iú OF THE MORAL LAW, AND THE EVIL OF SIN. [SERdti[. V. tends to deface the moral image of God in the soul, and ruin the best part of his workmanship. It warps the mind aside from its chief good,. and turns the heart away fromGod, and all that is holy. Sin forms itself in the heart into an evil principle and habit ofdisobedience ; one sin makes way for another, and increases the wretched trade of sinning.. A frequent breaking the restraints of law and conscience, not only strengthens the inclination 'to vice, but it enfeebles the voice and power of conscience to withhold us front sin; it sets man a running in the paths of intemperance and malice, folly and madness, down to perdition and misery: It many times brings painful diseases upon the body, and it is the spring of dreadful sorrows in the soul : All these are the natural cpnscgnences.of sin, V. In the last place I add, " sin provokes God to anger, as be is the righteous Governor of the world ;, it brings guilt upon the creature, and exposes it to.the pu- nishnents threatened by the broken law. When sin en tered into the nature of man there was an end ofall the friendly converse between him and his Maker. Man is afraid of God and God is angry with man. Sin throws him out of his Maker's former favour, and exposes him to the wrath and indignation of a righteous and almighty God, who will vindicate the honours of his own law. He is .a God of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and he is angry with-the wicked every day ;" Ps. vii. 11. The great Creator and Governor of the universe will not always bear to be affronted by such contemptible little worms as we are ; " If we turn not from our evil ways, he will whet his sword, he has bent his bow and made it ready, 'he hath prepared for him the instruments of death, and the soul of the sinner shall feel his arrows." Verse 12, is. And yet further, as God has set up conscience in the bosom of man to be a witness for God there, and to put man in mind of his Maker's law and his own duty, .so this power called conscience is also ordained to be a judge in the heart of man in the room of God, and to sentence and condemn the guilty creature, and to begin the exe- cution of this sentence with sharp anguish of heart, with inward reproaches and bitter terrors. This home-bred torment is a hell upon earth, and it often begins before the sinner dies.
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