Sin

Time Cannot Cover Sin. — When the trumpet of resurrection sounds, there will be a resurrection of characters, as well as of men. The man who has been foully slandered will rejoice in the light that reflects his purity. But the man whose latent vices have been skilfully veneered will be brought to the light, too. His acts and motives will be alike exposed. As he himself looks and sees the resuscitation of his crimes, with what horror will he face that day of judgment! “Ah! ah!” says he; “Where am I? I had forgotten these. These are the sins of my childhood, the sins of my youth, the sins of my manhood, and the sins of my old age. I thought they were dead and buried, but they start from their tombs. My memory has been quickened. How my brain reels as I think of them all! But there they are, and, like so many wolves around me, they seem all thirsting for my destruction.” Beware, oh men! Ye have buried your sins, but they will rise up from their graves and accuse you before God. Time cannot cover them.

The Sting of Death. — Imagine a conqueror’s deathbed. He has been a man of blood from his youth up. Bred in the camp, his lips were early set to the bugle, and his hand, even in infancy, struck the drum. He had a martial spirit; he delighted in the fame and applause of men; he loved the dust of battle and the garment rolled in blood. He has lived a life of what men call glory. He has stormed cities, conquered countries, ravaged continents, overrun the world. See his banners hanging in the hall, and the marks of glory on his escutcheon. He is one of earth’s proudest warriors.

But now he comes to die, and when he lies down to expire, what shall invest his death with horror? It shall be his sin. Methinks I see the monarch dying; he lies in state; around him are his nobles and his councillors; but there is somewhat else there. Hard by his side there stands a spirit from Hades; it is a soul of a departed woman. She looks on him and says, “Monster! my husband was slain in battle through thy ambition: I was made a widow, and my helpless orphans and myself were starved.” And she passes by. Her husband comes, and opening wide his bloody wounds, he cries, “Once I called thee monarch; but, by thy vile covetousness thou didst provoke an unjust war. See here these wounds — I gained them in the siege. For thy sake I mounted first the scaling ladder; this foot stood upon the top of the wall, and I waved my sword in triumph, but in hell I lifted up my eyes in torment. Base wretch, thine ambition hurried me thither! “Turning his horrid eyes upon him, he passes by. Then up comes another, and another, and another yet: waking from their tombs, they stalk around his bed and haunt him; the dreary procession still marches on, looking at the dying tyrant. He shuts his eyes, but he feels the cold and bony hand upon his forehead; he quivers, for the sting of death is in his heart. “0 Death!” says he; “to leave this large estate, this mighty realm, this pomp and power — this were somewhat; but to meet those men, those women, and those orphan children, face to face; to hear them saying; ‘Art thou become like one of us?’ while kings whom I have dethroned, and monarchs whom I have cast down shall rattle their chains in my ears, and say, ‘Thou wast our destroyer, but how art thou fallen from heaven, 0 Lucifer, son of the morn ing! How art thou brought down as in a moment from thy glory and thy pride!” There, you see, the sting of death would be the man’s sin. It would not sting him that he had to die, but that he had sinned, that he had been a bloody man, that his hands were red with wholesale murder — this would plague him indeed, for “the sting of death is sin.”

Sin’s Cruel Work. — When we discover that our iniquities put our dearest and best friend to death, we vow revenge against our iniquities and henceforth hate them with a perfect hatred. Let me illustrate this very simply. Here is a knife, with a richly-carved ivory handle, a knife of excellent workmanship. Yonder woman, we will suppose, has had a dear child murdered by a cruel enemy. This knife is hers, she is pleased with it, and prizes it much. How can I make her throw that knife away? I can do it easily, for that is the knife with which her child was killed. Look at it; there is blood still upon the handle. She drops it as tho it were a scorpion; she cannot bear it. “Put it away,” saith she, “it killed my child! Oh, hateful thing!” Now, sin is such a thing: we play with it till we are told it was sin that killed the Lord Jesus, who died out of love to us — pure, disinterested love. Then we say, “Hateful thing, get thee gone! How can I endure thee f” Remember how Mark Antony stirred up the Romans to a fury against Caesar’s murderers. Holding up the mantle of dead Caesar, he pointed to the rents and gashes in the garment —

“In this place ran Cassius’ dagger through; Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed.”

