THE WAGES OF SIN.

"The wages of sin is death." Punishment follows close in the footsteps of crime. Sin and death are intimately allied. Eternal death is the eldest child of sin. In life, the wages of sin is material death; in eternity, perpetual exile from the presence of God, or everlasting destruction. When we sin, we close our eyes to the light; we are blind to the established fact, that the stipend of transgression is never-ending death-that the hire of sin is the loss of the soul. When we break the laws of God, we write our own epitaphs; we follow in the funeral train of our own eternal hopes; we abandon the contest and invite destruction; we acknowledge that we are sold to the Evil One, and court the wrath of God. Terrible aberration of mind.

The precursors of this dreadful death are, unsanctified sorrows; sickness which hath no spiritual consolations; poverty darkened by despair, and a keen and abiding sense of the loss of innocence, dear as breath at the hour of dying. A German philosopher once remarked, that he knew of but two beautiful things in the universe-the starry sky above our heads, and a sense of duty in our hearts.

This consciousness of guilt, or loss of innocence, is the frontier herald of eternal death. It springs from the recollection of a thousand solemn warnings from parents and friends, from school-masters and holy ministers, from pulpits and Sabbaths, from open Bibles and the invocations of the pious, and finally, from the merciful visitations of Providence, almost periodical. Eternal hopes, the soul appears to have none; it only awaits the "wrath and indignation" which shall devour the adversary.

If such are the wages of sin, how shall we avoid the payment of them? Simple, yet beautiful and consolatory is the gospel reply, "But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Can I then avoid the wages of sin, and accept through the Holy Spirit, of the gift of God, exchanging eternal death for eternal life? Can I become an inmate of the kingdom of heaven, and escape the most dreadful of all evils, "the wrath to come?" Thanks be to God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

VII.

ROBBING GOD.

A FAST-DAY SERMON.

BY REV. E. N. KIRK,

PASTOR OF THE MOUNT VERNON (CONGREGATIONAL) CHURCH, BOSTON.

"Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me.”—MAL. iii. 8.

THE rights of property are held sacred by every civilized people, and, the dishonest appropriation of property held in trust, is a crime which they agree to abhor. But there is a species of robbery, or, more specifically, a breach of trust, which even civilized nations have not learned to condemn. It is that so severely rebuked in this passage; which we may denominate an indictment against a corporation of stewards. To understand it fully, we must refer to some peculiarities in the social organization of the Israelites. There is a remarkable connection here presented to our view, between temporal blessings and religious ceremonies, and a visiting of temporal judgments upon religious delinquencies is here threatened; which are not witnessed now. And there is also an importance attached here to sacrificial services, which, we are sure, was not founded on their intrinsic value. The Jewish government was entirely unique. Their God and their monarch were the same person; so that his moral government over them assumed a political form; and sins against the moral law were equally sins against the civil law. This explains the threatenings of temporal judgments for religious delinquencies. Here, for instance, were a drought and famine sent upon them for neglecting the services of religion. Under the dispensation of grace in the New Testament, it seems to many wonderful that so much importance could ever have been attached to the sacrifice of animals. But, besides the support of the whole religious system of the nation, which depended chiefly on the altar gifts; and, besides the typical value, or the profound instruction imparted by them in reference to the great doctrine of atonement, they were a loyal expression of homage to their Sovereign. And when the fire consumed the precious offering, it was a beautiful expression of God's acceptance of the gift, and of his festive participation with man in

the fruits of the divine bounty. Any abatement of zeal, therefore, in this department of civil and religious duty, was a virtual departing from their King and God; a species of constructive rebellion, which required a prompt and intelligible expression of the divine. displeasure. The prophet Malachi therefore comes, as king's sheriff, to read the indictment in the hearing of the nation.

And now for a few moments we may be spectators of the trial. There had not been an utter abandonment of the forms of worship. But they had offered polluted bread on the altars of the Lord; they had betrayed an utter heartlessness in their ceremonies; they had turned the whole system of religion into a matter of commerce; they had brought the lame, and the sick, and the torn, to the sacrifice; they had withheld the King's tax, or the tithes on their produce. "Ye have robbed me," saith God. Wherein?" is their reply. "In tithes and offerings." "But, we are visited with famine, and our flocks are cut off; how can we continue our rich offerings? Our herds and our corn have failed, how can he expect us to bring the best of our small produce in offerings to his temple? Let him now bless us again with abundance; and then will we bring again the tithes into the storehouse." This is their rejoinder. But hear the King's Attorney again; "You plead the consequences of your sin as the cause of it. Ye are cursed with a curse for this very reason, that when ye had abundance ye became selfish, and irreligious, and disloyal. This poverty, of which you now complain, would not have come upon you, had you not first forsaken God. Now, therefore, I come to plead the Lord's cause with you. There is yet room for a reconciliation with your offended sovereign, and for a reparation of this injury. Cease to plead falsely and vainly, to vindicate yourselves. Acknowledge your own delinquencies and God's justice; and now return to him. Yea, poor as you are, embarrassing as the course may be, meet his righteous claims. Bring the tithes into his storehouse; and see what your gracious Sovereign will do for you. You say you are willing to do your duty; that you do not wish nor intend to rob God. But you complain of poverty. Now bring the tithes; come, do your duty. Do not sit waiting for better times, but take the best you have, and bring it to the temple, and put the Lord to the test. Come, make the experiment, and see who is properly the cause of this curse and barrenness; the Lord or yourselves. Come, do your duty, though it takes your last stay from under you; and then see if he will not meet you and bless you."

