months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the first-born should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land: which the Egyptians essaying to do were drowned. By faith the walls. of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jepthae, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection. And others had trial of cruel mockings, and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy :) they wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: for God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect."

In each of these, faith was the victory that overcame the world; and the fruition of the inheritance, and the fulfilment of the promise was the corresponding reward. Nor did the

overcoming ones cease from the earth when these disappeared. The bequests they made have served successive generations, and the glorious succession continues. Polycarp, immediately after the apostles, when summoned to renounce his Saviour, beautifully said, "Eighty and six years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king who has saved me?" When tied to the fagots, and enduring the slow torture of the kindling fire, he thus victoriously prayed: "O Father of thy beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, through whom I have received the knowledge of thee, O God of angels and powers, and of the whole creation, and of the whole family of the just who live before Thee, I bless Thee that thou hast thought me worthy of this day and this hour, to obtain a portion among the martyrs in the cup of Christ, for the resurrection of both soul and body to eternal life in the incorruptibleness of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, and for all things, I praise Thee, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal High-priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Son, through whom be glory to Thee, along with him in the Holy Spirit, both now and ever. Amen."

The Paulicians protested faithfully in the east; and the Waldenses, amid the fastnesses and caves of the Cottian Alps, withstood the influx of superstition and error for centuries, and preserved their faith, like their own Alpine snows, in its virgin purity and beauty. Wickliffe and Huss fought manfully, and fell before the sword of the enemy on earth, to rise and reign amid the white-robed throne in glory. Luther overcame where few had long stood; the church and the world rose against Luther, and he boldly grappled with both; burning the pope's bull; despising the threats of princes; and claiming for mankind the privilege given them from on high, of reading an open Bible, and worshipping God in spirit and in truth. Latimer, too, overcame, lighting in England a candle not yet put out. Oberlin overcame cold, and distance, and weariness, and spread among ignorant and uncultivated tribes the blessings of pure religion. In what Christian language are not the names of Knox, and Bunyan, and Felix Neff, and Henry Martyn, and Eliot the apostle of the Indians, now heard? They were not a few of them "in perils by the heathen, in perils of the city, in perils in

SECOND SERIES.

the wilderness, in perils in the sea; in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness;" but they overcame and entered into glory. "Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame; and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

99

LECTURE VII.

THE UNBELIEVING.

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." -Revelation xxi. 8.

I SELECT unbelief as the root and fountain to which all other sins are traced in Scripture. Unbelief prevented the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. Paul, as one who was taught its heinousness by the Holy Spirit of God, addresses his Hebrew converts thus :-"Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." It is a heart disease. Disease in the finger, the eye, the ear, is not fatal; but disease at the heart is not only fatal itself, but morally it is the prolific parent of the dark progeny enumerated in this

verse.

It has been made matter of complaint by persons of a skeptical mind, that heaven and hell should be made contingent on belief or unbelief; as if mere belief were the highest virtue, and the want of it the greatest sin. Faith in Scripture, however, is not mere intellectual evidence: it is, properly, confidence in God, or accepting his truth and promises, and all he is, as real, and placing implicit and unwavering confidence in his word, more than in the works of men. Is it no injury to human institutions to be denuded of all confidence? What becomes of a bank or insurance office, if confidence in their stability and substance be removed? Ruin lights on all. Destroy confidence between husband and wife, patient and physician, client and lawyer, and you paralyze every possibility of good. Exhaust from our social and commercial world all confidence, and you will soon find the whole system a rope of sand, destitute of cohesive power, and ready to fall to pieces.

This unbelief, or, as I have called it, want of confidence, while it is so mischievous, is at the same time the most subtle, evasive, and secret. It lurks under the affections like a caterpillar amid leaves, or a worm in a rosebud, and gnaws and wastes them. Other sins are easily seen: it is not so; but its existence can be detected by its effects-it always develops itself; the sins, in fact, in this very verse exude from it, and appear upon the surface.

It shows itself in the least subtle, and therefore most easily detected shape-viz. in positive rejection of Christianity; this is vulgar infidelity, according to which the Bible is a fable, and Christ crucified folly. It gazes on the Christian firmament, and sees no sun or stars; or on the earth, the ocean, and the forest, and the landscape, and sees in none of these the footprints of Deity as upon the sands of time; or in its more recent and perhaps perilous formula-American and German Pantheism-it rushes to the opposite pole, and sees every thing so overflowing with Deity, that it calls the proof of God's existence God, and every thing part and parcel of God. It is thus that the Pantheist in his blasphemy undesignedly praises God, by acknowledging every thing a vessel full of divinity. But in all its shapes, extravagances, and pretensions, its air is that of the dungeon, its dogmas icicles, its element the night, and its doom dissolution before that warm tide of light and life which shall overflow the earth.

This unbelief develops itself also in practical unbelief, combined with theoretical acceptance of every truth. Such persons profess to believe every truth of Christianity; they assail nothing, they dispute nothing; they are married, and their children are baptized according to the rites of Christianity; they enter the sanetuary full of apathy, and they retire having lost none of it These are the most unmanageable of all persons; they are not to be laid hold of, there is no handle about them; they present perfectly smooth surfaces, and all appeals glide off, like water off the wing of a waterfowl. One longs to hear them contradict, or dispute, or deny, but they are incapable of this; and yet if you say they are unbelievers, they will repeat the apostle's creed and the ten commandments without a single omission. But the gospel has no hold of their hearts, no control over their affections, no echo in their conscience; its great voice has no music for their