SERMON II.

DEATH THE WAGES OF SIN.

ROMANS, VI. 23.

"The wages of Sin is Death."

In the latter part of the chapter of St. Paul's epistle, in which these words occur, we find sin represented by him, under the most appropriate figure of a master exercising authority over his slaves. Its absolute dominion over man, is beautifully set forth under this very picturesque and impressive image. Sin is everywhere a master and a tyrant. It repays our services with stripes and miseries. It allures us into its vassalage by false representations and splendid promises, but in the end requites us with all the curses of the most absolute slavery. It surrounds us with temptations, which bloom before us, in the prospect of life, like so many forbidden fruits, luring the eye and inviting the touch; offering, indeed, honey to the

tongue, but wormwood to the soul, while there is a devil lurking near every one of them, to offer it to our taste-to bid us eat and die. It goads us on to do its pleasure, and "mocks when our fear cometh." Once under its rule, there is only one mode of ransom, and though this has been paid, sin too often retains its ascendency, and renders unavailing even the mighty price of the Redeemer's blood. Under this desperate tyranny, we believe ourselves to be free, whilst we are in reality the worst of slaves. Such is the power of that influence, which our tyrant exercises, that the very freedom of our wills is often marred and perverted, for "the good that we would, we do not, but the evil which we would not, that we do." We have no power, independent and self-actuating, to emancipate ourselves: it is derived to us from God. His grace is our only deliverer. This ameliorates our bondage, leads us to that cross upon which the price of our redemption was paid, frees us from the odious subjection to sin, and makes us the servants of righteousness through Jesus Christ. He is our ransom- "We have not salvation in any other." He has burst the bonds of our iniquity, and "cast away its cords from us," for "we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded towards us all." In the midst then of our most odious vassalage to sin, we may still look up to the Lord of Life for deliverance,

and "He will come with a vengeance, even God, with a recompense, He will come and save us.” While, therefore, the means of freedom are open to us, we have only ourselves to blame if we continue slaves of sin, and let us remember that "to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, his servants we are to whom we obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness."

In this chapter, the Apostle mentions those to whom he writes as having been the servants of sin, and concludes by telling them, that "the wages of sin is death." The propriety of the image will forcibly strike us, if we only reflect a moment, how completely under the controul of sin they are who "mind the things of the flesh," and utterly neglect "the things of the spirit;" how uniformly they obey the dictates of their despotic lord, and by consequence, receive his wages-namely, death..

Now, there are three descriptions of death, to which the Scriptures refer, and these are, severally, the wages of sin:-they are, temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. We shall consider how each of these is the wages of sin; and first, temporal death.

This is inseparable from our probationary state. It is the inevitable penalty of transgression. "Death and bloodshed, strife and sword, calamities, famine, tribulation, and the scourge; these things are created for the wicked." Now, the end of these is destruction, and they are all the wages of sin.

The world, indeed, presents to us one vast theatre, where the ravages of death are displayed in all their appalling varieties. We there behold, how sin perpetually aggravates the fallen condition of man; how abundantly it scatters around us the seeds of ruin; how continually it supplies the grave with untimely victims, and adds to the changes and chances, to the vicissitudes and miseries, of this variable life. The destruction or misery of sinners, is incessantly presented to our view. "Their imagination of things to come, and the day of death, trouble their thoughts and cause them fear of heart, from him that weareth the purple and a crown, to him that is clothed in a linen frock."

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Sin is the cause of every evil by which the human state is beset. To its domineering tyranny are we to ascribe the bitterness of all that we

suffer, as well as the fugitiveness of all that we enjoy. The passions are so many agents in its hands, to work our destruction." Their end is bitter as wormwood"-"they have cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by them." They fight against us under the banners of sin, and triumph over us at every turn. There is not a passion, to which the human heart is subject, that has not a tendency, either directly or consequentially, to lead us to the chambers of death. Every passion, which is allowed to operate unrestrained, must precipitate peril. I will not go so far as to say, that all our passions absolutely