Creator, they brought upon themselves vexation and sorrow; and the sentence of death was soon to be executed; and the whole earth began to feel the effects of the Almighty's displeasure against sin. They were deprived of the image of the blessed God; of righteousness and holiness, of innocence and peace. They were moreover banished from the garden of Eden, and were driven as exiles from the house of their Father, to till the ground in the sweat of their face, and to "eat of it in sorrow all the days of their life."* They were also liable to the sentence of death, yet this sentence, through divine mercy, was suspended for a time. Thus, as St. Paul states in his Epistle to the Romans, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned." Our guilty race, therefore, is become obnoxious to death, and God has now withdrawn from us the light of his countenance: our sins have made a separation between us and our heavenly Father, and have been the cause of all our calamities.

y

If we survey, the history of mankind, we perceive innumerable afflictions and distresses to have been the effects of sin. This occasioned the destruction of all mankind, except eight

a

persons, by a universal deluge, when "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, was only evil continually." Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities of the plain, were overwhelmed with fire and brimstone, by reason of their depravity and crying sins. And while "righteousness exalteth a nation," sin has proved the destruction of many powerful kingdoms. It undermines all good principles; it saps the foundation of social order; it multiplies and hardens transgressors, till men grow bold in iniquity, and bring down upon themselves some dreadful punishment. It is sin which has diffused a kind of poison through the human race, and has filled the world with painful distempers and sore diseases. But "the strength of sin is the Law," as sin exposes a man to the curse of the law, even to condemnation and death eternal.

It would be endless to specify all the calamities and sufferings which are brought on individuals by their sins against God, and by flagrant crimes against the laws of their country. Many who make a mock at sin, during their apparently successful career in wickedness, are brought to bewail its bitter effects under Gen. vi. 5. Gen. xix. Prov xiv. 34. 1 Cor. xv. 56.

direful maladies, when they are arrested by the hand of Providence, or constrained to forfeit their lives to the injured rights of society, as a warning to others. And as sin produces the most dreadful effects on mankind in the present world, so its tendency is to destroy both body and soul in hell, according to the righteous sentence of Almighty God. When the pious servants of God and the faithful disciples of Christ, shall be received into "life eternal," the wicked will be compelled to " go away into everlasting punishment." d

The dreadful malignity of sin and its awful demerits are exhibited, in a most striking manner in the means which God has mercifully adopted for delivering us from the condemnation which is due to sin, and from its tyrannizing power. We plainly perceive that no less a sacrifice was to be given to make an atonement for sin, than the sacred body of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In order to make satisfaction to the justice of God, to magnify the law and render it honourable, he freely gave himself up to suffering and death; "he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." He endured the load of human guilt, and the agony which he felt d Matt. xxv. 46. John x. 18. f Isai. liii.

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in his soul, under the sense of his heavenly Father's displeasure, as our substitute, was so great and overwhelming, that while he was in the garden of Gethsemane, "his sweat became, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground." Indeed we cannot survey the last sufferings of Christ, till he expired on the Cross, amidst the convulsions of nature, without entertaining the most lively apprehensions of the evil nature and dreadful consequences of sin. We perceive what a costly offering it required before its guilt could be removed, that penitent sinners might again be restored to the favour of God, and that a fountain of grace might be opened for removing its overpowering influence from the hearts of men. We are assured that "he bore our sins in his own body on the tree," and suffered the curse which our iniquities deserved, and thus made atonement for our transgressions, and "opened the kingdom of heaven for all believers."

If, then, we duly consider these things; if we survey the malignant nature and destructive effects of sin; what miseries and plagues it has brought on the earth, by infecting the human system with deadly poison, and by leading the unwary sons of men into endless woe;-if we

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turn our eyes to the cross of Christ, and hear him crying out under the burden of our guilt, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Then we cannot any more look upon sin as a trifling thing. Surely after this survey no man will be so hardened as to sin in sport, to make a mock at sin: surely he will not defy omnipotence, nor contemn the most High, nor seek death in the error of his ways, nor lightly regard the great sacrifice for sin which has been presented on the cross of the lowly Redeemer, when he mercifully tasted death for every man? Whoever duly reflects on these things will confess, that they are fools who make a mock at sin, and reckon it as a sport to do mischief.

III. We may observe, then, in the last place, that it is a mark of wisdom and not of folly, to dread and avoid sin; With the righteous there is favour. The righteous are "kindly affectioned one to another; "* they "bear one another's burdens,"1 and show favour and mercy according to their ability, and they enjoy the favour and loving-kindness of their heavenly Father. The righteous are they who are renewed in righteousness after the image of God, who have obtained favour Matt. xxvii. 46. * Rom. xii. 10. 1 Gal. vi. 2.