Thomas Manton · 26 of 67

Verse 5. · Part 2

[2.] It is a sin against which God hath declared most of his displeasure. Search the annals, survey all the monuments of time, see if ever God spared an unbeliever. Hence in the wilderness the apostle saith they were destroyed for unbelief. Many were their sins in the wilderness, murmurings, lustings, idolatry; but the main reason of their punishment was, ‘they believed not,’ Look to their final excision and cutting off. Why was it? Δἱ ἁπιστίας ‘for unbelief were they broken off.’ Rom. xi. 20; not so much for ‘crucifying the Lord of life.’ The gospel was tendered to them after Christ was slain. It was for not believing or refusing the gospel. If you will know what company there is in hell, that catalogue will inform you, ‘Fearful, and unbelievers,’ &c., Rev. xxi. 8. If you look to temporal judgments, that nobleman was trodden to death for distrusting God’s power, 2 Kings viii. 2, and could only see the plenty, but not taste of it. Nay, it is such a sin as God hath not spared in his own children. Moses and Aaron could not enter into the land of promise because of their unbelief, Num. xx. 12. So Luke i. 20, Zacharias was struck dumb for not believing what God had revealed. Christ did never chide his disciples so much for anything as for their unbelief: Luke xxiv. 25, ‘O ye fools, and slow of heart to believe;’ and ‘why doubt ye, O ye of little faith?’ Mat. viii. 26. He chideth them before he chideth the wind. The storm first began in their own hearts.

[3.] It is the mother of all sin. The first sin was the fruit of unbelief. We may plainly observe a faltering of assent, Gen. iii. 3-5; and still it is the ground of all miscarriages, of hardness of heart, and apostasy, Heb. iii. 12, 13. He that believeth not the judgments and threatenings of the word will not stick to do any evil; and he that doth not believe the promises will not be forward to any good. All our neglect and coldness in holy duties cometh from the weakness of our faith. There is a decay at the root. Did we believe heaven and things to come, we should be more earnest and zealous. Many are ashamed of adultery, theft, murder, but not of unbelief, which is the mother of all these.

[4.] Final unbelief is an undoubted evidence of reprobation. See John x. 26, ‘Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep;’ and Acts xiii. 48. Unbelief is God’s prison, wherein he keepeth the reprobate world: Rom. xi. 32, ‘He hath shut them up under unbelief,’ &c. And shall I continue such a black note upon myself? I know not how soon God may cut me off; and if I die in this estate, I am miserable for ever: ‘Lord, I desire to believe; help my unbelief.’

[5.] It is a sin that depriveth us of much good, of the comforts of providence. Nothing doth ponere obicem, bar and shut out God’s operation in order to our relief, so much as this sin: Mark vi. 5, ‘He could do no mighty work,’ &c. So John xi. 40, ‘Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?’ So also of the comfort of ordinances: Heb. iv. 2, ‘The word profited not, be cause it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it.’ So for prayer, James i. 7-9. Nay, it barreth heaven’s gates. It excluded Adam out of paradise, the Israelites out of Canaan, and us out of the kingdom of heaven, Heb. iii. 17, 18.

