CHAPTER XXII.

THE CROSS REJECTED, THE GREAT SIN.

As the present chapter closes this volume, I propose to devote it to some considerations which I may not withhold from those of my readers that have long known and long rejected the truth and grace made manifest by the Cross of Christ. In numberless forms of secret and overt iniquity, men have disregarded the divine authority and abused the divine goodness; but these are all venial offences compared with the sin of unbelief. This is the sin which, of all others, exposes them to the wrath and curse of God-the sin which it most becomes them to bewail and detest; it is emphatically the sin of which the Spirit of Truth most deeply convinces those of its guilty perpetrators who are brought to repentance. "When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will convince the world of sin." And why will he convince the world of sin? Not because they are by nature children of wrath, not because their heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked-though of this apostate and guilty character he does convince them-but because they believe not on the Son of God. This is the "front of their offending." In the deliberate judgment of that Saviour by whom the actions of men are weighed, it stands forth as the enormity of their crime, that "they believe not on Him." It was a fearful crime to crucify the Son of God.

"I asked the Heavens, What foe to God hath done
This unexampled deed? The Heavens exclaim,

"Twas man! and we, in horror, snatched the sun
From such a spectacle of guilt and shame.'

"I asked the Sea: the Sea in fury boiled,

And answered with his voice of storms, "'Twas man!
My waves in panic at his crime recoiled,
Disclos'd the abyss, and from the centre ran.'

"I asked the Earth: the Earth replied, aghast,
"Twas man! and such strange pangs my bosom rent,

That still I groan and shudder at the past.'

To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man, I went,
And ask'd him next: He turn'd a scornful eye,

Shook his proud head, and deigned me no reply."

Unbelief" crucifies him afresh." This is emphatically the sin of man; the sin which even devils have not perpetrated, and which remains the foul stain upon the character of the world where the Saviour died, and where we dwell.

Not to receive the salvation purchased by the Cross of Christ, appears, at first view, to be a negative sin, and one simply of omission. Many persons regard it as the mere want of faith, and hence it seems to them a comparatively harmless thing. Nor may it be denied, that if unbelief consists in the mere absence of faith, there are many supposable instances in which it is certainly very harmless. It is a mere nothing, and has no moral quality whatever; for there can be no criminality in mere negation, or want of volition. But there is no such thing as this in the moral universe. There is, indeed, no harm in some of mankind not believing. This the apostle teaches, when he inquires concerning the heathen nations, "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?" Those who have never heard of Christ cannot be blamed for not hearing, or for not believing. There is therefore something in unbelief more criminal than this mere want of faith.

Nor does unbelief consist in speculative infidelity merely. Speculative infidelity involves it; but the spirit of unbelief, in all its positive activity and energy, is often found where speculative infidelity has no place, and where men have no doubts of the truth of Christianity. Nor may it be confidently affirmed that unbelief consists in that diffidence of one's good estate and acceptance with God, of which there are so many examples in men who give evidence of conversion. It may not be true that, in the same proportion in which a man doubts of his adoption into the divine family, he is an unbeliever; nor, on the other hand, that, in the same proportion in which he has no doubts of his acceptance, he is a believer. Unbelief is not incompatible with presumptuous assurance; while there may be true faith, though weak and imperfect, where there is much diffidence and fear, many clouds, and deep darkness.

Unbelief is the opposite of belief: it is disbelief. It is the act of the mind rejecting the salvation of the Cross. "He that is not with me," saith the Saviour, "is against me." Where his salvation is not the object of complacency and love, it is the object of aversion and hatred. The very indifference of men toward it, arises from a secret and unavowed hostility to its claims. What is indifference to the Gospel, but a refusal to love it? and what do its declared enemies more than requite it with such refusal? When a man from the heart believes it, he receives, loves and obeys it; when he disbelieves, he sincerely and heartily rejects it. This the Scriptures represent to be the nature of unbelief. "He came to his own, and his own received him not; but to as many as received him he gave the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." "Did ye

never read in the Scriptures that the stone which the

builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner ?" "But first, the Son of Man must be rejected of this generation." The scribes and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves. Such is the view given of unbelief in several of the parables in the evangelical history, and particularly the parable of the marriage feast, the Gospel supper, and the husbandman and the vineyard. Our blessed Lord describes this sin in that memorable declaration to the Jews, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." This is the true character of unbelief. It is rejecting and opposing, with all the heart, the Gospel of the grace of God. It is resisting its truth, rebelling against its authority, refusing its mercy, opposing its terms, and rejecting its holy salvation. Though multitudes do this, who have no just impressions of the wickedness of so doing, yet is it their great sin, their damning sin, and the sin that binds the guilt of all their other sins upon them. There must, therefore, be something peculiarly aggravated in this sin, whether we can discover it or not. And, if we mistake not, there are things discoverable in it, which may help us to some just views of its enormity. What are these things?

It is perfectly obvious that unbelief is a sin against great degrees of knowledge in regard to the obligation and duty of men as sinners. Sin is a violation of our obligations, whether those obligations are known or unknown; for even " he that knew not his master's will, and did it not," was to be "beaten," though with "few stripes." In its highest and most aggravated forms, it is the violation of obligations that are known. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Nothing so much aggravates the sins of men as light and knowledge; yet are these nowhere so concentrated as in the Cross of Christ. The heathen have little knowledge, and

therefore they have, compared with those who dwell in Christian lands, little sin. All that is excellent and lovely in the character of that great and good Being, who is himself the author of the Christian revelation-all that is affecting and solemn in the relations which exist between him and the creatures he has made all that is binding in the precepts and prohibitions of his law, and all that is odious and vile in transgression-is most clearly and distinctly set before the mind in the teachings of the Cross. Be the precept what it may which the unbeliever violates, the Cross enforces it by the purest and the strongest light that ever shone, or ever will shine, on the minds of men. No man can disregard the claims of the Gospel, except from a strength and vigor of wickedness which no divine instruction can check or subdue. It is impossible for him to disregard them, and sin at any common rate. With all their unnatural and brutal pollution, Sodom and Gomorrah never sinned as Chorazin and Bethsaida sinned, as every unbeliever in the Cross in Christian lands sins. Such a man shows that he loves darkness rather than light; he shows that he loves to sin, and that he means to sin, in defiance of all the claims of truth and duty, and at every hazard. The terms on which the crucified Saviour offers freely to save men are, that they shall forsake their sins, and submit themselves to his authority and grace. The salvation he offers, and which they may have for the taking, consists, in no small degree, in the deliverance it effects from the reigning power of sin; and, in rejecting the offer, what do they but practically justify all their former sins-nay, repeat and glory in them, and virtually declare that, in defiance of all their knowledge of God's will, they have no present purpose ever to perform what he requires, or leave undone that which he forbids?