I Yan unbelieving Heart; namely, the living God. What may be proper to be faid on this Subject may be reduced, I think, under these three Heads: Firft, To fhew, That it is for want of Faith, confidered as a Principle of Religion, that Men depart from the living God. Secondly, That Faith cannot be a Principle of Religion, until it has its Effects and Operations in the Heart. Thirdly, That the Motions and Operations of the Heart are in great measure under our own Power and Government. And And from hence it will evidently appear, how much it is the Business and Concern of a religious Life to be watchful over the Heart, to guard against all fuch Affections as will deftroy the Influence of Faith, and render the Heart uncapable of receiving the Impreffions of the Spirit of God. First then, We are to shew, That it is for want of Faith, considered as a Principle of Religion, that Men depart from the living God. What is meant by departing from God, will appear by comparing this with other equivalent Expreffions made ufe of in this Chapter. In the eighth Verse the Apostle introduces the Holy Ghoft fpeaking in the Language of the Pfalmift, and thus forewarning the People, Harden not your Hearts. In the tenth Verfe God complains of the rebellious Ifraelites in the Wilderness, faying, They do always err in their Hearts, and they have not known my Ways. In the Verfe immediately after the Text the Apostle thus explains his Meaning: But exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, left any of you be hardened through the Deceitfulness of Sin. So then, to be hardened in Heart, to err in Heart, not to know or walk in the Ways of God, to be hardened through the Deceitfulness of Sin, are one and the fame Thing as departing from the living God: And the Meaning of these figurative Expreffions is clearly explained at the feventeenth Verse: But with whom was he grieved forty Years? was it not with them that had finned? As Sinners are said to depart from God, fo those who forfake Sin, and are converted, are faid, in the Language of Scripture, to turn to God. Of the holy Baptist, who came preaching Repentance from dead Works, it was foretold, That he should turn many to the Lord their God, Luke i. 16. And the Apostles Paul and Barnabas thus describe the Purpose and End of their Miffion: We preach unto you, that ye should turn from these Vanities unto the living God, Acts xiv. 15. The Propriety of thefe Expreffions will appear, if we confider God, under the Representation made of him by our Saviour in the Parable of the Prodigal, as the Father of the Family; and Sinners as prodigal Sons, who, weary of their Father's Government, forfake his Houfe, and reduced by Luxury and Riot, enter into the Service of strange Mafters, till the Senfe of Want and their own Mifery brings them back to beg Admittance again into their Father's House. Thus the Nations of old forfook the Service of God, their heavenly Father, and fell under the hard Bondage of strange Deities : They were Apoftates from Him who had a Right to their Obedience, and Slaves to those who had no Dominion over them: When they received the Gofpel, it was not putting themselves under a new Master, but returning to their old one, and yielding that Obedience which was always due, though never paid before. Since therefore by Faith in the Gospel of Christ we become the Servants of the living God, and are once more entered into his Family, it is easy to apprehend the Reason why the Apostle in the Text charges an unbelieving Heart with Apoftafy from the living God: For, if Christian Faith be the Principle by which we are united to the living God, whatever destroys this Principle does at the fame time diffolve the Union; and we cannot make Shipwreck of the Faith without departing from God. An unbelieving Heart therefore, that is, an Heart void of Christian Faith, is guilty of Apoftasy. But you may ask perhaps, May not the Heart poffibly depart from God through the Solicitations of Vice and Pleafure, and Faith at the fame time ftand found and uncorrupted? And there is this Ground for putting 1 |