heart of David on that subject. When the clouds of worldly enmity gather around the ark, he exclaims, in the language of the holy Psalmist, "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."* And when the light of God's countenance beams upon the walls of Zion, he rejoices in the mercy which has secured the peace of Jerusalem,—he prays for the prosperity of those that love her.†

* Psalm cxxxvii. 5, 6.

+ Psalm cxxii. 6, 7.

21

SERMON II.

THE WAGES OF SIN.

ROMANS vi. 23.

"THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH, BUT THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD."

THE peculiar comprehensiveness of some particular passages of Scripture will often have appeared to those who are accustomed to read and meditate upon the Word of God. In some single verses, even, we often find embodied a great portion of those religious truths which are required in the faith of every Christian as necessary to salvation: specially does this observation apply to that part of the sacred writings from which the text is taken. The Epistle to the Romans, it has been

observed, " is a writing which, for sublimity and truth of sentiment, for brevity and strength of expression, for regularity in its structure, but above all for the unspeakable importance of the discoveries it contains, stands unrivalled by any human compositions.' "It is the catechism of the Christian religion, the key and abridgment of all divinity; an absolute and perfect writing, containing the articles of the Christian faith."+

How accurately is this description illustrated in the words before us! How much of the leading principles of Christianity may be discovered in them, if thoughtfully considered!

.

If we wished to address you on all the most essential points of our faith at one and the same time, we know not any passage in the Bible which would so much facilitate or guide our thoughts as these few words from the writings of the great Apostle of the Gentiles :-" The wages

* Macknight.

† Dr. Parr.

of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." In the first portion of this verse, the fallen children of Adam see the dread cloud by which they are surrounded from the cradle to the grave, they find the memorial of their forefather's guilt, the record of its just punishment ;-but, in the latter part, there appear, inscribed as by a sun-beam on the surface and in the depth of that cloud, the bright characters of grace, mercy, salvation and peace, from God our Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

We will confine our attention on the present occasion to the first clause, "The wages of sin is death."

The word in the original language which in our translation is rendered " wages, means the food and pay that generals gave to soldiers for their services;—and it is well to allude to this fact, as it will enable us to exhibit more forcibly and fully the truth of the Apostle's assertion.

As the servants of sin, or as soldiers of

the cross, we must all pass through this world into the next. We cannot obey two masters, we cannot serve in the ranks of ungodliness and sin, and also under the banner of the great Captain of our salvation. The words of the Jewish leader of old, "Choose you this day whom you will serve," may therefore with force and propriety be addressed to all of us; and it is with a view to excite, and under God's blessing to assist you in making this choice, that I bring the words of the text before you.

"The wages of sin is death." Let us, in the first place, call to our remembrance the scene of "man's first disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world." Let us suffer our thoughts to wander back awhile, through all the intervening times of sorrow, desolation and sin, to that hour when it pleased the Almighty Creator of all things to form his creature man, in his

* Milton's Paradise Lost.