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Having the understanding darkened," says the Scripture," being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." (Eph. iv. 18.)-There is a corrupted or a tormenting conscience. It is either asleep and silent, as in those men who are deceiving their own selves, or who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness, (Eph. iv. 19); or, if awake, it is restless and uneasy, as in those who are "like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." (Isa. lvii. 20.)– There also we discover a perverse will, and depraved, vicious, affections and desires. Men choose what is evil, and refuse what is good. At an early period in this world's history, "God 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," (Gen. vi. 5); and, in much later times, a complaint was uttered by the great teacher of holiness and truth," Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." (John v. 40.) Such is the natural condition of every fallen and unrenewed soul. May the Lord save us from that blindness which would forbid us to behold it!

Look, in the next place, at the evident effects, and the whole consequences, of transgression.

II. When Adam and his wife heard the voice of God in the garden, they were afraid, and they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden." (Gen. iii. 8.) Here we discover one of the immediate results of a breach of the divine law, namely, an aversion of the soul from God, and a dread of him. Sin not only defiles the created soul and despoils it of the image of its Maker, but it disposes and compels it to retire farther and farther from the presence of God, as being afraid of his righteous displeasure. Who can declare the weight of such a penalty as this! The soul of man naturally looks for some object to repose upon; but there is no object which can give it entire and lasting satisfaction except God, the author of its being; and accordingly, the soul that shuns his presence must be for ever a stranger to happiness and peace. It must be a homeless and weary wanderer, like the bird sent forth from the ark by the patriarch of old, that found no rest for the sole of her foot in the boundless expanse of waters. And yet so it is that, to the present hour, men study to avoid all thoughts of God, while, at the same time, they dissipate their minds, or even

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put them to the rack, upon ten thousand perishing and miserable trifles! Surely every man walketh in a vain shew; surely they are disquieted in vain." (Psalm xxxix. 6.) He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" (Isa. xliv. 20.)

This, therefore, must be reckoned as another portion of man's misery, namely, distance and aversion from God.

III. Consider, moreover, the disorders which the breach of God's law has introduced into human society. When the Lord God charged the man with having eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree, the offender replied, "The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Now, here we behold a melancholy spectacle. No sooner had our first parents transgressed the law of God, than one of them became the accuser, and thus, in a manner, the enemy, of the other! And while we contemplate this painful fact, we find ourselves at the source of all those dissensions and animosities which have prevailed in our fallen world. Hence hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, war. Had the Most High continued to be the common object of human love and adoration,

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all men would have remained in concord with each other; and some Being of another region might have looked upon this world of ours, and have taken up his parable and said, Behold, how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" But, when sin separated man from his Maker, it at the same time rent asunder the bond of union between man and his neighbour; and as long as the sons of men remain at a distance from God, so long they are also without genuine love and good-will towards their brethren in the world. Such is another unhappy effect of the transgression of God's holy law.

IV. The sentence which the Lord God pronounced upon the offenders entailed on them the three evils of toil, bodily pain, and death.

It doomed man, in the first place, to toil. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake." And let it be remarked, that this sentence does not assign to man merely a moderate degree of labour, or employment; but it makes him the heir of difficulty, hardship, or misfortune.

Even the rich man is not exempt from this portion of the curse. There are duties which he ought to discharge, and there are cares which he must sustain, that involve pains, and difficulty, and self-denial.

And if the sons of wealth attempt, as it were, by a life of idleness and self-indulgence, to annul thesentence of Almighty God so far as concerns themselves, these men do only lade their souls with aggravated sin, and draw down accumulated misery upon their heads. Consider the meaning of that wise prayer, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me." (Prov. xxx. 8.) Think also of the force of our Saviour's lamentation, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!" (Mark x. 23.) And it soon becomes plain to a reflecting mind, that no man, by the mere possession of this world's wealth, is free from the operation of that sentence, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake."

But, perhaps, the miseries of poverty and want are still more extensive and apparent. Consider the grief of a man's heart in the prospect or the endurance of worldly loss and destitution; contemplate the multitudes who groan beneath a load of heartless drudgery; listen to the sighing of the prisoner; or set before your view the wan and pitiable countenance of penury and starvation, and let me ask, What is it you witness? Do you call it misfortune? Do you call it hardship? Do you regard it as the frown and the rough usage of the world? Brethren, look into the Bible; and that will teach you to behold, in