to embrace the noblest ideas of the highest enjoyments, even those of infinite duration; it is formed for God and heaven, and with these alone can it be fully satisfied. Therefore it is, that men devoted to this world and to the things of time are never contented; they discover, after all their eager pursuit of business and pleasure, that, as the Scripture expresses it, they are but "feeding on ashes !"-Rev. Francis Close.

THE DANGER AND EVIL OF DEPARTING FROM GOD.

"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.-HEB. 3: 12.

THE gospel is heaven's music on earth; a melody of two voices. The air is sung by Love; and the burden of the song is, Salvation by Mercy. If this were the only voice, and this its only theme, you would perhaps hear nothing but tones of tender sympathy, of fervent affection, of joy, of hope, of delight. But this song is sung to the soul in the midst of peril. You therefore hear an accompanying voice singing a subordinate but harmonious part. It is tremulous and solemn, sometimes awful, as it atters the notes of warning. We are now to listen to it, as it

announces

THE DANGER AND EVIL OF DEPARTING FROM GOD.

We inquire

I. What is it to depart from God?

Men sustain many relations to God which can never be destroyed. He will always be our Creator, Preserver, Sovereign and Judge. So one may always sustain to his fellow-creatures certain relations that do not depend on his character or principles; often not upon his will. But a man cannot be said to live as a social being unless he loves and is loved; and at the basis of love is confidence. We may continue to be the creatures of God, to live on his goodness, to be held in the hollow of his hand, to remain under the inspection of his eye, to be responsible to him; but we have departed from him at an infinite distance, if we exercise no confidence, heart-confidence in him.

There are, then, what may be called a fundamental departure from God, and various forms of separation consequent on that. 1. The essential, fundamental departure of the soul from God is the want of confidence.

Confidence in things is that act of reason through the understanding by which the mind knows the properties of substances, and calculates with certainty upon their action. Confidence in persons is an act of reason through the heart, by which it knows

their qualities, and calculates with certainty upon their actions. By the first, man lives in communion with nature; by the last, in communion with man and God. If a philosopher were to lose his confidence in nature, or if ordinary men should, they would cease to live in harmony with things around them, and even to sustain life. A man cannot step, or eat, or try to speak, without confidence in nature. He cannot live in society without confidence in man. He cannot live in communion with God without confidence in him. What it is, can be better understood than defined. The infant exercises it when, looking into the mother's face, its soul is tranquilized to a perfect repose. We may strengthen confidence by reasoning and by evidence; we may sometimes arrive at it by reasoning; we should always be able to defend it by substantial reasons; yet in itself it is not reason, but the heart in exercise. Another being is felt, in a measure, to be its life; the source of its joy, satisfaction, repose and hope. Now, when the eternal Jehovah ceases to be that to any soul, it has departed from the living God. It has either no confidence in any being, or it has given all its confidence to creatures, in place of the Creator.

It may be contemplated, however, more distinctly in some of those forms.

2. Which are the result of that fundamental departure from Him. Confidence in God involves a belief of his Word, because the veracity and faithfulness of a being is one of the great objects of confidence. The believer knows not only that God is, in distinction from nature and man, but that he is a Person of the most absolute and unchangeable veracity and faithfulness. Unbelief is the doubt or denial of this. What he has declared is not received as truth. This may manifest itself in many forms. There may be skepticism as to the moral character of the Scriptures. Some think they tend to form a spirit contrary to sound morality. Some have no confidence in the narratives of miraculous events. Some reject their testimony as to the character of man. Some deny the threatenings as descriptive of future events. To some, the promises do not appear worthy of their personal confidence; to others, the requirements are not received as the very commands of our Almighty Creator.

This is the evil heart of unbelief. The testimony of the Creator is not received; and this is because there is want of confidence in him. By faith we know that the worlds were made of nothing. Now there may be an old heathen maxim, "Out of nothing nothing comes," or there may be inherent difficulties in the case which makes it seem reasonable to some to doubt this fact; but he that has confidence in the power and veracity of God will have no difficulty in believing this statement. And so it will be found with all the other statements of the Scriptures: confidence in God will make it easy to believe them; and the

