SERM. V.] OF THE MORAL LAW, AND THE EVIL OF SIN. 75 and pours high contempt upon his wisdom and his righ- teous dominion ; it denies his laws to be wise and righte- ous, as though they were not fit to be enjoinedof God or practised of men. II. " Sin carries in the nature of it high ingratitude to God our Creator, and a wicked abuse of that good- ness which has bestowed upon us all our natural powers and talents, our limbs, our senses, and all our faculties of soul and body." Such a creator, who has furnished his creatures with so many excellent faculties,, may reason- ablyexpect and demand of them a return oflove and obe- dience ; but to employ these very talents and powers for the dishonour of himwho gave them, is abominable in it- self and highly provoking to that God who formed us. III. " Sin against the law of God " breaks inupon that wise and beautiful order which God has appointed to run through his whole creation." Prov. xvi. 4. " God has made all things for himself" and his own glory ; but if we set up ourselves and our own honour as the chief end of all, and neglect to pay our duty and honours to the blessed God, we run counter to this divine appointment, and place ourselves in the room of God. IIe has or- dained that his creatures should be mutually helpful to each other, and that man should love his neighbour; but if malice and envy and falsehood prevail in us, and if cruelty and injustice be practised toward our fellow- creatures, the proper and beautiful harmony between the intelligent creatures is broken, and it is a hateful thing in the eyes of God to see those rules of order vio- lated, renounced and trampled upon, which he has esta- blished with so much wisdom and justice. Yet further, God has ordained reason in man to govern his appetites and passions and all his inferior powers : But sin brings shameful confusion into our very frame, while it exalts the appetites and the passions to reign over our reason, to break the rules and dictates of conscience, and transgress all the bounds of reasonable restraint. Sin working in the heart gives a loose to those licentious and unruly powers of nature, and spreads wild disorder through all the life. IV. As it is the very nature of sin to bring disorder into the creation of God, so its natural consequences are pernicious to the sinful creature ! Every act of wilful sin
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