Rom. vi. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.
AS an appeal to the judgment of men is, when just, the most powerful mode of silencing the con- tentious, so an appeal to their conscience is the strongest possible method of convincing the ignorant, and of humbling the proud. With such kinds of argumentation the Scripture abounds. God himself appeals to his apostate people : " What iniquity have
your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and become vain ?" "Have I been a wilderness to Israel3?" Thus, in the passage before us, St. Paul, labouring to impress the Christians at Rome with a sense of the indispens- able necessity of renouncing all their former ways, and devoting themselves wholly to the Lord, puts to them this pungent question ; " What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed ?" To answer this question, no strength of intellect, no extent of information, is required : nothing is wanting but an honest and upright heart. The poor, as well as the rich, can tell whether they have been happy in the ways of sin : to the one therefore as well as to the other, we would address the language of our text ; entreating every one to consult the records of his own conscience, and to answer to himself the question, as in the presence of his God.
The points respecting which we would make our appeal to all, are,
I. The unprofitableness of sin, as learned by expe- rience—
Whether men have drunk deep of the cup of plea- sure, or have followed their earthly inclinations with more measured steps, we would ask, in reference to all their former ways,
1 . What fruit of them had ye at the time ?
[Sin, previous to the commission of it, promises much : but what solid satisfaction has it ever afforded us? Suppose a man to have had all the means of gratification that ever Solomon possessed, and, like him, to have withheld his heart from no joy ; still, we would ask him, Was your pleasure of any long duration? Was it without alloy ? Is not that true which Solomon has said, " Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heavinessb?" I doubt not but that every man who will faithfully relate his own experience, will " say of laughter, It is mad; and of mirth, What doeth itc?"
A similar testimony must be given by those who have been the most sober and discreet. They have not, it is true, the
a Jer. ii. 5, 31. b Prov. xiv. 13. c Eccl. ii. 2.