2. _It sets at naught the Work of Christ._ Christ came down on earth, taking human nature upon Him to break the power of Sin, and enable man to overcome it. Therefore He made atonement for Sin, and provided means of grace whereby man might be enabled to conquer it. But Sin is the making in vain the Atonement. "If they fall away ... they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." (Heb. vi. 6.) It prevents the sacrifice of Christ having any efficacy on the soul, to cleanse it from the past and to strengthen it for the future. 3. _It neutralises the Work of the Holy Ghost._ Our Lord poured down the Holy Spirit on His Church to be the sanctification of all the members thereof. This Divine Spirit prompts to good, and helps to perform what is good. It "prevents and follows us," _i.e._, it goes before, stirring up the will to do, and follows assisting in the performance. The Divine Spirit endeavours to purify us, illumine us, and strengthen us. But Sin stains, darkens, weakens us, consequently every sin wilfully indulged in, undoes the work of Sanctification which should be daily going on in us, forming in us the likeness to the perfect pattern of Jesus Christ. [Illustration] Fifth Thursday in Lent. _THE GRAVITY OF SIN._ (CONTINUED.) 1. We have spoken of Sin as a revolt against God, as undoing the work of Jesus Christ, and neutralising the Holy Ghost's work of Sanctification. We will now consider it as _an attack on Society_. God is the Author of peace and concord, "He maketh men to be of one mind in an house." It is due to Him that Society is possible. He made man not only to be an individual with freedom, but to be a member of a community. The most elementary type of community is the Family, then comes the State, and lastly, the Church. Such unions can only be formed and maintained by a certain amount of sacrifice of individual freedom, and by mutual forbearance and compromise. Now as we see that barbarism, pure and simple, is the state of man who lives merely as an individual, and as we may be quite sure that God never intended man to be a savage, we may conclude, from reason, that God wills that man should unite with his fellow-men into societies, and therefore that He sanctions and blesses the surrenders and compromises that make such unions possible. It is so in a family; no single member can do exactly what he likes, he must give up something for the others, and it is exactly the same in the State and in the Church. In human nature there is an union of different elements, and in man as created all these were in complete accord; since the Fall disorder has entered into their relations, so that there is divergence of object aimed at by mind, body, and soul. God desires to see man's nature restored to perfect unity, so that all conflicting tendencies may cease. 2. Now Sin attacks Society--_i.e._, the Divinely-ordered unity--in several ways.