Well, then, let us see if we be guilty of this sin: ‘Take heed,’ saith the apostle, Heb. iii. 12, ‘lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.’ Many have an unbelieving heart when they least think of it. It is easy to declaim against it, but hard to convince men of it, either of the sin or of lying in a state of unbelief; it is the Spirit’s work, ‘The Spirit shall convince of sin, because they believe not in me,’ John xvi. 9. There are many pretences by which men excuse themselves, some more gross, others more subtle. Many think that all infidels are without the pale, among Turks and heathens. Alas! many, too many, are to be found in the very bosom of the church. The Israelites were God’s own people, and yet ‘destroyed because they believed not.’ Others think none are unbelievers but those that are given up to the violences and horrors of despair, and do grossly reject or refuse the comforts of the gospel; but they are mistaken; the whole word is the object of faith, the commandments and threatenings as well as the promises; and carelessness and neglect of the comforts of the gospel is un belief, as well as doubts and despairing fears: Mat. xxii. 5, ‘But they made light of it.’ He is the worst unbeliever that scorns and slighteth the tenders of God’s grace in Christ as things wherein he is not concerned. Briefly, then, men may make a general profession of the name of Christ, as the Turks do of Mahomet, because it is the religion professed there where they are born; a man may take up the opinions of a Christian country, and not be a whit better than Turks, Jews, or infidels; as he is not the taller of stature that walketh in a higher walk than others do. They may understand their religion, and be able to ‘give a reason of the hope that is in them,’ and yet lie under the power of unbelief for all that, as many may see countries in a map which they never enter into. The devil hath knowledge, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know,’ &c. And those that pretend to knowledge without answer able practice, do but give themselves the lie, 1 John ii. 29. Besides knowledge there may be assent, and yet unbelief still. The devils assent as well as know; they ‘believe there is one God,’ James ii., and it is not a naked and inefficacious assent, but such as causeth horrors and tremblings. They ‘believe and tremble;’ and they do not only believe that one article, that there is one God, but other articles also: ‘Jesus, thou Son of God, art thou come to torment me before my time?’ was the devil’s speech; where there is an acknowledging of Christ, and him as the Son of God and judge of the world, and increase of their torment at the last day upon his sentence. Assent is necessary, but not sufficient; laws are not sufficiently owned when they are believed to be the king’s laws; there is something to be done as well as believed. In the primitive times, assent was more than it is now, and yet then an inactive assent was never allowed to pass for faith. Confident resting on Christ for salvation, if it be not a resting according to the word, will not serve the turn; there were some that ‘leaned upon the Lord,’ Micah iii. 11, whom he disclaimeth. It is a mistaken Christ they rest upon, and upon him by a mistaken faith. It is a mistaken Christ, for the true Christ is the eternal Son of God, that was born of a virgin, and died at Jerusalem, ‘Bearing our sins in his body upon a tree, that we, being dead unto sin, might be alive unto righteousness,’ 1 Peter ii. 24. The true Christ is one that ‘gave himself for us, that he might purify us to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works,’ and is now gone into heaven, there to make intercession for us, and will come again from heaven in a glorious manner to take an account of our works, Titus ii. 13, 14. But now when men lie under the power and reign of their sins, and yet pretend to rest upon Christ for salvation, they set up another Christ than the word holdeth forth. And as the Christ is mistaken, so is the faith. It is not an idle trust, but such as is effectual to purge the heart, for the true ‘faith purifieth the heart,’ Acts xv. 9. If, besides profession, knowledge, assent, and a loose trust, they should pretend to assurance, or to a strong conceit that Christ died for them, and they shall certainly go to heaven, this will not excuse them from unbelief; this is πρῶτον ψεῦδος, the grand mistake, that the strength of faith lieth in a strong persuasion of the goodness of our condition, and the stronger the persuasion the better the faith. If this were true, hardness of heart would make the best faith, and he that could presume most, and be most secure and free from doubts, would be the truest believer, and the goodness of our condition would lie in the strength of our imagination and conceit. Alas! many make full account they shall go to heaven that shall never come there. The foolish virgins were very confident, and the foolish builder goeth on with the building, never suspecting the foundation. Nay, let me tell you, assurance of a good condition, as long as we lie under the power and reign of sin, is the greatest unbelief in the world, for it is to believe the flat contrary to that which God hath revealed in the word; therefore none abuse the Lord and question his truth so much as these do. Where hath God said that men that live in their sins shall be saved? Nay, he hath expressly said the contrary, ‘Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor idolaters,’ &c., 1 Cor. vi. 9; so that you give God the lie, or conceit that he will break his word for your sakes; nay, in a sense, you even dare him to make good his truth. He hath said, ‘Be not deceived; you shall never enter,’ &c., and you say, Though I am an adulterer, a drunkard, a worldling, I shall go to heaven for all that. Now in a little while you shall see whose word shall stand, God’s or yours, Jer. xliv. 28.

