583 DEATH IMPROVED. though he pardons the sins of his own people, so as to secure them from eternal vengeance, yet they must pass.through death, that they may learn what an evil and bitter thing it is to have offended against their Maker and their God. When we see a church-yard filled with little hills of mor- tality, the ruins of a parish, or a spacious town, and the dust of many generations, we naturally cry out, as in Dent. xxix. 24. " Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land, and what meaneth the heat of all this great anger ?" The next versewill give, you-an answer to it ; yea, every man may answer himself, because they haveforsaken the Lord their God; they have for- saken his covenantoflife and sinned against hint. Those dread- ful words, In the day thou eátest, thou shalt die; have been put- ting into execution almost six thousand years, and the Lord's anger is not yet turned away, but his hand is stretched out still; Is. v. 25. the vengeance of the Lord is not yet fully executed according to the just demerit of sin. Though saints are saved from the dismal consequences of death, yet God would not rescue them from dying, that they might always remember what sin deserved. Thus the deathofall mankind discovers to us the awful Majesty of God our Maker, who will not be affronted by his creatures, without terrible resentment ; -he is a holyand jealous God. (3.) It teaches us the high value that God has for his own law, that he will rather dash a whole creation to pieces, than suffer his holy law to beinsulted and broken, without some repa- ration'ofthe honour of it. The race of Açlam itdoomed to death, for the sake of sin against this law, and mortality and a curse spread over this lower world. Let us inure our thoughts to- such reflections as these, that we may ever keep our souls in awe of theMajesty of God, anddread the thoughts of breaking his law, which he values above a whole world of men. O that sin may become the most hateful object in our eyes ; it is this that has laid cities desolate, and fills the graves ; it is this that has cor- rupted and destroyed our natures ; it has turned millions of strong and well- formed bodies into duet : It has ruined the most beautiful part of God's lower création, and is sending thousands daily to the pit of corruption and noisome darkness. It is sin has filled our nature with diseases, and sown the poisonous seeds of mortality and death in every sou and daughter of Adam. A malignant and fatal poison, that has destroyed all the nations upon earth, and buried them under ground, heaps upon heaps, in above a hundred successions ! But I now go on to another distinct lesson, that the death of all mankind teachesus. 3. It informs us, in a very sensible and affecting manner,
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