And thus he inflamed the multitude to such a pitch of fury that they snatched up the seats around them, and away they went to the houses of the conspirators to set them on a blaze. Ah! if my lips could speak as my heart bids them, I would cry, See there the wounds of the Son of God; behold the crimson stains which mark his blessed body: mark the thorn-crown; gaze upon the pierced hands; weep over the nailed feet; see the deep gash which the lance made in his side! Sin did this cruel work, this bloody deed! Down with our sins; drag them to the cross; slay them at Calvary; let not one of them escape, for they are the murderers of Christ!

Afraid of Sin. — Ulysses Androvaldus tells us that a dove is so afraid of a hawk, that she will be frightened at the sight of one of its feathers. Whether it be so or not, I cannot tell; but this I know, that when a man has had a thorough shaking over the jaws of hell, he will be so afraid of sin, that even one of the feathers of it, any one sin, will alarm and send a thrill of fear through his soul. This is a part of the way by which the Lord turns us when we are turned indeed.

A True Sight of Sin. — We have all seen bears in a pit, and lions in stone, and have seen them without alarm; but I can readily imagine that if a lion were suddenly to leap from my platform into the midst of this throng, you would regard it with a very different eye. A wild beast let loose among you would be a very different thing from what it is in a picture or a statue. Now, sin, as the preacher talks of it, is to most of you like a painted lion; but when a man feels it in his own soul as a living evil full of mischief, it is a very different thing. We are like the man in the fable, who warmed a frozen viper in his bosom; but when it came to life he knew its poisonous nature, for he felt the venom in his veins. Men, before God quickens them, nurse the viper of sin in their bosom, and say, “Look at its azure scales; how fair it is to look upon! Do you suppose so harmless a creature could ever do me injury?” They put it in their bosoms with much fondness; but when it bites them, and the hot poison runs through their veins, and aso SPURGEON’S ILLUSTRATIVE ANECDOTES

conscience is thoroughly awakened, then they loathe it and cast it from them, or rather would do so if they could; but as Laocoon, in the old story, tried in vain to tear the serpent’s coils from his limbs, so is it with them until grace comes to their aid. At any rate, a true sight of sin soon turns a man most thoroughly from his former love of it.

Sin Must be Abandoned. — I know that there are some here, and there always have been some few attending my ministry, who have a personal affection for me, and who listen to the Word with very great attention, and who, moreover, are very greatly moved by it, but who have some besetting sin which they either cannot or will not give up. They do renounce it for a time; but either bad associates, or else the strength of their passions, take them away again. Oh, sirs! I would ye would take warning. There was one of whom we had some sort of hope, who listened to our ministry. There came a turning-point with him. It was this: either that he must give up sin, or else give up coming to the Tabernacle. And what, oh! what became of him? I could indicate the place where he sat. He died of delirium tremens! And I do not wonder.

Danger of Little Sins. — St. Augustine gives a picture of how far men will go when they once begin to sin. There was a man who in argument declared that the devil made flies; “Well,” said the man with whom he was arguing, “if the devil made flies, then it is but little more to say the devil made worms! “” Well,” said the other, “I believe it.” “Well,” said the man, “if the devil made worms, how do you know but what he made small birds?” “Well,” said the other, “it is likely he did! “” Well,” resumed the man with whom he was arguing,” but if he made small birds, why may he not have made big ones? And if he made big birds, why

SIN a$i

may he not have made man? And if he made man, why may he have not made the world? ““You see,” says St. Augustine, “by one admission, by once permitting the devil to be thought the creator of a fly, the man came to believe that the devil was the Creator.” Just get one small error into your minds, get one small evil into your thoughts, commit one small act of sin in your life, permit these things to be dandled, and fondled, favored, petted, and treated with respect, and you can not tell whereunto they may grow. They are small in their infancy; they will be giants when they come to their full growth. Thou little knowest how near thy soul may be to destruction, when thou wantonly indulgest in the smallest act of sin!