Once more, the word is not supposed to be without all kind of power. Men may have some ‘relish of good things,’ and some ‘experience of the powers of the world to come,’ and yet be in an un believing state: see Heb. vi. 5, where the apostle speaketh of a common work, opposed to τὰ ἐχόμενα τῆς σωτηρίας, to ‘things that do accompany salvation,’ ver 9, or have salvation necessarily annexed to them. They may have some feeling of the power of the truth, and yet afterwards make defection, out of a love to the world and worldly things; they may have many spiritual gifts, change their outward conversation, make a glorious profession, and be thereupon enrolled among the saints; yea, be of great use and service in the church, though for their own ends and interests, remaining all this while unrenewed, and having their worldly inclinations to honour, esteem, pleasure, profit, unbroken and unmortified; for there is no such enemy to faith as a carnal, worldly heart. Therefore let men pretend what they will, when they are as eager upon the world as if they had no other matters to mind, and the love of outward greatness doth sway with them more than the love of heaven, and the praise of men more than the approbation of God, and carnal ease and pleasure more than delight in God, how can they be said to believe? John v. 44; for such kind of lusts and earthly affections are inconsistent with the power and vigour of saving faith; therefore till the bent of the heart be towards heavenly things, and carnal affections be soundly mortified, unbelief reigneth. I pitch it upon this evidence, partly because the great drift of conversion is to draw off the soul, as from self to Christ, and from sin to holiness, so from the world to heaven. See 1 Peter i. 3, ‘Begotten to a lively hope;’ and 1 John v. 4, ‘He that is born of God overcometh the world;’ as soon as we are converted, the heart is drawn and set towards heavenly things; partly because the main thing to be believed, next to God’s being, is his bounty, Heb. xi. 6, that we may make God our rewarder; and partly because the main work of faith is to draw off the soul from sensible things to ‘things unseen,’ and to come, Heb. xi. 1; so that whatsoever glorious profession men make, or whatsoever service they perform in the church, or whatsoever experience they have in the enlargement of gifts, yet if they be careless of things to come, and eager after the things of the world, faith is not thoroughly planted; for a main thing wanting in these temporaries was a resolution to serve God for God’s sake, or to make him their paymaster, which can never be till carnal inclinations to the honours, pleasures, and profits of the world be subdued, and we are willing to lay down all these things at Christ’s feet, taking only so much as he shall fairly allow us for our use.

Thus much for the heinousness of unbelief in the general.

Secondly, Let me tell you that all unbelief is not alike heinous, as will appear by these considerations.

[1.] Total reigning unbelief is a black mark; such as lie under it are in the high way to hell: John iii. 18, ‘He that believeth not is condemned already;’ the law hath condemned him, and whilst he remaineth in that estate, the gospel yieldeth him no hope: John iii. 36, ‘The wrath of God abideth on him;’ and if he die in it, he is miserable for ever. Rev. xxi. 8, ‘Fearful and unbelievers ‘are reckoned among the inhabitants of hell. First he is condemned by that ancient sentence, that ‘whosoever sinneth shall die;’ which is not reversed, but standeth in full force till faith in Christ: John viii. 24, ‘If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.’ And if we continue refusing the counsels of the gospel, to the condemnation that is already, to the condemnation of the law, there is added a new condemnation for despising the gospel. But now partial unbelief, where faith prevaileth, though there be many doubts and fears, leaveth a man obnoxious to temporal judgments, but not to eternal ruin.

[2.] All unbelief is the more heinous the more means you have to the contrary, as counsels, warnings, promises clearly held forth: see John xv. 22, ‘If I had not spoken to them,’ &c., and John iii. 19, ‘Light is come into the world,’ &c. The word is preached εἰς μαρτύριον, for a witness, Mat. xxiv. 14, with Mark xiii. 9; first to them, and if not received, then against them. ‘Did not I warn you?’ saith Reuben to his brethren. Every offer and warning will be as so many swords in your consciences. One observeth well, that twice Christ marvelled, once at the unbelief of his countrymen the Galileans, that had so much means, Mark vi. 8, and another time at the faith of the centurion, a stranger, Mat. viii. 10, who had so little means. It is a thing to be marvelled at, that a people should have so much means and profit but little. Wonder is a thing that proceedeth from ignorance, and Christ, though not ignorant, yet would express all human affections; and the rather that we might look upon it as a strange and uncomely thing not to believe after so many helps vouchsafed to us.

