Use. 3. It discovers the odiousness of sin that disjointed the frame of nature. When God made the world, ' he saw everything he had made, and behold it was very good,' Gen. i. 31 ; but Solomon when he looked upon it, he saw all Avas ' vanity of vanities,' Eccles. i. 2. What is the reason ? sin intervened and so the course of nature was altered. It had been otherwise but for sin ;• the creature had continued in their order, had we continued in our innocence. Let me spread a few considerations before you.
1. Do but consider what cause God hath to be angry with us. We are angiy with those that break down a curious frame or contrivement we have made, as if any break curious glasses, pictures, or images, or a handsome structure. Bui consider, we have cracked the frame of the universe. The ties which hold the world are loosened by our sins, and much of the accurate order of the universe is inverted. There is a vanity among the creatures themselves, and sin and rebellion to us. Therefore when thy thoughts are cold and barren in acknowledging sin, especially in conceiving the evil that is in original sin, consider of this circumstance ; it turned a paradise into a wilderness and rude common ; it broke the frame of nature. As Moses, w^hen he was angry with the Israelites, broke the tables ; so God hath broken the great frame of nature. Let that break your hearts w-hich hath broken the world ; and that which hath wrought so much mischief in nature, let it trouble your souls.
2. Consider what a fit circumstance and consideration this is to represent the odiousness of sin ; here we have a sensible and constant memorial of the fruits of our rebellion. Man, being in a lower sphere of understanding, knows causes by their effects. Oh, see what a cause sin is ; look upon the effects of it in the disorders that are in the world : Jer. ii. 19, ' Know therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God.' What would you think of that gall, a drop of which is enough to embitter an ocean
VeR. 3.] SERMONS UPON HEBREWS XI. 427
of sweetness ? Such is sin. One sin poisoned all mankind at once, and cracked and dissolved the frame of nature. There were indeed presently upon the fall two dreadful effects of sin's influence, the misery Adam brought upon his own posterity, and the vanity he brought upon the creature ; both are sad and continual resemblances. The first I con- fess is a very great representation of the evil of sin ; every child that is born is a new memorial of the fall. God as it were said to Adam, as the prophet to Gehazi, 2 Kings v 27, ' The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and to thy seed for ever ; ' now thou hast sinned, every child born shall be a leper. So all the children of Adam are as so many pledges and memorials of the folly and disobedience he had committed against God. But look without, and the creatures are made unhappy by man's fall. When we have drawn company with us into misery, their sight and presence doth but increase our sorrow ; as if a prodigal should look upon the lean faces of his family, he cannot but with the more regret own the shame of his own excesses. We may all go to God, and say with David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 17, ' Lord, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly ; but as for these sheep, what have they done ?' so. Lord, we and our fore-fathers have all sinned against thee; but what have the creatures done, that they are destroyed and devoured ? These memorials are constantly represented ; not a bit we eat, not a cloth we put on, but may return these thoughts into our minds, these are the fruits of our sin. In innocency Adam was not ashamed of his nakedness, and the creatures might not be slain for our food.
3. We have no cause to exempt ourselves from this duty of mourning by laying the guilt upon Adam ; as if he only were unthank- ful and rebellious against God. Consider, by sin we do as it were con- sent to Adam's act, and so we are accessory post factum to his guilt. Imitation is an approbation, and an implicit and interpretative consent. Saith Christ to the Jews, Mat. xxiii. 37, ' 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets;^ and ver. 36, 'Whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.' How did they slay them ? Because they continued still vexing the servants of God, therefore they are said to slay Zacharias. They that go on in any sin, do subsoibe to the acts of those that went before them ; we have continued in Adam's course of rebelling against God, therefore we are justly chargeable with his act. The father is fore-faulted for rebellion, and the child, continuing in the same course, doth approve his act, and besides his own personal guilt, is chargeable with the crimes of his forefathers. So that we may say, we have unsettled the universe. Jude 11, it is said ' these perished in the gainsaying of Korah.' How could that be, when there was such a huge distance and space of time between these and Korah ? The meaning is, by practising the same sins, they came into a fellow- ship of the guilt ; and imitating the fault, they became liable to the same judgment. Adam's first act brought on the original curse upon the creature, but our actual sins bring in an actual curse. As there is original and actual sin; so there is an original and an actual curse. It is true, Adam alone brought on the original curse : Gen. iii. 17, ' Cursed be the ground for thy sake : ' but we bring on an actual curse : Ps. cvii. 33, 34, ' He turns rivers into a wilderness, and water-springs into dry ground ; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them