Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-10-01
Us. THURSDAY. OCTOBER |. 1874.
Unbelief.

the living God. .-liEB. 5-l2
The emphasis here is properly on
"you." The Apostles thought was
this Our Fathers who came out of
Egypt to so to Canaan, suffered great
and terrible things by reason of their
nJelief so that ''God swore in his
wrath they should not enter into his
rest" (the promised land) and "their
carcasses fell in the wilderness, so we
see they could not enter in, because of
their mbeJief," and now g take heed,
brethren, lest there be in any of you
an evil heart of unbelief."
These words assume
l. That those children were in the
same danger of unbelief as their faith
ers had been.
2. That the results of unbelief
would be as disastrous in their case as
in the case of their fathers.
Human nature being the same, and
God being the same as in the days Of
Moses and Paul, the words of our text
are as ft1y addressed to US now, as to
the Hebrews then.
Such as are wise in their own con-
ceit, and prudent in their own estima-
ton, will get little good from anything
that begins with & take heed"
Ye whose hearts can welcome kindly
warning, and who are wise to learn the
truth and be blessed by it,,--ye will be
glad to consider this warning of the
law.
1t suggests some questions :
First, What is unbelief? Unbe-
lief is not mere non-belief 1t is not
mere ignorance of things that are true.
A man may be ignorant Of ninety-nine
out Of every hundred truths that are
accepted by the world, in which case
he can hardly be said to believe them,
but he is not thereby an unbeliever.
Abraham, for example, was ignorant
Of nearly all the truths that are be-
lieved now; truths both of science
and scripture, and yet he was prince
Of believers.
Neither is unbelief to be confounded
with mere doubt. Doubt may be hon
est, is often inevitable. Indeed, the
true heart will most surely doubt what
ever has the look of unreasOn or un-
truth about it. Nor will it rest in its
faith, until it can rest upon a basis of
clearly apprehended truth. HOnes'
doubt is not unbelief
Neither is the rejection Of truth to
be set down as unbelief, so long as it
is rejected because it is thought to be
not truth For example; the doctrine
Of the Trinity may be true, but if ore
rejects it because it seems to him false,
he is not guilty of unbelief, And the
same may be said of many doctrines,
the perfect statement Of which has not
yet been made.
Moreover, unbelief is not a matter
Of the interest at all, but matter OF
the will. This must be, for the oper-
ations of the intellect, considered apart
from the will, are neither praiseworthy
nor blameworthy, since they follow as
a law of necessity. They do not de-
termine themselves, but are determined
by other things at the last analysis by
the will itself That is to say the will !
or better still, the person acting free !
ly-determines very largely the states
and perceptions of the mind in all its
other faculties,
The man determines, for instance,
where he shall be; whom he shall have
as companions; what his reading shall
be what his business and what his
personal habits, and thus he indirectly
determines what his general though,
shall be about, and the general charac-
ter of his intellectual perceptions and
discoveries. But these last being de-
termined and not themselves voluntary,
are neither to be blamed or praised,
But unbelief is to be blamed it must
therefore be voluntary. In other
words. since we cannot condemn as sin
full what is involuntary and inevitable,
and since we do condemn unbellef,
therefore unbelief must be a matter
of the will. Unbelief, then, Is not
mere don t-believe. or can 't-beheye, but
acont-beIiere. 1t is voluntary state
of mind that will receive as truth only
what it likes to have true, treating eV
erything thing else as false. Ii 1t
wishes a thing true, it will treat 1t as
being so, no matter how false 1t may
be: and it wishes a thing false 1t will
treat it as being so, no matter how true