Our attention is called in this passage to two facts pertaining to ourselves-that of God's exclusive ownership, and our breach of

trust.

I. GOD IS THE EXCLUSIVE OWNER OF US AND OUR POSSESSIONS, FACULTIES, AND OPPORTUNITIES.

What is ownership? A supreme right to enjoy the use of an

object according to one's own will. It is absolute, when no limit, but that will, exists. It is limited, when the rights of others put certain bounds to the right of use. Still the right of property is even then exclusive, as far as it goes. It is founded on a gift of the Creator-direct or indirect-as in the possession of our own faculties, a right to the air and the light of heaven; or to the returns of a bounteous Providence to the labor of our minds or bodies. It is also founded on a transfer of rights from some other owner, by gift, will, exchange, wages, or inheritance. These are the principal foundations of human ownership. God's are as different, and as much more elevated, as his nature is separate from, and lifted above ours. He has founded the laws of his empire upon his universal, absolute, and exclusive ownership. He has vindicated his treatment of his creatures by it; and he has condescended to show us the foundations of that right of property in everything that exists, and especially man.

1. The first is creation." The Lord hath made all things for himself. Of him, and through him, and to him are all things." That formula contains this principle in a brief, clear, and simple maxim, which ought to be repeated every day by every human being. And on that principle he vindicates his sovereign disposal of man: "Have I not a right to do what I will with mine own!" There are but two qualifications to this absolute proprietorship recognized in the scriptures. The one is, the restraint of those eternal principles of justice, to which it is the pleasure and the glory of Jehovah to conform. He has conferred certain rights on man, by endowing him with rational faculties and a responsible agency. These rights he will ever sacredly regard, in all his dealings with man. The other restriction is, that God's absolute proprietorship does not exclude a full proprietorship in particular things, to be vested in individual man. Still it is strictly stewardship, rather than ownership. The other foundation of this property is,

2. Redemption.-Some regard the death of Christ, as having no literal redemptive efficacy. But this is very certain, that he claims a special property in man on the ground of his having died for us. "To this end, Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. He died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them." This seems to be the reason for a special application of the title of Lord to him. He is the King of kings, and Lord of lords. All dominion, authority, power and property are subordinate to his dominion and ownership.

What then does the absolute owner claim of those in whom he has vested the possession, temporary or permanent, of property? That every one count himself a steward, and be faithful in his stewardship or agency. "No man liveth to himself; living or departed, we are the Lord's." His ends are to be accomplished by

us, to the sacrifice of all inferior ends. The power and possessions then entrusted to men, to be by them employed, each according to his ability, are various. And the proper use of them requires their entire consecration to God. They are

The supreme affection of the heart. There appears perhaps something incongruous in speaking of love to God as a matter of obligation. And yet it is the sum of all duty. It is the life of all other duties; without which God can accept of nothing. It is a very prevalent feeling with men, however, that there is nothing of any great moment in that summary of the law, "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart." Yet this is the first requirement of creatures whom he has endowed with faculties to apprehend and love him. This, so far from being secondary to any other duty, is paramount to all.

He claims the entire control of our wills. This is not to annihilate our wills; but to bring his outward law to supersede all inward impulses. The will cannot act independently of motive. The Law of God, as expressing his will, is one motive; the self-originating desires and purposes are another. To choose between these two, includes the sum of human responsibility, whether the choice is in view of the two objects in their most general form, or of any particular duty drawing in one direction, and inclination drawing in another direction. The claim of our Creator is, that we choose his law to control us in all things. He has the same claim to secure that result from his rational creatures, as man has to secure from a tree the peculiar fruit which it is capable of producing.

He claims our supreme confidence in him as our Saviour. This is a point not generally regarded in the light of an obligation. Every man who has heard the gospel with any degree of confidence in its being a message from God, believes that he has a right to look to God as a Saviour, if he is disposed to do so. But it is not common for men to feel the pressure of an obligation upon them to believe in Christ with supreme and grateful confidence. Yet this is his claim; and it is only another form of requiring supreme love, in view of this new aspect of divine character.

He claims the supreme efforts of men to advance his kingdom, and promote his glory on earth; each according to his capacity and opportunity. As the prayer is to be daily on our lips and in our hearts, "thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as in heaven; thy name be hallowed," so are we to be "always abounding in the work of the Lord." The spirit of loyalty must put itself forth in destroying the kingdom of Satan, by diffusing the light of heavenly truth, by sustaining and extending the institutions of religion, in every way in our power.

This is the required result of the agency and property with which God, our Creator, Redeemer, King, has entrusted us; this is the return which he expects from us.