loss of that confidence will give increasing weight to the objections and difficulties. Difficulties about the threatenings, about the Trinity, election and atonement, gain force in the same way. Suppose, now, that Abraham had indulged an evil heart of unbelief, he would have found it impossible to surmount this objection: "It cannot be right, even in God, to require me to slay my innocent child" or this: "If Isaac is slain, the promise must fail." The rich young ruler stumbled here; he had no confidence that Christ could make him happy, if he should give up all his earthly possessions. Dives could not believe that he would be made to weep and wail, and cry for one drop of water, and find an impassable gulf between him and heaven, "just for the few sins he committed in this life." But if he had had confidence in God as infinitely holy, inflexibly just, and unchangeably true, it would have been to him as manifest in his palace as it became in his prison of despair. The thief on the cross might have been staggered by the greatness of his guilt, the strength of his evil habits, the weakness manifested by the dying Saviour. But he staggered not through unbelief. He trusted in the word of Christ, because he had confidence in the character of Christ. In fact, faith as belief must spring out of faith as confidence. And if the Scriptures present God in the unity of his essence, we believe it; if in the plurality of persons, we believe it. If the Father is represented as giving the Son to be a sacrifice for us, as offering him to sinful men; if as accepting the sinner in Christ; or if the Son is represented as offering himself to us, and the Spirit; or if the Spirit is represented as offering to enter our hearts, there is nothing contradictory in all this, but something every way accordant with our necessities and the Divine goodness. When Adam and Eve heard the threatening upon the act of eating of the prohibited tree, and the prohibition itself, they doubtless acquiesced in it as every way right. But when their confidence in God was abandoned, they lost the impression and the belief of the command and the threatening. When the little church continued praying until the day of Pentacost, their confidence in God remained unwavering. But an evil heart of unbelief would have chilled their zeal, and scattered them from the prayer-meeting to some occupation that should seem more reasonable and profitable as well as more agreeable. Men will not continue near to God in fervent, importunate prayer after their confidence in him is shaken. Their interests in the Scriptures will abate, because, insensibly to themselves, they are losing their confidence in their truth and importance.

Confidence in God also involves love. If he has infinite moral excellence, and that is perceived by any one, he of course loves him for it. A person may believe that God is good without loving him; but to have confidence implies love, so far as excellence is perceived. When, therefore, one begins to be indifferent, and

cold, and thoughtless of God, he has departed from him. He does not any more believe that God is that perfectly excellent and gracious Being he once thought him to be. "Thou has left thy first love," is the charge against the Ephesian Church. The heart has greater confidence in some other person or some object. The world in some form has come to be supremely excellent in his view, and God is forsaken. Another effect of losing confidence in God is, cessation of obedience. Who will hesitate to obey God, when he believes that God is reasonable, wise, holy, just and good, and that in keeping his commandments there is great reward? We have departed from him by an evil heart of unbelief when we can transgress his commandments, and neglect his requirements.

And, again, we depart from God when we cease to hope in him. Our confidence is gone. Although he has uttered so many gracious promises, yet, if we do not confide in him, we can have no confidence in them.

Suppose a man like Daniel, threatened with the lion's den if he prays to God; yet he hopes for deliverance against the king's command and threat, because he has confidence in God. Suppose a woman corrupt as the woman of Sychar; she knows that Christ can purify and exalt the most debased nature to the purity and glory of an archangel: that is the faith that saves her. Suppose Peter to be overwhelmed with a sense of his guilt in denying Christ, yet he knows that the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin, and he has hope. But Judas has departed from God, and fled to Mammon. He has no confidence, and so becomes a prey to despair.

Now we inquire

II. How we are in danger of departing from God.

We may say, in a word, it is by having a tendency to unbelief: "lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief." 1. It is a danger arising from the heart.

The heart of man naturally swarms with those venomous reptiles that are the enemies of piety; varying in their modifications in different persons; in all essentially the same. Their name is legion. One of the most dangerous positions we can cccupy is that of doubting their existence, power and subtlety. One is sensual dulness. If you would see it in the extreme, observe a man who has just come out of a fit of drunkenness. All his finer sensibilities are blunted; he has no eyes to see spiritual beauty-no heart to relish anything but brutal gratifications. If you would see it in a form less revolting, take a person who has been reading romance until the midnight hour of Saturday, and then attempts to hear or read the Word of God on Sunday. They hear, says Jesus, but do not understand, because their ear is waxed dull of hearing; they have not "their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." This was the ground of our Sav.