BELIEF—UNBELIEF.
Reading edition
If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.—Isaiah, vii. 9.
Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.—Mark, ix. 24.
Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.—John, xiv. 1.
For what, if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.—Romans, iii. 3, 4.
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.—II. Thessalonians, ii. 13.
Such my belief. Oh, that thou would’st thy bold, Infatuated, withering doubt discard! The flower would be more sweet, the moon more fresh, The sun more bright, the sky more blue, the night (The natural season for deep thought) less dark: Life’s cares, and wan disease, would blessings be, And death (annihilation’s herald now) The harbinger of everlasting bliss. Dare then be wise. Dash down the subtle web, Thy pride of intellect had round thee wove, Despised into the dust; believe in God; Obey His will;—and then thy rescued soul Shall, on angelic pinions, wing its way To heaven’s bright realms of pure beatitude. T. L. Merritt.
Believe and fear not! In the blackest cloud A sunbeam hides; and from the deepest pang Some hidden mercy may a God declare! R. Montgomery.
Since fools alone all things believe In cloister hatch’d, or college, Some, by believing nothing, think They’re at the height of knowledge. And yet to have no faith demands More faith than is supposed, For sceptics have their creed,—of things Incredibly composed. Some truths above our reason, we Reject not, but receive: Against all reason, infidels Unnumber’d lies believe. C. C. Colton.