[3.] The more experiences, comforts, evidences, and manifestations of God’s power and presence we have had, the greater the unbelief. This was that which provoked the Lord against Israel to destroy them in the wilderness: Num. xiv. 11, ‘How long will it be ere ye believe in me, for all the signs that I have showed?’ God traineth up his people by experience, that they may know what he can or will do for them; and therefore by every experience we should grow up into a greater courage and strength of faith, and as David, draw inferences of hope against the present danger from the lion and the bear, 1 Sam. xvii. 36, or as Paul, he hath, and doth, and therefore will, 2 Cor. i. 10, other wise these experiences are given in vain. Christ was angry with his disciples for not remembering the miracle of the loaves, Mat. xvi. 9, when they were in a like strait again. When we show a child a letter here, and the same letter again in another word, and the same again in a third, if he should be to seek when we show him again the same letter in the next word, we are angry, and think our teaching lost. So when God giveth an evidence of his power and care in this strait, and, in a condescension to our weakness, giveth us a like evidence again, and in a third strait he teacheth us how to read and apply a promise, and yet upon the next difficulty we are to seek again, God is angry with us, because his condescensions are lost. And in this sense God is more angry with the unbelief of his children than of others, because they have more experiences, and are so ready to distrust him that never failed them.

[4.] The more deliberate our unbelief is, the worse. In times of inconsiderate passion, and in a fit of temptation, it may break out from God’s children. David, when he spake in haste, was fain to eat his words: Ps. cxvi. 11, ‘I said in my haste all men are liars;’ Samuel, and all who had told him of the kingdom; I shall never live to see the promise fulfilled: so Ps. xxxi. 22, ‘I said in my haste, I am cut off; nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications,’ In a fit, discontent may break out, but it is presently opposed and checked; but when it groweth into a settled distemper, then it is worse: as that in Ps. lxxiii. was a more lasting temptation; therefore David calleth himself beast, ver. 22, for his foolish and brutish thoughts of providence.

[5.] Where unbelief is expressed and put into words, there it is more heinous. Unbelieving thoughts are a great evil, but when they 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 thoughts, but you dishonour and disparage him when they break out into words: Mal. 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 private 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. 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 explication, ‘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.

2. Positive unbelief, 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 success, 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 lustred 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.

This unbelief is again twofold—(1.) Reigning; (2.) In part broken, though not wholly subdued.

