[5.] Where unbelief is expressed and put into words, there it is more heinous. Unbelieving thoughts are a great evil, but when they
^ Despaigiie on the Creed.
182 AN EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 5.
break out into murmurings and bold expostulations, with or against God, then they are worse. It is better to keep the temptation within doors, that, if the fire be kindled, the sparks may not fly abroad to enkindle others ; you grieve God by your tlioughts, but you dishonour and disparage him when they break out into words : Mai. iii. 13, ' Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord.' It is a greater daring to avow openly and publish our suspicions of God, and discontents against him : Deut. i. 34, ' The Lord heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, saying. Not one of these shall enter my rest.' Others may be perverted, and make ill use of our infirmities.
[6.] Where there are professions to the contrary, there the unbelief is the worse : ' After these things do the Gentiles seek,' Mat. vi. 32. Christians are not only instructed to do better, but profess to do other- wise. Distrust is a pagan sin ; you are acquainted with a particular providence, with a heavenly Father, with the happiness of another world, and for you to be worldly, distrustful, to make it your business what you shall eat and drink, that is a most unworthy thing : for a professed infidel that believeth not eternity, that never heard of God's fatherly care, nor of heaven or hell, to be altogether in the world, this were no such marvel ; but for you, that profess to believe the gospel, to have your hearts fail and sink upon every occasion, and to be under the tyranny of distracting cares, how sad is it !
Thus much for the heinousness of unbelief, which I was willing to represent thus at large, that you might see what just reason there was that God should destroy those in the wilderness that believed not.
2. The next thing is to open the nature of it. I shall here give — (1.) The kinds ; (2.) The notes whereby this sin may be discovered.
For the kinds of it, unbelief is twofold — negative and positive.
1. Negative unbelief is found in those to whom the sound of the gospel never came, or to whom God hath denied the means whereby faith might be wrought in them. The want of means is not their sin, but their punishment, or misery at least ; and therefore they are not condemned so much for want of faith in Christ, as for not obeying the law of nature, for sinning against that knowledge which they received in Adam. Now they never received the light of the gospel in Adam, neither had Adam the knowledge thereof revealed to him, but by special grace after the fall • when he stood in the quality of a pri- vate person, then was the promise of the woman's seed revealed to him. Therefore they that never heard of Christ are not condemned simply for not believing in him ; for their sins against the law they are condemned, not for their unbelief against the gospel.l That is the reason why Christ, when he had said, John iii. 18, ' Every one that believeth not is condemned already,' presently addeth by way of expli- cation, ' This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,' &c., as restraining it to positive infidelity. Though without Christ they can never be saved, yet God will not damn them for this reason, for not believing in Christ, for he never gave them the means of the knowledge of Christ.
1 At the last day there is a differeDce made between ' them that know not God,' i.e., by the light of nature, and those ' that obey not the gos^^el,' i.e., answer not God's euda in the revelation of the gospel, 2 Thes. i. 8.
VeR, 5.] UPON THE EPISTLE OF JUDE. 183
2. Positive iinLelief, which is found in them that have means to believe in Christ, and yet neglect and refuse him, and the offers of grace and life in him, and so continue in the state of nature. This is twofold— (1.) Total ; (2.) Partial.
[1.] Total unbelief in those that continue professed infidels after the tenders of the gospel ; as the word where it came found different suc- cess, as at Antioch, Acts xiii. 48; at Iconium, Acts xiv. 1, 2; at Athens, Acts xvii. 34, many refused to make any profession.
[2.] Partial, when men are lustrcd with some general profession, and gained to some owning of Christ, but do not fully believe in him, not cordially embrace him; either through the weakness of their assent, looking upon the gospel only as probable, or out of the strength of their worldly and carnal affections they relish not and esteem not the counsels and comforts of the gospel, not the comforts and hopes of the gospel, because they are matters of another world, and lie out of sight and reach ; but worldly comforts act more forcibly upon them, as being more suited to their hearts, and at hand, and ready to be enjoyed. Thus Israel out of unbelief ' despised the pleasant land,' Ps. cvi. 24, counted it not worth the looking after ; and the counsels of the gospel they refuse out of an indulgence to fleshly lusts. As there is in the gospel the history and doctrine of salvation, so there are counsels of salvation which must be obeyed, and therefore we hear of ' obeying the gospel,' 2 Thes. i. 8, and ' the obedience of faith' elsewhere.