2. The necessity of it will appear if we consider — (1.) How natural unbelief is to us all ; and (2.) How weak the faith of most is.
[1.] If we consider how natural unbelief is to us ; it is a sin we suck in with our milk. When our first parents sinned against God, his word was not believed, and thereupon the sin was committed, Gen. iii. 4. The devil contradicted that which God delivered with his own mouth ; his Nay prevails above God's Yea. ' Ye shall not surely die,' that was that which let in the first sin, and ever since it is very natural to us : Heb. iii. 12, ' Take heed lest there be an evil heart of unbelief in you, in departing from the living God.' Unbelief is the special part of the heart's wickedness ; partly because we have wronged God, therefore are apt to suspect him ; for men are always jealous of those whom they have wronged, and that they cannot mean well to them from whom they have received ill. We have wronged God, and therefore are suspicious of him and of his good-will to sinners. And partly because the truths of God lie cross to our lusts and carnal in-
VeR. 38.] SERMONS UPON PSALM CXIX, 401
terest, which maketh us so ready to pick quarrels with him. Ahab would not hear Micaiah, not because he prophesied false, but evil : John iii. 20, ' They will not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved.' I say, such strict rules, such close and quickening truths, as God hath published in the gospel, men could wish they were not true ; that there were no heaven, nor hell, nor world to come ; and therefore, because it lies so cross to our lusts, our wishes gain upon our understanding and blind us, and we are not apt to believe these things. Who will close with that which makes against him ? Men, that are loath the word of God should prove true, are therefore slow of heart to believe it, Luke xxiv. And partly, because ever since we were born we have been trained up to live by sense ; and are affected only with the things we see, hear, and feel ; and therefore are little skilled in faith, which is ' the evidence of things not seen,' Heb. xi. 1, which carrieth us to things above sense to the concernments of another world. In short, then, for these reasons, because it is natural to us to live by sense, to indulge our own lusts, and to suspect those whom we have wronged, therefore unbelief of God is so rife in the world.
[2.] The necessity of establishment in the word of God will appear if we consider how weak the faith of most is. There are few that entertain the word as a sure and certain truth. There are several de- grees of assent ; there is conjecture, opinion, weak faith, and faith that is stronger, and that which comes up to an assurance of understand- ing, as the apostle calls it. There is conjecture, or a lighter inclina- tion of the mind to the word of God, as possibly or probably true ; a suspicious knowledge of things, or bare guess at them, when we go no higher than It may be so, that all this is true which God hath spoken concerning Christ and salvation. There is beyond this opinion, when the mind is more inclined to think it true, when we are so convinced of the truth of it that we are not able reasonably to contradict it ; we think it true ; but there is still a fear of the contrary, that it is not true, which prevails over us, and taints our practice, and weakens our affec- tions, and withdraws them from things to come. Then beyond this there is faith, or a firm and undoubted persuasion of the truth of God's word, which also hath its latitude. There is weak faith, which hath its incident doubts. And there is beyond this, ' receiving the word in much assurance,' as the expression is, 1 Thes. i. 5. Still we may increase higher in the degree of our assent ; for in this life there is never so much but there may be more, there is not so much faith but there may be more. There is something lacking to our faith, and it is not easy to grow up to the riches of the full assurance of under- standing. The best have but a fluctuating doubting knowledge of spiritual truths, not a full assurance and persuasion of them. There- fore we need to ask establishment.
3. Consider the utility and profit of it. When once the word is established to us, we shall know how to live and how to die, and upon what terms to maintain comfort and holiness ; whereas otherwise men live loosely and carelessly : Heb. iv. 2, * The word profited not, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.' Until the word of God be owned as a divine and infallible truth, it hath no efficacy upon us. When it is received merely by conjecture, as a possible truth, it works
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