Teaching the moral state of soul necessary to faith by con- The moral states-states of heart-associated with unbelief by the sacred writers, may be classified under two or three separate manners of unfaithfulness, all familiar to experience as incapacitating for affectional thinking in matters of human relationship. ence. 4. Indifference, causing inattention, is in all periods of re- Indiffervelation complained of: "I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded" (Prov. i. 24); "They" (being careless or not regarding) "made light of it, and went their ways; one to his farm, another to his merchandise" (Matt. xxii. 5). The seed falling by the wayside stolen away by the fowls of heaven, was the "word heard" as if not heard, and" stolen out of the heart by Satan lest it should be believed"-dwelt upon. This is the "spirit of slumber" which Paul, for its evil effects in turning men away from the truth, sets alongside of gross sinfulness-"They that sleep," and "they that be drunken" (1 Thess. v. 7). dulgent 5. Habits of self-indulgent trifling, inducing want of serious Self-inthought of anything, are exhibited to us in Pilate's light, some- trifling. what scoffing, scepticism, "What is truth?" and in Herod Agrippa's half-jocular reply to Paul, that he must think him easily persuadable; but in a more widely applicable example, the case of the Athenians, who, occupying themselves with the lightest intellectual pleasures of society-the dolce far niente of easy, idle, cultivated life—“ spent their time in nothing else but Retained either to tell or to hear some new thing" (Acts xvii. 21), and jested at Paul's striking declarations, or said pleasantly, “We will hear thee again of this matter." The "seed falling among thorns," the word thought upon for a little, but choked by other thoughts already in strong accustomed possession of the soul-" cares of this life, deceitfulness of riches, lusts of other things "is the commonest source of want of belief; viz., that ignoring of the truth which as fully shuts it out as resisting it does. 6. Of blindness to observable truth by reason of prejudices prejudices. of education adhered to, an eminent example appears among the first Christian believers, who, being mistaught and unwilling to let go the worldly notions they had long learned of the Messiah's reign, were "slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken" (Luke xxiv. 25). The same veil of accustomed religious misbelief covered partially or wholly the spiritual sight of the first Jewish Christians as a national peculiarity. A fleshly mind. 7. Loss of power to think much on spiritual truth, or be impressed with things of that kind, comes upon an unfaithful use of the thoughts in prostituting the imagination to serve sensual lusts, and so turning it into a "fleshly mind." The natural (fleshly) man comes to a state of mind that he " receiveth not the things that be of God: they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. ii. 14). Faithfulness to goodness and to truth is necessary to success in perceiving them. "The path of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble" (Prov. iv. 18, 19). Blindness through sinfulness is the reverse side of the doctrine of spiritual discernment; in which retention, ready perception, and confident knowledge of the truth is promised to a man "honest and good," "doing truth," "doing the will of God" from the heart to all the extent of his perception of it, while he is "following on to know it more." In him who "obeys not the truth, but obeys unrighteousness," the "light that was in him becomes darkness." The progress in unbelief which arises in an unbeliever in this way is precisely a stumbling at he knows not what. 8. Besides, and in advance of these forms of unfaithful un- Antipathy. dutiful want of readiness fairly to consider the things God has revealed, Scripture describes and quotes unbelief arising from conscious antipathy to the truth. An evil conscience may cause such antipathy: "He that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds be reproved." Pride may produce it, such as demanded, "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?" (John vii. 48); "Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us?" (John ix. 34). A common necessity towards faith is that “imaginations be cast down, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and every thought be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x. 5). Undescribed obstinacy, variously caused perversity, was conjoined with want of faith in the unbelieving Jews whom the apostles encountered. They were "uncircumcised in heart and ears, always resisting the Holy Ghost" (Acts vii. 51), " opposing themselves," "hardened and unbelieving." Our Lord had to complain of conduct the most "childish" in His hearers, whom nothing would please-to whom John, for preaching down licentiousness, was as one who "had a devil," and He himself, for not being austere, was "a gluttonous man and a winebibber" (Matt. xi. 18, 19). Paul's difficulty among the Gentiles was much with positive resistance of the pure and humbling truths of the Gospel. Strongholds" had to be cast down. Men "wise in their own conceits" as to religious truth had to be persuaded to assume the place of the utterly ignorant and unwise, to prepare them to perceive the truth; and "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, were called" (1 Cor. i. 26). The rule held, which is so often declared in religious teaching, that "from the wise and prudent" in their own esteem the truth was "hidden," while it was "revealed to babes" in self-measurement, whose humble teachable souls, willing to learn, did not refuse the truth with the old disdain—“ whom would he make to understand doctrine?" (Isa. xxviii. 