Secret Love for Sin. — Rowland Hills tells a curious tale of one of his hearers who sometimes visited the theater. He was a member of the church. So going to see him, he said, I understand Mr. So and so, you are very fond of frequenting the theater. No, sir, he said, that’s false. I go now and then just for a great treat, still I don’t go because I like it; it is not a habit of mine. Well, said Rowland Hill, suppose some one should say to me, Mr. Hill, I understand you eat carrion, and I should say, No, no, I don’t eat carrion. It is true, I now and then have a piece of carrion for a great treat. Why, he would say, you have convicted yourself, it shows that you like it better than most people, because you save it up for a special treat. Other men only take it as common daily food, but you keep it by way of a treat. It shows the deceitfulness of your heart, and manifests that in spite of what you may think you still love the ways and wages of sin.

The Thistle-Seed. — Years ago there was not a single thistle in the whole of Australia. Some Scotchman who very much admired thistles — rather acre than I do — thought it was a pity that a great island like Australia should be without that marvellous and glorious symbol of his great nation. He, therefore, collected a packet of thistle-seeds, and sent it over to one of his friends in Australia. Well, when it was landed, the officers might have said, “Oh, let it in; ’ is it not a little one?7 Here is but a handful of thistle-down, oh, let it come in; it will be but sown in a garden — the Scotch will grow it in their gardens; they think it a fine flower, no doubt, — let them have it, it is but meant for their amusement.” Ah, yes, it was but a little one; but now whole districts of country are covered with it, and it has become the farmer’s pest and plague. It was a little one; but, all the worse for that, it multiplied and grew. If it had been a great evil, all men would have set to work to crush it. This little evil is not to be eradicated, and of that country it may be said till doomsday, — “Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth.” Happy would it have been if the ship that brought that seed had been wrecked. No boon is it to those of our countrymen there on the other side of the earth, but a vast curse. Take heed of the thistle-seed; little sins are like it. Take care they are not admitted into your heart. Endeavor to shun them as soon as Satan presents them. Go, seek by the grace of God and his Holy Spirit to keep them away; for if not, these little sins will multiply so fast, that, altho you remain wholly unconscious of it, they will be your ruin and destruction.

Hidden Sin. — Some people I know of are like inns, which have an angel hanging outside for a sign, but they have a devil within for a landlord. There are many men of that kind; they take good care to have an excellent sign hanging out; they must be known by all men to be strictly religious; but within, which is the all-important matter, they are full of wickedness.

Sin Will Not Stay Hidden. — There is a singular poem by Hood, called “The Dream of Eugene Aram” — a most remarkable piece it is indeed, illustrating the point on which I am now dwelling. Aram has murdered a man and cast his body into the river — “a sluggish water, black as ink, the depth was so extreme.” The next morn ing he visited the scene of his guilt,

“And sought the black accursed pool,

With a wild misgiving eye;
And he saw the dead in the river bed,
For the faithless stream was dry.”

Next he covered the corpse with heaps of leaves, but a mighty wind swept through the wood and left the secret bare before the sun.

“Then down I cast me on my face,

And first began to weep,
For I knew my secret then was one

That earth refused to keep,
On land or sea, though it should be

Ten thousand fathoms deep.”

In plaintive notes he prophesies his own discovery. He buried his victim in a cave, and trod him down with stones, but when years had run their weary round the foul deed was discovered and the murderer put to death. Sin Will Out. — - Sin cannot be held in with bit and bridle. “But I am going to have a little drink now and then. I am only going to be intoxicated once a week or so. Nobody will see it; I shall be in bed directly.” You will be drunk in the streets soon. “I am only just going to read one lascivious book; I will put it under the sofa-cover when anyone comes in.” You will keep it in your library yet, sir. “I am only going into that company now and then.” You will go there every day, such is the bewitching character of it; you cannot help it. You may as well ask the lion to let you put your head into his mouth. You cannot regulate his jaws, neither can you regulate sin. Once go into it, you cannot tell when you will be destroyed. You may be such a fortunate individual, that, like Van Amburgh, you may put your head in and out a great many times; rest assured that one of these days it will be a costly venture. Again, you may labor to conceal your vicious habit, but it will come out, you cannot help it. You keep your little pet sin at home; but mark this, when the door is ajar the dog will be out in the street.

