he
Christian show these signs, or any of them? Will he dare to take-up a
serpent, or drink prussic acid? If he hesitate, he is not a believer,
and his profession of belief is a falsehood. Let belief confer what
privilege it may, he hath no part nor lot in the matter; the threat
which he denounces against Infidels hangs over himself, and he hath no
sign of salvation to show. Believing the gospel, then, (or rather,
I should say, professing to believe it, for I need not tell you that
there's a great deal more professing to believe, than believing,)
instead of making a man the more likely to be saved, doubles his danger
of damnation, inasmuch as Christ hath said, that 'the last state of that
man shall be worse than the first.' Luke xi. 26. And his holy apostle
Peter addeth, 'It would have been better for them not to have known the
way (2 Peter ii. 21) of righteousness.' The sin of believing makes all
other sins that a man can commit so much the more heinous and offensive
in the sight of God, inasmuch as they are sins against light and
knowledge: and 'the servant who knew his Lord's will, and did it not, he
shall be beaten with many stripes.' Luke xii. 47. While unbelief is not
only innocent in itself, but so highly pleasing to Almighty God, that it
is represented as the cause of his forgiveness of things which otherwise
would not be forgiven. Thus St. Paul, who had been a blasphemer, a
persecutor, and injurious, assures us that it was for this cause he
obtained mercy, 'because he did it ignorantly in unbelief.' 1 Tim. i.
13. Had he been a believer, he would as surely have been damned as his
name was Paul. And 'tis the gist of his whole argument, and the express
words of the 11th of the Epistle to the Romans, that 'God included them
all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.' Unbelief being the
essential qualification and recommendation to God's mercy: not without
good reason was it that the pious father of the boy that had the devil
in him, when he had need of Christ's mercy, and knew that unbelief
would be the best title to it, cried out and said with tears, 'Lord,
I believe, help thou mine unbelief!' Mark ix. 24. While the Apostles
themselves, who were most immediately near and dear to Christ, no more
believed the Gospel than I do; and for all they have said and preached
about it, they never believed it themselves, as Christ told 'em that
they hadn't so much faith as a grain of mustard seed. And the evangelist
Joh