The many evils which exist in the world, and of which individuals and communities are the subjects, are the necessary consequences of sin. The sad disorder which pervades the several faculties of the soul, beclouding the understanding, perverting the will, and alienating the affections ; the changes which take place in our circumstances and connexions; the pains and diseases which agitate and riot on the human frame; the toils to which we are doomed, and the anxieties by which we are fretted; together with all the feuds and contentions which distract society; have their origin in the existence of moral evil. Of all the consequences of transgression, none, however, is It follows in the train

so formidable as DEATH. of natural evils, and is the certain effect of depravity and guilt. When our first parents came from the hands of their Creator, they stood resplendent in all the beauties of conscious innocence, and primæval integrity. They inhabited a perfect paradise, filled with the most delicious fruits, and adorned with flowers of the brightest hue and sweetest fragrance. No cloud darkened their sky, nor disease infested their frame; nor did noxious vapour float in their atmosphere, nor pang of guilty remorse strike through their bosoms. While Eden bloomed around, and all nature was robed in the rich attire of perpetual summer, man himself bid fair for a happy immortality. Some have thought it probable that Adam and his pos

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terity were intended to fill up the chasm which was made in the heavenly world by the revolt of the fallen angels; and that, if they had stood in paradise, they would doubtless have been translated, one by one, into the upper kingdom, without passing through the stages of sickness, infirmity, and dissolution. Certain it is, that their mortality was part of the curse denounced, in consequence of transgression. When our great progenitor was shown the tree of knowledge of good and evil which stood in the midst of the garden, and, as a test of his obedience, was forbidden to pluck and eat of its fruit, it was said, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." No sooner was the penalty incurred, than the punishment was inflicted. From that very moment he felt the seeds of mortality germinating within him; he became the subject of pain, disease, and grief; and after the lapse of nine hundred and thirty years, his dust was mingled with that of righteous Abel's. Subsequent generations, standing to their father in a federal relation, became universally subject to the same law. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." 'In Adam all die." 66 By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." None are exempt; it is the common portal through which we must all pass, to scenes of immortal

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blessedness, or of eternal misery. The grave is called our long home; the house appointed for all living: and the road that leads to it is said to be the way of all the earth. And so conscious are we of the certainty of this event, that we hesitate not to adopt the language of Job, "I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living. When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall not return."

It is probable that the sentence denounced on Adam, and which has passed on all his posterity, did not so much apply to his departure out of the world, as to the peculiar mode of that departure. If he had remained in a state of innocence, he might indeed have been removed to heaven; and yet it would have been without those nameless pains and sorrows, sicknesses and infirmities, which usually precede death; and those tormenting fears, and indescribable agonies, that often accompany it. It would have been an exchange of habitation—a leaving the lower for the upper kingdom, and yet not dying; a sudden and happy translation, like that of the saints who shall be found alive at the judgment of the great day. No sooner did our first parent fall, than he began to die: not only was his condition one of toil and suffering, but his frame became liable to disease and dissolution, while his immortal spirit was the

subject of guilty fears, and frightful forebodings. In that very day man was a mortal creature; the child of sorrow, and an heir of wrath; and the fair form which was the immediate workmanship of the Deity, and which he pronounced, on its first creation, " very good," was doomed to corruption and decay. And as sin increased, and every generation of men became more depraved, the effects of our apostacy were yet more apparent, in the certain advance of disease and death.

Death is frequently spoken of, in the Sacred Scriptures, as an effect of divine anger; and the consequence of guilt. Aaron and his sons are commanded certain observances, "that they bear not iniquity and die;" and the congregation of Israel are exhorted to keep certain ordinances, "lest they bear sin for it and die." We frequently read such phrases as "worthy of death," and "guilty of death;" and the Apostle tells us generally, that "the wages of sin is death." It has been by the infliction of death that God, in all ages, has given the strongest proofs of his anger. When he saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, the Lord said, "I will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth

me that I have made them." The judgment was awful beyond all conception: the windows of heaven were opened, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up; and, with the exception of the family which the ark enclosed, all that had life were destroyed. When the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah was great, because their sin was very grievous, the Lord rained brimstone and fire out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. Pharaoh and his hosts presumptuously tempted the anger of Jehovah; and they were drowned in the midst of the sea. Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord; and there went out flames and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Korah and his company disputed the divine mission of Moses and Aaron; and the ground clave asunder that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up. Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost; and straightway they fell down at the Apostle's feet, signal monuments of the righteous indignation of Jehovah. The judgments which God brought on the wicked inhabitants of Canaan, and which he successively inflicted on the unbelieving Jews at different periods of their history, but especially at the destruction of their city and temple, were intended as a testimony of his displeasure against sin.