Presumptuous Sins. — You remind me, some of you, of that story of Dionysius the tyrant, who, wishing to punish one who had displeased him, invited him to a noble feast. Rich were the viands that were spread upon the table, and rare the wines of which he was invited to drink. A chair was placed at the head of the table, and the guest was seated within it. Horror of horrors! The feast might be rich, but the guest was miserable, dreadful beyond thought. However splendid might be the array of the servants, and however rich the dainties, yet he who had been invited sat there in agony. For what reason? Because over his head, immediately over it, there hung a sword, a furbished sword, suspended by a single hair. He had to sit all the time with this sword above him, with nothing but a hair between him and death. You may conceive the poor man’s misery. He could not escape; he must sit where he was. How could he feast? How could he rejoice! But 0, my uncon verted hearer, thou art there this morning, man, with all thy riches and thy wealth before thee, with the comforts of a home and the joys of a household; thou art there this day, in a place from which thou canst not escape; the sword of death above thee, prepared to descend; and woe unto thee, when it shall cleave thy soul from thy body. Canst thou yet make mirth, and yet procrastinate? If thou canst, then verily thy sin is presumptuous in a high degree. “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins.”

The Bravado of Sin. — A mouse was caught in a trap, the other day, by its tail, and the poor creature went on eating the cheese. Many men are doing the same; they know they are guilty, and they dread their punishment, but they go on nibbling at their beloved sins. They remind me of the soldier in the old classic story. The army marched through a certain country, and the commander-in-chief ordered that there should be no plundering; not a man must touch a bunch of grapes in going through the vineyards, or he should die for his disobedience. One soldier, tempted by a bunch of grapes, must needs pluck it, and begin to eat it. He was brought before the captain, who declared that the law must be carried out and the thief must die. He was taken out to die; and tho he knew his head would be cut off, he went on eating the grapes as he walked along. A comrade wondered that he should do this; but the condemned man answered that no one ought to grudge him his grapes, for they cost him dear enough.

Such are the bravados of sinners. The breasts of wicked men are steeled rather than softened by a sense of condemnation; but once let the Holy Spirit remove the burden of their guilt, and they will be dissolved by love. Free pardon is a great conqueror. The love of Jesus soon makes men turn from sin with burning hatred. Forgiving love is a main instrument in transforming men from rebels into friends.

Cutting Sin’s Traces. — I remember reading a famous writer’s description of a wretched cab-horse which was old and worn out and yet kept on its regular round of toil. They never took him out of harness for fear they should never be able to get his poor old carcass into it again. He had been in the shafts for so many years that they feared if they took him out of them he would fall to pieces, and so they let him keep where he was accustomed to be. Some men are just like that. They have been in the shafts of sin so many years that they fancy that if they were once to alter they would drop to pieces. But it is not so, old friend. We are persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation. The Lord will make a new creature of you. When he cuts the traces and brings you out from between those shafts which have so long held you, you will not know yourself. When old things have passed away you will be a wonder unto many.

The Wolves of Sin. — In the heyday of youth man finds beaded bubbles about the brim of his cup of sin, the wine moveth itself aright, it giveth its color in the cup, but as he grows older and drinks deeper he comes nearer to the dregs, and those dregs are as gall and wormwood. An old man with his bones filled with the sin of his youth is a dreadful sight to look upon; he is a curse to oth ers, and a burden to himself. A man who has fifty years of sin behind him is like a traveler pursued by fifty howling wolves. Do you hear their deep bay as they pursue the wretch? Do you see their eyes glaring in the dark, and flaming like coals of fire? Such a man is to be pitied indeed: whither shall he flee, or how shall he face his pursuers?

