all his posterity. His disobedience, produced nothing more or less than the predicted effectdeath. The whole of the bible attests this sad truth. It runs through every page, more or less, from Genesis to Revelation. Hence we quickly find the historian of this dire fact pathetically lamenting its dismal effects in words attributed to Moses, and adopted by the Church in the ninetieth Psalm, "Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return ye children of men. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep; in the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the evening it is cut down and withereth. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away." Sin it is that makes this havoc of our species; sin rifles the opening sweets of youth, sits upon the pallid cheek, the closing eye, the faltering tongue: rages in the feverish veins, the hurried pulse the bewildered intellect. It is sin that steals from our side the brother, sister, parent: that fixes on every child of fallen man the authentic seal of death, charged with this inscription, 'Dust

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thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return! "We all do fade as a leaf: our iniquities like the wind have taken us away." "Death hath passed upon all men, for all have sinned.”

Such are the penal consequences of sin; the effects of the curse entailed upon the noblest and fairest portion of that creation which its wise and merciful author at the first pronounced to be "very good." And were we to confine our view only to this dark side of the picture, which presents a dispensation of death, nothing were more gloomy and cheerless. But thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ! For

III. View, in the third place, the rich compensation made to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is yet a dispensation of life; that as sin abounded, grace might much more abound. As by the former we are subjected to the law of death; so by the latter we are morally released and made free by the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Hence, as we carry about within us the seeds of decay and death, so do we also the principle and the earnest of a new existence. Equally and alike, (although penally) subject to the same law which bids the flower of the field droop and die; we are also the objects of that co-extensive and merciful dispensation by which

the believer shall be raised again to life and immortality. Hence, agreeably to this two-fold designation," as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive:" as the natural body is "sown in weakness," the spiritual body shall be raised in power."

Is then even the dispensation of sin and death one of unmingled, unmitigated wrath? Are we justified in imputing this law to the inexorable chastening of offended justice? God forbid ! Behold also, my brethren, the provisions of Almighty and eternal love. From eternity, and consequently before man had any being, or had yet resisted his will, we are told, on the authority of the spirit, that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses to them." That he "hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." He provided beforehand a gracious remedy, more than adequate to the extent of the disease. As, therefore, on the one hand, the wrath of God against sin, (our sins as well as Adam's,) stands awfully, and to the end of time, from generation to generation, displayed in the

destruction; his mercy stands even more conspicuous in the restoration of our ruined race: verifying the assertion of the Apostle, that "'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Thus are we redeemed, not indeed from the general doom, but what is much more, from the power of the grave. The sting of death, which is sin, has been extracted; our last enemy rendered comparatively weak and harmless. By the power of his resurrection, our blessed Redeemer has clothed the ghastly skeleton with immortal vigour: he has promised, that he will collect our scattered dust from the four winds; and will say to these dry bones "live."

Thus are goodness and severity blended together by that gracious Being who "know. eth whereof we are made, and remembereth that we are but dust." In Adam we all die, without exception, because death is the penalty due to sin, the condition of our existence. But it is equally true, that unless we pay the penalty, we are naturally, if I may so speak, incapacitated for being again made alive in Christ. For,

except," said the Lord of nature and of grace, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bring6th forth much fruit." And St. Paul, reasoning

also upon natural principles, equally asserts,; That which thou sowest is not quickened,, except it die."

Do we then all fade as a leaf? The very analogy which we bear, in this respect, to this frail ornament of the creation, is converted into a subject of consolation, when illustrated and strengthened by the superior light of scripture truth. If, in order that we may be raised again to life at the last day, death be necessary even on natural principles, it becomes also eminently desirable on religious grounds, although in its very nature penal, and confessedly alarming to the feelings of our nature. The dispensation becomes totally altered in its character, thus mingled with so much love and mercy: our qualifier for and conductor to immortality.

But, that I may conclude what has been said with a short practical application, it is only to the believing and renewed Christian, that the subject we have been considering is divested of gloom and uneasiness; or that our last enemy can be converted from an executioner of punishment, into a minister and messenger of life. For true it is, that the change we shall undergo in our bodily organs and functions, by decay and dissolution, will not be more total and entire, than that change must also be in