RULES FOR OBTAINING FORGIVENESS. 295 the utter enemy and privation, as it were, of all grace. 2. There is an unbelief, partial and negative, consisting in a staggering at, or questioning of the promises. This is displeasing to God, a sin which is attended with un- known aggravations, though men usually indulge it in themselves. It is well expressed, Psalm 78 : 19, 20. God had promised his presence to the people in the wilderness, to feed, sustain, and preserve them. How did they entertain these promises of God? " Can he," say they, "give bread 1 Can he give flesh unto his peo- ple 1" What great sin or offence in this inquiry 1 Why, ver. 19, this is called speaking against God : "They spoke against God; they said, Can he furnish a table in the wilderness?" Unbelief, in questioning the promises, is a speaking against God, a limiting of the Holy One of Israel, as it is called, ver. 41 ; an assigning bounds to his goodness, power, and grace, according to what we find in ourselves; which he abhors. By this unbelief we make God like ourselves; that is, our limit- ing him, expecting no more from him than either we can do, or see how it may be done. This, you will say, was a great sin in the Israelites, because they had no reason to doubt or question the promises of God. But when they were so many thousand families that had . not one bit of bread nor drop of water beforehand for themselves and their little ones, there is no doubt but they thought themselves to have as good reason to question the promises as any -of you can think that you have. We are ready to suppose that we have all the reasons in the world, every one supposes he has those more cogent than any other has, to question the promises of grace, pardon, and forgiveness: and therefore the
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