Breaking the Cart Ropes of Sin. — We have seen pictures of the Arabs dragging those great Ninevah bulls for Mr. Leyard, hundreds of them tugging away; and I have imagined how Pharaoh’s subjects, the Egyptians, must have sweated and smarted when they had to drag some of the immense blocks of which his obelisks were composed, — thousands of men dragging one block of masonry; and I seemed to have just such a load as that behind me, and it would not stir. I prayed, and it would not stir. I took to reading my Bible, but my load would not stir. It seemed stuck in the mire, and no struggling would move the awful weight. Deep ruts the wheels were in. My load would not be moved, and I did not know what to do. I cried to God in my agony, and I thought I must die if I did not get delivered from my monstrous cumber: but it would not stir. I have no drag behind me now. Glory be to God, I am not bound with a cart-rope to the old wagon. I have no hamper behind me, and as I look back for the old ruts where the cart stopped so long I cannot even see their traces. The enormous weight is not there! It is clean gone! There came One by who wore a crown of thorns: I knew him by the marks in his hands and in his feet: and he said, “Trust me, and I will set thee free.” I trusted him and the enormous weight behind me was gone. It disappeared. As I was told, it sank into his sepulchre, and it lies buried there, never to come out again. My cart-rope snapped, my cords of vanity melted, I was out of harness. Then I said, “The snare is broken, and my soul hath escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. I will tell the story of my deliverance as long as I live.” I can say to-night,

“E’er since by faith I saw the stream

His flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.”

Hiding Sin From God. — I can imagine a man in business calling himself a Christian about to engage in a doubtful transaction: how is he to discern the danger? Let him ask the Lord Jesus Christ to come while he is doing it. “Oh, dear no;” cries one, “I had rather he should not come until that matter had been finished and forgotten.” Then be you sure that you are moving in the wrong direction. Suppose you think of going to a certain place of amusement about which you have a question, it is easy to decide it thus: — When you take your seat your first thing should be to bow your head and ask for a blessing, and then say, “Lord, here I sit waiting for thine appearing.” “Oh,” say you, “I should not want the Lord to come there.” Of course you would not. Then do not go where you could not wish your Lord to find you.

Sin a Poison of the Blood. — A man has a bad malady upon him, and it breaks out in his flesh. He goes to a quack, who gives him an ointment, which he applies outwardly to heal the sore till the morbid appearances vanish, and he congratulates himself on the cure, and commends the charlatan for his skill. “What a capital doctor he is, and how well my money was expended,” he says; “he has taken away all that eruption.” By and by the man is lying so grievously sick and ill that he does not know what to do. “Oh,” thinks he to himself, “have I made a mistake?” And when the true physician comes he says, “What have been your symptoms?” He tells the tale of an eruption on his skin, and the remedies he resorted to. “Ah,” says the physician, “the disease is driven inwards; you have taken the wrong course; your present symptoms are fatal; you will die. It was well that it should come out on your flesh, seeing it lurked in your constitution. When you have a disease, you had need lay the axe at the root, and not at the branches. It is not the disfigurement of the skin that should be seriously thought of as so alarming as the blood-poisoning that caused it.” Forthwith he begins to deal with the real evil.

The Weight of Sin. — A very simple observation was once the means of deciding a man. He was a mechanic, and a man of a mathematical turn of mind. He had attended a meeting. The meeting was held in an upper room and on going below stairs, his attention was attracted by the beam that had supported the people, and he said to him self, “What a weight there must have been upon that!” Just at that very minute, into his mind there flashed, “And what a weight there is resting upon you!” How that thought should have followed the other, I cannot tell, but as he turned it over, it did seem to him that he had a weight of sin enough to crush him; that he could not bear up under such a weight; and that his soul would come down in ruin like many a building whose beams have not been strong enough; after enduring awhile in a condition more or less uncertain, it has given away at last.