9), "Dost thou teach us?" (John ix. 34). Reciprocity of faith fulness. 9. That faith should, as thus appears, have a reciprocal and faith dependence on faithfulness-that its thoughts and feelings should be a difficult attainment to persons of sensual habits of life, or persons controlled by greedy desires, or persons disposed to indulge unbrotherly temper-is a corollary from the description of faith, that it is an enjoyed habitual thinking on a holy Being, and on man's affinity to Him, the ties which bind them together. “Defiled and unbelieving" is a natural conjunction, if believing be a life's habit of thinking on a history of holy benevolence, and on the grateful holiness which is its. reasonable service of acknowledgment. Precisely this doctrine of the moral condition necessary to faith is that declared by John: "He that loveth not knoweth not God" (1 John iv. 8). In the language of the Bible, love is often used for the whole life of religion, the right state of the heart, and its outgoings towards God-"the fulfilling of the law;" and the knowledge of God is in the same manner used to express the effectual perception of religious truth when the habits of the mind are possessed by, constrained and animated by, the things revealed. John's meaning, therefore, is, that the man who does not make his religion a thing as much of practice in heart and life as the affection of love is, will not attain to anything of that habitual feeling of the assurances of God's love which can be called knowing them. The intimation is exactly the inference unavoidable from the practice of faith; under which actual love of God our Saviour is necessary in order to bring into our hearts so abundant and so welcome as is needful all thoughts and recollections of Him and His ways of grace. The history of modern German infidelity illustrates well this connection between inclination and knowledge. Dr McCaul, quoted in 'Aids to Faith' (Essay on 'Inspiration'), has shown that the unbelief preceded in time the learning upon which it professes to rest. The notions of Deism and Rationalism to which the divine authority of the Bible is intolerable were first propagated, and only after that was the biblical criticism undertaken which is now pleaded for those notions. The wish that the grounds of the Christian faith were bad, was father to the thought that they might be found to be so; and the desire to find them so is very evident throughout the ingenious investigation applied to them. John states largely the moral condition upon which faith is possible: "He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Love is of God, and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love." Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans (chap. i.), pursues the darker side of the reciprocal connection to the very depth of religious ignorance, stating the cause of the grossest forms of Gentile idolatry and corruptness to be that mankind, "disliking to retain God in their knowledge," being "unwilling to glorify Him" as they knew Him from His works, having no thankfulness to Him, "became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things"; and then God gave them up to be led by their own desires into the most awful moral corruption. Christian misbeliefs or failures of faith afford some good illustrations of the necessity of faithfulness to believing. The work of the Holy Spirit, so largely spoken of in the New Testament, has had a pre-eminence among revealed things in not being understood and being misunderstood. His described work of "comforting," "guiding," "helping infirmities” in prayer and desire, is, by its kind, one to be comprehended and valued aright-believed in-only by persons who honestly, with all their heart, striving to do their duties amidst difficulties, feel the need of strengthening comfort and guidance and help to their infirmities. Persons whose consciences have never troubled them, who are satisfied with the strength of their Godward desires and the faithfulness of their life, and the comfort of their prayers, whose self-sufficiency never feels helplessly in need of guidance, protection, strength, and safe-keeping, cannot be expected to appreciate the aid which is expressly called help to the consciously infirm. That is a spiritual discernment requiring some preparation of experience in the spirit. Again, the Holy Spirit's "witness" (Rom. viii. 16) is sometimes misunderstood by religionists who deal |