comply with the suggestions of the evil principle, then the embryo of sin is, if we may so speak, formed within ns ; and nothing remains but. for time and opportunity to bring it forth. This of course must vary with the circumstances under which we are : our wishes may be accomplished, or may prove abortive : but whether our desire be fulfilled or not, sin is imputed to us, because it formally exists within us: or rather it is brought to the birth, though not altogether in the way we hoped and expected.]
We proceed to notice,
III. Its issue —
Sin was never barren ; its issue is numerous as the sands upon the sea-shore : but in every instance the name of its first-born has been " death." Death is,
1. Its penalty —
[Death temporal, spiritual, and eternal, was threatened as the punishment of transgression while our first parents were yet in paradise. And on many occasions has the threaten- ing been renewed8 So that sin and death are abso- lutely inseparable.]
2. Its desert —
[The fixing of death as the consequence of transgression was no arbitrary appointment. The penal evil of death is no more than the moral evil of sin. Consider the extreme malignity of sin : What rebellion against God ! What a de- throning of God from our hearts ! What a preferring of Satan himself, and his service, to God's light and easy yoke ! View it as it is seen in the agonies and death of God's only Son : Can that be of small malignity which so oppressed and overwhelmed "Jehovah's fellow?" Of those who are now suffering the torments of the damned, not one would dare to arraign the justice of God, or to say that his punishment ex- ceeded his offence : whatever we in our present state may think, our mouths will all be shut, when we have juster views, and an experimental sense, of the bitterness of sin h.]
3. Its tendency —
[We may see the proper effect of sin in the conduct of Adam, when he fled from God, whom he had been accustomed to meet with familiarity and joy'. He felt a consciousness that his soul was bereft of innocence ; and he was unable to endure the sight of Him whom he had so greatly offended. In the
g Ezek. xviii. 1. Rom. i. 18. and vi. 21, 2:5. Gal. iii. 10. h Matt. xxii. 12. ' CJen. iii. 8.