Sin Must be Given Up.- — When you land in France, there stands the gendarme who wants to see what you are carrying in that basket. If you attempt to push by you will soon find yourself in custody. He must know what is there; contraband goods cannot be taken in. So at the gate of mercy — which is Christ — no man can be saved if he desire to keep his sins. He must give up every false way. “Oh,” saith the drunkard, “I’d like to get to heaven, but I must smuggle in this bottle some how.” “I would like to be a Christian,” says another, “I do not mind taking Dr. Watts’s Hymns with me, but I should like sometimes to sing a Bacchanalian song, or a lightsome serenade.” “Well,” cries another, “I enjoy myself on Sunday with God’s people, but you must not deny me the amusements of the world during the week; I cannot give them up.” “Well, then, you can not enter, for Jesus Christ never saves us in our sins; he saves us from our sins. “Doctor,” says the fool, “make me well, but I’d like to keep my fever.” “No,” saith the doctor, “how can you be well while you keep the fever?” How can a man be saved from his sins while he clings to his sins? What is salvation but to be delivered from sin? Sin-lovers may seek to be saved, but they shall not be able. While they hug their sins they cannot have Christ.

Sin Means Anarchy. — Sin, if we rightly consider it, is an upsetting of the entire order of the universe. In your family you feel as a father that nothing can go smoothly unless there is a head whose discretion shall regulate all the members. If your child should say, “Father, I am determined as one of this family that whatever your will is I will resist it, and whatever my will is I will abide by it, and always carry it out if I can.” What a family that would be! How disorganized! What a household! might we not say, what a hell upon earth! There sails to-morrow a ship from the Thames under command of a captain, wise and good, who understands the seas; but he has scarcely reached the Nore before a sailor tells him he shall not obey, that he does not intend either to reef a sail or to do anything aboard the vessel that he is bidden. “Put the fellow in irons!” Everybody says it is right. Or a passenger coming up from the saloon informs the captain that he does not approve of his authority, and throughout the whole of the voyage he intends to thwart him all he can. If there is a boat within hail put that fellow on shore, and do not be particular if he lands in a muddy place; but get rid of him somehow. Everybody feels it must be. You might as well scuttle the ship, cut holes in her sides, as tolerate for a moment that the rightful central authority should be unshipped, or that every man should determine to do what is right in his own eyes. The happiness of everybody on board that vessel will depend upon order being kept. If one man do this and another do that, you might almost as well be shut up in a cage with tigers as be in such a vessel. Now, look at this world, it is but a floating ship on a larger scale, and say, who ought to be captain here but he that made it? His mighty hand alone can grasp that awful tiller. Who can steer this gigantic vessel over the waves of Providence — who but he? And who am I, and, my hearer, who are you, that you say, “I will ignore the Lord High Admiral; I will oppose the Captain; I will rebel against him?” Why, if all do as you do, what is to become of the whole vessel, what of the whole world? The Scar of Sin. — A boy once went into his father’s orchard, and there, in his rough play, he broke a little tree which his father valued. But, rapidly putting it together again, he managed to conceal the fact, for the disunited parts of the tree took kindly to each other, and the tree stood as before. It so happened that more than forty years afterwards he went into that garden after a storm had blown across it in the night, and he found the tree had been riven in two, and it had snapped precisely in the place where he had broken it when it was but a sapling. So there may come a crash to your character precisely in that place where you sinned when yet a lad. Ah, how often the transgressions of our youth remain within our bosoms. There lie the eggs of our young sin, and they hatch when men come into riper years. Don’t be so sure that the lapse of time will consign your faults and follies to oblivion. You sow your wild oats, sir; you have got to reap them. The time that has intervened has only operated to make that evil seed spring up, and you are so much the nearer to the harvest. Time does not change the hue of sin in the sight of God. If a man could live a thousand years, the sins of his first year would be as fresh in the memory of the Almighty as those of the last. Eternity itself will never wash out a sin.

Recklessness of Sin. — Have you never heard the story of Archaeus, the Grecian despot, who was going to a feast, and on the way a messenger brought him a letter, and seriously importuned him to read it. It contained tidings of a conspiracy that had been formed against him, that he should be killed at the feast. He took the letter, and put it into his pocket. In vain the messenger urged that it was concerning serious matters. “Serious matters to-morrow,” said Archseus, “feasting to-night.” That night the dagger reached his heart while he had about him the warning which, had he heeded it, would have averted the peril. Alas! too many men say, “Serious things to-morrow!” They have no misgiving, but when their sport is over they will have alike the leisure and the inclination for these weighty matters. Were it not wiser, sirs, to let these grave affairs come first?

