unto which the devil retreats when other sins are routed. O how often do we hear a poor sinner confess and bewail other sins he hath lived in formerly with brinish tears, but will not hearken yet to the oflTer of mercy in Christ ! Bid him believe on Christ, and he shall be saved, (which was the doctrine Paul and Silas preached to the trem- bling jailor, Acts xvi. 31,) alas! he dares not, he will not; you can hardly per- suade him it is his duty to do so. The devil hath now betaken himself to this city of gates and bars, where he stands upon his guard; and the more strongly to fortify himself in it, he hath tlie most specious pretences for it of any other sin. It is a sin that he makes the humbled soul commit out of a fear of sin- ning, and so stabs the good name of God for fear of dishonoiu'ing him by a saucy, presumptuous faith. Indeed it is a sin by which Satan intends to jiut the greatest scorn upon God, and unfold all his cankered malice against him at once. It is by faith that the saints ' have all obtained a good report;' yea, it is by the saints' faith that God hath a good report in the world ; and by un- belief the devil doth his worst to raise an evil report of God in the world; as if he were not what his own promise and his saints' faith witness him to be. In a word, it is a sin that hell gapes for of all others. There are two sins that claim a pre-eminence in hell, — hypocrisy and unbelief; and therefore other sinners are threatened 'to have their portion with hypocrites,' Matt. xxiv. 5, and 'with unbelievers,' Luke xii. 46; as if those infernal mansions were taken up principally for these, and all others were but inferior prisoners. But of the two, unbelief is the greatest, and that which may with an emphasis be called, above this or any other, ' the damning sin.' ' He that believes not is condemned already,' John iii. 18. He hath his mittimus already to jail ; yea, he is in it already in a sense : he hath the brand of a damned person on him. The Jews are said, Rom. xi. 32, ' to be shut up in unbelief.' A surer prison the devil cannot keep a sinner in. Faith shuts the soul up in the promise of life and happiness, as God shut Noah into the ark. It is said. Gen. vii. 16, ' The Lord shut him in :' thus faith shuts the soul up in Christ and the ark of his covenant, from all fear of danger from heaven or hell ; and, on the contrary, unbelief shuts a soul up in guilt and wrath, that there is no more possibility of escaping danniation for an unbeliever, than for one to escape burning, that is shut up in a fiery oven. No help can come to the sinner, so long as this bolt of unbelief is on the door of his heart. As our salvation is attributed to faith rather than to other graces, though none were wanting in a saved person; so sinners' damnation and ruin is attributed to their unbelief, though other sins were found with it in the person damned. The Spirit of God passeth over the Jews' hypocrisy, murmuring, rebellion, and lays their destruction at the door of this one sin of unbelief, Heb. iii. 19: ' They could not enter in because of unbe- lief.' O sinners, (you who live under the gospel I mean,) if you perish, know beforehand what is your undoing ; it is your unbelief that does it. If a male- factor that is condemned to die be offered his life by the judge, upon reading a psalm of mercy, and he reads it not, Ave may say his not reading hangs him. The
ADOVE ALL, TAKIN-U THE SHIELD OF FAITH. 44I