[1st.] Reigning unbelief is in all natural men, who are not only guilty of unbelief, but described by the term unbelievers, as being persons never thoroughly gained to the obedience of the gospel, or the acceptance of Christ, and life and peace in him. It bewrayeth itself—(1.) By hardness of heart; they are not moved nor affected with their own misery, nor with redemption by Christ, and the great things of eternity depending thereupon; nor the invitations of grace, calling them to the enjoyment of them: Acts xix. 9, ‘And divers were hardened, and believed not,’ &c. A hard heart is one of the devil’s impregnable forts, not easily attacked by the force and power of the word: men are born with a hard heart; we bring the stone with us into the world, and by positive unbelief, or by slighting offers of grace made to us, it increaseth upon us. Hardness of heart is known by the foolishness of it, when ‘Seeing we see not, and hearing we hear not,’ Acts xxviii. 26, 27, when we have a grammatical knowledge of things, but no spiritual discerning. It is also known by the insensibleness of it, when men have no feelings of terrors by the law, of peace, joy, and hope by the gospel; no taste of the good word at all, but are as stones unmoved with all that is spoken. (2.) By a neglect of spiritual and heavenly things; they do not make it their business and work to look after those things, Mat. xxii. 5, ‘But they made light of it, and went one to his farm, another to his merchandise.’ Your callings are not your ἔργον, your work and main business; that is to look after an interest in Christ; therefore when this is the least thought of, and the farm and the merchandise engrosseth all our time and care, men believe not. Could they slight Christ and holy things if they did soundly and thoroughly believe the word of God? Would they not find some time to mend their souls? Looking after the inward man, that is the main care; and men would first regard it if they did believe that the soul were so concerned both in point of danger and hope. Surely when men take no heed to the great offers of the gospel, they do not look upon it as a certain truth. (3.) By secret suspicions in their own souls against the truth of the gospel. That profane wretch said Haec fabula Cliristi. They look upon it as a golden dream to make fools fond with it; and that all opinions in religion are but a logomachy, a mere strife of words, or a doctrine to set the world together by the ears, as Gallic, Acts xviii. 15, or a fancy and fond superstition, Acts xxv. 19, and that we need not trouble our heads about it. These are the natural thoughts which men have of the gospel. Such thoughts may rush into the heart of a godly man, but they are abominated and cast out with indignation; but in wicked men they reign and dwell; they live by these kind of principles. I remember Christ saith of his disciples, ἀληυῶς ἔγνωσαν, John xvii. 8, ‘They have known surely that I came out from thee.’ The light of faith is an undoubted certain light; but in wicked men, their assent is mingled with doubting, ignorance, error, and sottish prejudices against the doctrine and worship of God, Mat. iii. 14; natural atheism in them is not cured, and that faith which they pretend to and profess is but a loose wavering opinion, not a grounded and settled persuasion of the truth of the gospel. The ‘assurance of understanding,’ as the apostle calleth it, Col. ii. 2, dependeth upon experience and an inward sense of the truth, and is wrought by the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. ii. 4, and therefore, I suppose, proper to the godly. (4.) By rejecting the counsels of salvation; see Acts xiii. 46; Luke vii. 31. All natural men are ‘children of disobedience,’ Eph. ii. 2, out of pride scorning either the messages of God—‘Folly to him,’ 1 Cor. ii. 14, or the messengers—‘Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ Mark vi. 3, foining and fencing with the word, and defeating the methods of grace used to gain them, Rom. x. 21, guilty of an obstinate frowardness: ‘It is a people that do err in their hearts,’ Ps. xcv. 11; not in their minds only, but their hearts;’ as if they did say, ‘We desire not the knowledge of thy ways,’ Job xxi. 14. (5.) By the unholiness of their lives. The apostle saith, 2 Peter iii. 11, ‘We that look for such things, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holiness and godliness of conversation?’ from whence we may plainly infer that they which are not such manner of persons do not look for such things as faith inferreth—obedience; where the prince is there his train will be; so is unbelief known by disobedience; when men live as carnally and carelessly as an infidel, there is not a pin to choose between them. (6.) When men hear the word and never make application, or convert it to their own use, it is a sign they are under the power of reigning unbelief. In faith there is assent or believing the word to be the word of God, or that it is ‘a faithful saying,’ 1 Tim. i. 15; and then consent or approbation of the word as a good word or worthy saying, and then application, or converting the word to our own use. So in unbelief many doubt of the truth of the word, others acknowledge not the worth of it, they do not ‘glorify the word,’ Acts xiii. 48; most that speak well of the word, and approve it in their consciences, do not urge their own hearts with it: ‘What do we say to these things?’ Rom. viii. 31, and ‘know it for thy good,’ Job v. 27. The word is far sooner approved than applied, and yet till it be applied it worketh not. When we see ourselves involved and included in the general promise and precept, and are accordingly affected, then are we said to believe. In Ps. xxvii. 8, the injunction is plural, ‘Seek ye my face;’ but the answer is singular, ‘Thy face, Lord, will I seek.’ Thus must all truths be applied, and that in their method and order, for there is an analogy and proportion between them; as the doctrine of man’s misery, that I may consider this is my case, and, having a feeling of it, may groan for deliverance; the doctrine of redemption by Christ, that we may put in for a share, and assure our own interest; the doctrine of the thankful life, that we may deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ in the obedience of all his precepts. The first doctrine must be made the ground of complaint, the second of comfort and hope, the third of resolution and practice. But when we suffer these truths to hover in the brain without application, or hear them only as children learn them by rote, never thus reflecting, What am I? what have I done? what will become of me? &c., unbelief remaineth undisturbed. (7.) By apostasy or falling off from God. The great business of faith is, ‘by patient continuance in well-doing, to look for glory, honour, and immortality,’ Rom. ii. 8; but now to tire and grow weary, or to fall off from God as not worthy the waiting upon, argueth the height and reign of unbelief, whatever faith we pretended unto for a flash and pang. (8.) Desperation when conviction groweth to a height, and legal bondage gets the victory of carnal pleasure: Gen. iv. 13, ‘My sin is greater,’ &c., and Jer. xviii. 12, ‘There is no hope,’ &c. When men think it is in vain to trouble themselves, their damnation is fixed, and therefore resolve to go to hell as fast as they can; such desperate wickedness may there be in the heart of a man.