Breaking Off Sin. — I have heard of one who kept a tame leopard in his house. It had been nursed from the time it was a cub, and it gambolled about like a cat. But one day, while the master was asleep, it licked his hand. As it licked a place where the skin was thin and broken, the blood began to flow. Then all the wild instincts of the beast of the forest flashed from its furious eyes. The man suddenly woke, and saw the situation. His end was near — unless he should be quick and skilful enough to destroy the animal. Do you think he paused or hesitated? No; a loaded pistol was within his reach; so he stretched out his hand quietly, grasped it firmly, aimed it steadily, fired it instantly, and the creature lay dead at his feet. It had come to this; that he must either kill it, or it would kill him. It is so with you. Your sins begin to draw blood from you already. Those stings of conscience, that empty purse, those red eyes — all are beginning to tell what sin can do. Not yet do you know all its horror. Before the leopard springs upon you and speedily tears you in pieces, God help you to give it up!

Secret Sin. — It is vain to think that ye can conceal your transgressions. Before high heaven, disguise is futile. Yea, the darkness hideth not; the night shineth as the day. I have known persons who have harbored a sin in their breast until it has prayed upon their constitution. They have been like the Spartan boy who had stolen a fox, and was ashamed to have it known, so he kept it within his garment, till it ate through his flesh, and he fell dead. He suffered the fox to gnaw his heart ere he would betray himself. There are those who have got a sin, if not a lie in their right hand, yea, a lie in their heart; and it is eating into their very life. They dare not confess it. If they would confess it to their God, and make restitution to those whom they have offended, they would soon come to peace; but they vainly hope that they can cover the sin, and hide it from the eyes of God and man. He that covereth his sin in this fashion shall not prosper.

The Wages of Sin. — - A certain tyrant sent for one of his subjects, and said to him, “What is your employment?” He said, “I am a blacksmith.” “Go home,” said he, “and make me a chain of such a length.” He went home; it occupied him several months, and he had no wages all the while he was making the chain, only the trouble and the pains of making it. Then he brought it to the monarch, and he said, “Go and make it twice as long.” He gave him nothing to do it with, but sent him away. Again he worked on, and made it twice as long. He brought it up again, and the monarch said, “Go and make it longer still.” Each time he brought it, there was nothing but the command to make it longer still. And when he brought it up at last, the monarch said, “Take it, bind him hand and foot with it, and cast him into a furnace of fire.” There were his wages for making the chain. Here is a meditation for you to night, ye servants of the devil! Your master the devil is telling you to make a chain. Some of you have been fifty years welding the links of the chain; and he says, “Go and make it longer still. Next Sunday morning you will open that shop of yours, and put another link on; next Saturday night you will be drunk, and put another link on; next Monday you will do a dishonest action, and so you will keep on making fresh links to this chain; and when you have lived twenty more years, the devil will say, “More links on still!” And then, at last, it will be, “Take him, and bind him hand and foot, and cast him into a furnace of fire.” “For the wages of sin is death.”

Insincere Conviction of Sin. — There was a monk who, on a certain occasion, described himself as great a hypocrite as Judas; and a gentleman at once said, “I knew it long ago; you are just the fellow I always thought.” When up jumped the monk, and said, “Don’t be saying such things as those of me!” His humility was feigned, not felt. Thus people may make such a general confession as this, “I am a great sinner,” who would resist any special charge brought home to their consciences, however true. Say to such a one, “You are a rogue,” and he replies, “No, Pm not a rogue.” “What are you, then? Are you a liar?” “Oh, no!” Are you a Sabbath-breaker? “No; nothing of the kind.” And so, when you come to sift it, you find them sheltering them selves under the general term sinner, not for the purpose of making confession, but in order to evade it. This result, as you will see, is very different from a real conviction of sin.