A81131:52
The arraignment of unbelief, as the grand cause of our nationall non-establishment
The arraignment of unbelief, as the grand cause of our nationall non-establishment: cleared in a sermon to the Honourable House of Commons in Parliament, at Margarets Westminster, upon the 28th. of May, 1645. being the day of their public fast. / By Joseph Caryl, late preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolns-Inn, now pastor at Magnus near the bridge, London.The arraignment of unbelief, as the grand cause of our nationall non-establishment: cleared in a sermon to the Honourable House of Commons in Parliament, at Margarets Westminster, upon the 28th. of May, 1645. being the day of their publike fast. / By Joseph Caryl, late preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolnes-Inne, now pastor at Magnus neer the bridge, London.
London: printed by G. Miller for Giles Calvert, 1645
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, From the greatness of the sin of unbelief; Every sin, in the nature of it, is a bar in the way of ⟨p. 15⟩mercy, Jer. 5. 25. Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. But unbelief is a huge mountain, and when once we have removed the mountain of unbelief, all other mountains will quickly become plains and valleys before us. Unbelief is a sin of a very high stature; a sin of the first magnitude; it is a spiritual wickedness, and therefore a great wickedness. There is much dispute among the learned, whether unbelief were not the first sin, that which opened the door to let in every sin? I believe we shall not wrong unbelief, in giving it precedency, or in affirming, that as unbelief now shuts the door, and keeps out mercy; so unbelief opened the door, to let in misery upon the world: it was faith, respecting the threatening of God, which the Devil laid his first siege against, and against which he first prevailed: Man had never eaten the forbidden fruit, had he believed death was in the morsel. Hence unbelief is called a provocation: To be provoked, is more then to be displeased: Provocation notes the highest act of displeasure, and therefore that sin which is a provocation, is one of the highest sins. A day of unbelief is a day of provocation, Heb. 3. 8. Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of tentation in the wilderness. Now what was the provocation of that day? or by what did the people provoke God at that time? Was it the making of a molten Calf, and falling down before it? Was it the joining themselves unto Baal-Peor, and eating the offerings of the dead? Was adultery or uncleanness acted in the day of that provocation? All these are provoking sins, yet none of these denominated that day, a day of provocation; unbelief gave the name to that day: For the Israelites provoked God at the red sea ⟨p. 16⟩(Psal. 106. 7.) and that was before they made their idol calf to worship it, and before they fell into those bodily abominations and defiled themselves; their fear and murmurings storied (