light in which unbelief is placed in the scriptures;—having adduced evidence, to which, were it necessary, much more might be added, that, so far from being "held guiltless" as the hue of the skin or the height of the stature, it is condemned as sinful, and threatened with punitive retribution ;- -we now go on to consider the grounds on which it is so regarded, and to vindicate the righteousness of the divine procedure.

In entering on this part of my subject, I must begin by stating a distinction, which is sufficiently obvious, and yet too frequently lost sight of; that, namely, between the sovereignty and the equity of the Divine administration.—Sovereignty is simply "the good pleasure of God's will,” by which he is left at full liberty to do towards his creatures whatever is not inconsistent with equity. Equity is exercised in giving every one his due; and what is due in equity cannot be withheld in sovereignty. In regard to all that is good, sovereignty may go beyond what is due, but cannot, without a violation of

the claims of equity, keep within it. As to the infliction of evil, it comes not at all within the province of sovereignty; it belongs exclusively to that of equity. The sovereign infliction of evil is an anomaly, that can have no place under the righteous government of God. Sovereignty has to do only with the bestowment of good. This is its proper department and here its freedom is without restriction; its range of beneficence without limits. Equity can neither withhold deserved good, nor visit with undeserved evil: -sovereignty may both suspend deserved evil, and confer undeserved good. With regard to creatures, then, that have sinned and are guilty, there may be a sovereign determination to bless and to save: but there can be no sovereign determination to curse and to damn. The curse and damnation are the result, in every case, not of sovereignty, but of equity. There is a decree of salvation; and, from the nature of the thing, that decree must be sovereign. In nothing else than sovereignty, or Divine good plea

sure, can it have its origin: for those for whose salvation it provides are such as, in equity, deserve to perish. But there is no sovereign decree of reprobation and perdition. The sole determination, on this side of the alternative, is the determination of equity to punish sin. Salvation is the result of a purpose of sovereignty; damnation is the fulfilment of a sentence of equity. The former presupposes unworthiness; the latter, desert. Merited salvation, and unmerited perdition, are ideas alike incongruous and contradictory.

On these principles, if unbelief infers guilt and condemnation, it must be regarded as, in the principle from which it arises, involving some description of moral turpitude. The sentence is not pronounced, nor the punishment inflicted, in arbitrary vindictiveness. "The righteous Lord, who loveth righteousness," must see ground in equity for both. There is nothing, we may be assured, more arbitrary in the punishment of unbelief of Divine truth, than in the pun

ishment of any transgression of the Divine law. The one is as much a matter of equity as the other. If unbelief involved no moral delinquency, on no principle of justice could its punishment be vindicated.

I must now observe further, that there are three things which appear to be necessary to the guilt of unbelief:-these are, capacity of understanding, opportunity of knowledge, and sufficiency of evidence. The absence of any one of these would nullify just responsi bility.

When there is a natural incapacity of understanding, it is quite obvious that there can be no accountableness, no guilt. This is more than admitted, it is the sentiment distinctly expressed, in the language of our Lord to the pharisees, after the cure of the blind beggar recorded in the ninth chapter of the gospel according to John. "For judgment," said Jesus, "I am come into this world, that they who see not might see, and that they who see might be made blind. And some of the pharisees who were with

him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also? Jesus said unto them, IF

YE WERE BLIND, YE SHOULD HAVE NO SIN:

but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth."-What these pharisees said of themselves, was in two respects, true. They possessed natural faculties of discernment, powers of mental vision, in many of them acute and vigorous :—and they had the scriptures of the Old Testament in their hands; they were not unacquainted with their contents; and, as far as capacity of understanding went, they were quite capable of discerning the correspondence between the types, and predictions, and promises, which they contained, and all that they saw and heard in Jesus of Nazareth. "Therefore their sin remained."-But to discuss the causes that prevented their discerning what their natural capacity fully qualified them to discover, would anticipate a subsequent part of our subject.*

* The particular thus briefly touched upon disposes of all cases of idiocy and natural intellectual incapacity.