Slil MON XLIX. 91 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. Ile has ordained 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 beauti- ful harmony between the intelligent creatures is broken, and it is a hateful thing in the eyes of God to see those rules of order violated, renounced and trampled upon, whichhe has establised with so much wisdom and justice. Yetfurther God has ordained reason in man to govern hisappetites and passions and all his inferior powers : But sin brings shameful confusion into our very frame, while it exalts the appetites-and 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, 1V. As it is the very nature of sin to bring disorder into the creation of God, so its natural consequencesare pernicious to the sinful creature ! Every act of wilful sin 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 from God 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 theWretched trade of sinning. A frequent breaking the restraints of law and con- science, not only strengthens the inclination to vice, but it enfeebles the voice and power of conscience to withhold us from sin ; it sets man a running in the paths of intemperance and ma- lice, folly and madness down to perdition and misery : It many times brings painful diseases upon the body, and it is the spring of dreadful sorrowsin the soul : All these are the natural conse- quences of sin. V. In the last place I add, " sin provokes God to anger as be is the righteousGovernor of the world ; it brings guilt upon the creature., and exposes it to the punishments threatened by the broken law. When sin.entered into the natureof man there was an end of all the friendly converse between him and his Maker. Man is afraid of God and God is angrywith 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. lie is a God ofpurer eyes than to behold iniquity, and he is angry with the wicked everyday; Ps, vii.; Tl, The great Creator and Governor of the universe
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