tongue, but wormwood to the soul, while there is a devil lurking near every one of them, to offer it to our taste-to bid us eat and die. It goads us on to do its pleasure, and "mocks when our fear cometh." Once under its rule, there is only one mode of ransom, and though this has been paid, sin too often retains its ascendency, and renders unavailing even the mighty price of the Redeemer's blood. Under this desperate tyranny, we believe ourselves to be free, whilst we are in reality the worst of slaves. Such is the power of that influence, which our tyrant exercises, that the very freedom of our wills is often marred and perverted, for "the good that we would, we do not, but the evil which we would not, that we do." We have no power, independent and self-actuating, to emancipate ourselves: it is derived to us from God. His grace is our only deliverer. This ameliorates our bondage, leads us to that cross upon which the price of our redemption was paid, frees us from the odious subjection to sin, and makes us the servants of righteousness through Jesus Christ. He is our ransom-"We have not salvation in any other." He has burst the bonds of our iniquity, and "cast away its cords from us,” for “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, wherein he hath abounded towards us all." In the midst then of our most odious vassalage to sin, we may still look up to the Lord of Life for deliverance,

and "He will come with a vengeance, even God, with a recompense, He will come and save us." While, therefore, the means of freedom are open to us, we have only ourselves to blame if we continue slaves of sin, and let us remember that "to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, his servants we are to whom we obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness."

In this chapter, the Apostle mentions those to whom he writes as having been the servants of sin, and concludes by telling them, that "the wages of sin is death." The propriety of the image will forcibly strike us, if we only reflect a moment, how completely under the controul of sin they are who "mind the things of the flesh," and utterly neglect "the things of the spirit;" how uniformly they obey the dictates of their despotic lord, and by consequence, receive his wages-namely, death.

Now, there are three descriptions of death, to which the Scriptures refer, and these are, severally, the wages of sin :-they are, temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. We shall consider how each of these is the wages of sin; and first, temporal death.

This is inseparable from our probationary state. It is the inevitable penalty of transgression. "Death and bloodshed, strife and sword, calamities, famine, tribulation, and the scourge; these things are created for the wicked." Now, the end of these is destruction, and they are all the wages of sin.

The world, indeed, presents to us one vast theatre, where the ravages of death are displayed in all their appalling varieties. We there behold, how sin perpetually aggravates the fallen condition of man; how abundantly it scatters around us the seeds of ruin; how continually it supplies the grave with untimely victims, and adds to the changes and chances, to the vicissitudes and miseries, of this variable life. The destruction or misery of sinners, is incessantly presented to our view. "Their imagination of things to come, and the day of death, trouble their thoughts and cause them fear of heart, from him that weareth the purple and a crown, to him that is clothed in a linen frock."

Sin is the cause of every evil by which the human state is beset. To its domineering tyranny are we to ascribe the bitterness of all that we suffer, as well as the fugitiveness of all that we enjoy. The passions are so many agents in its hands, to work our destruction. "Their end is bitter as wormwood"-"they have cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by them." They fight against us under the banners of sin, and triumph over us at every turn. There is not a passion, to which the human heart is subject, that has not a tendency, either directly or consequentially, to lead us to the chambers of death. Every passion, which is allowed to operate unrestrained, must precipitate peril. I will not go so far as to say, that all our passions absolutely

tend to abridge the term of animal life, though indirectly they do most frequently, and most powerfully, contribute to inflict this inevitable punishment of a broken law. I may, nevertheless, truly affirm, that when they are allowed to effervesce without measure or restraint, they will infallibly lead to death, under one or other of the characters, in which we are about to consider it. They thrust us perpetually into new hazards. They plunge us headlong into guilt. They hurry us forward, without allowing us to look to the right or to the left, and often hurl us over the precipice, before we are conscious of our approach. Their tendency is everywhere to procure for us "the wages of sin." Look at anger; look at revenge, hate, envy, malice! How do these operate? What do they frequently produce? Look around the world and say:-death! This result is perpetually before us. They do not, it is true, always exhibit issues so fatal,-nay, perhaps most generally they do not. What then? How frequently do they! Scarcely a day passes without an instance. Besides, though they should not kill the body, how often do they destroy the soul! How often are they the causes, if not of temporal, at least of spiritual, and, consequently, of eternal death! But I maintain, that they are as much the cause of the former as of the latter two. To what are we to attribute all the horrors of Mount Calvary, when the Son of God was mocked, reviled, and crucified? To the passions

of men! To what are we to ascribe the deaths of "the noble army of martyrs"? To the passions of men! To what are we to impute public massacre and private murder? To the passions of men! Whence are derived wars, with all their frightful accompaniments of bloodshed, desolation, and death? From the "unruly wills and affections of men."

Again-How frequently do the sensual passions especially acquire for us "the wages of sin"! We may everywhere perceive how uniformly they do the work of death. They are smiling but fatal deceivers; the insidious harbingers of misery and ruin. They sap the constitution, enervate the mind, frequently overthrow the reason, and finally end in destruction. To what are half the deaths among mankind in their adult years to be ascribed? To the sensual passions! To what are we to impute those moral disorders, which so constantly convulse society, destroy the harmony of domestic life, and diffuse around its circle the withering blight of infamy? To the sensual passions!-I pass by the most obvious. Look only at drunkenness. How many millions have been swept from the face of nature by this one vice alone, and how many are hourly becoming its victims. Look at the diseases which it engenders, the infirmities which it induces, the wretchedness which it provokes! All the sensual passions operate alike; from this one, therefore, we may take the character and tendency of all.