these points is, that JUDGMENTS ARE SENT AS THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN: "after all that is come upon us, for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass."

We require merely to direct your attention to the statements of the Word of God in reference to this assertion. From Genesis to the Revelation, the unvarying testimony of the Spirit is, "the wages of sin is death." Transgression and punishment were closely united in the first solemn but gracious warning addressed by the Creator to Adam; "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Not less closely associated do they appear in the reason assigned to Noah by Jehovah, for the destruction of the world by a flood; "the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them: and behold I will destroy them with the earth." The same reason was stated to Abraham for the destruction of the cities of the plain: "the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down." Throughout the entire history of Israel, this fact was continually brought out into distinct recognition. "They dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgment, therefore thou gavest them up into the hand of the people of the lands." The punishments are invariably represented as connected with sin; they were threatened before they were sent, and were afterwards referred to as evidence of the truth of other denunciations of punishment which should be carried into effect as certainly as the former, if the guilty people did not repent and turn from their iniquity. Such visitations in Providence

were sent for the purpose of asserting the holiness and supremacy of God's moral government, of striking terror into the enemies of his people, of assuring the hearts of his own servants, and of indicating a future state of rewards and punishments. "I will magnify myself, and sanctify myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the Lord." "Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness." "The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous for the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous; but the way of the ungodly shall perish."

But it is not merely on the ungodly world that the Almighty sends judgments on account of crying sins. The Lord has said, "if his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes." Nay, it often happens that God's people have "evil things" in this life, while the wicked enjoy unmolested their "good things." Asaph says, "the wicked. are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men. Verily I have cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocency in vain; for all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning." Israel was God's covenanted people; and yet you know His hand was often stretched out with the rod to chastise them on account of their waywardness and rebellion. Indeed, as the sins of God's children are of an heinous and aggravated character, their punishment, though sent in mercy, is frequently

of a very marked and severe description. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still."

The particular sin, or "great trespass," here charged upon the Jews, is joining in affinity with the heathen. This is stated at the second verse of the chapter: “for they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass." Intermarrying with the heathen was a violation of an express command: "thou shalt make no covenant with them, neither shalt thou make marriages with them : thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son; nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son." The Jews perhaps had taken wives from among the heathen, either before they came out of Babylon, or after they were settled in Judea. This was in itself criminal and highly displeasing to God, and it was ruinous in its consequences. When Moses gave the law against intermingling with the nations, he said, "for they will turn away thy sons from following me, that they may serve other gods, so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly." The infamous and fatal counsel of Balaam to Balak, was to seduce Israel into alliances with the Moabites. And it is recorded of Solomon, "when he was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was

the heart of David his father." The descendants of Abraham, in consequence of the covenant made with him, were accounted holy-separated from "all families of the earth”-dedicated to the Lord, and taken under the divine protection. Whatever, therefore, tended to lead them into idolatry was to be regarded as an evil of the deadliest character, and directly opposed to their happiness, as it led to a violation of the gracious covenant into which God had entered with them to do them good, while they continued steadfast therein: and as nothing tended so powerfully to draw away their hearts as this forbidden affinity with the heathen, it might well be termed their "great trespass," and as such might justly be considered deserving of severe punishment.

In the text, Ezra acknowledges that punishment had come upon his people for their "evil deeds and their great trespass." So greatly was his righteous spirit vexed upon the knowledge of their iniquities, that "he rent his garment and his mantle, and plucked off the hair of his head, and of his beard, and sat down astonied until the evening sacrifice." He knew that though God was slow to anger, yet he was a "jealous God," and would chasten in his hot displeasure all who sinned with so high a hand against him. He acknow ledges the justice of all the punishments that had befallen them in former times, and attributes them all to their sins. "Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day, and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the

sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day."

And, brethren, the confession of Ezra should be ours. We should remember that judgments come upon us as the punishment of sin. We should trace all our evils and calamities up to their true sourcesin; itself the most dreadful of all evils: sin, which is every day continuing its ravages upon the peace of individuals and of families, of communities and of nations; darkening the world with error, superstition and idolatry, and blasting it with depravity and crime; defacing the image of an holy God from the souls of men; severing them from the favour of their Maker; destroying their hopes of blessedness in heaven, and fitting them to become denizens of the pit of Tophet. And, if we would estimate aright the punishment due to sin, let us look at the cross of Calvary. Nothing save the infinitely valuable sacrifice of the Eternal Son of God could magnify the divine law and make it honourable, and bring in an everlasting righteousness for man. Great indeed is the mystery of godliness, and incomprehensible by men or angels: but from the simple fact, that after enduring unutterable agony, Jesus died for sin; that God hid his face for a time from his well-beloved Son, who in that hour felt within his own spotless and holy soul, the outpoured vials of Divine wrath; from this we are taught to regard sin as something, the evil of which we shall never be able completely to understand, even as we cannot understand the greatness of that love which appointed the sacrifice.

"And if he that despised Moses' law, died