If at that unhappy moment, when Lot, regarding temporal advantages only, and forgetting his religious dangers, "lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar"--if he could have anticipated the melancholy consequences of one false step, surely he would not have chosen the plain of Jordan for a residence, or pitched his tent towards the city of Sodom! Infinitely better had it been for him to have accompanied Abraham to Mamre, or even to have lived in a retired and desolate wilderness. The most exalted piety does not necessarily exempt the individual who possesses it from the trials of life; but it prepares the mind for enduring and improving them. In some instances, it obviates those external calamities which befall an ungodly world, supplying the means of escaping from many of the punishments and penalties which the wicked suffer; but, in all cases, it prevents that anguish which arises from the secret conviction, that the afflictions of life are the consequences of personal guilt and misconduct--sent, it is true, for their ultimate benefit; but sent in judgment, and expressive of displeasure. Sin is always pernicious. It not only involves the impenitent in present sufferings and future wo, but inflicts even on the people of God, in proportion to the degree in which it prevails, embarrassments and calamities. If we direct our course by mere worldly considerations, however fair the prospect may seem, the luxuriant plain is likely to become overspread with confusion, and deluged with misery. In consequence of the fatal choice of Lot, he soon became a captive, then a fugitive. He lost his liberty, his peace, his possessions, and finally his dearest connexion in life, by one of those awful dispensations in which the hand of God is so visible, the punishment of sin so striking, and the lessons of divine justice so terrible. We are admonished to "remember Lot's wife;" and truly, her _advantages_, her _deliverance_, her _guilt_, and her _doom_, furnish so many subjects of instructive reflection. The ADVANTAGES of Lot's wife were considerable. She was the nearest connection of a "just or pious man;" who though he dwelt in Sodom, the very rendezvous of all the vices, "vexed his righteous soul from day to day," with the "unlawful deeds," and "filthy conversation" of its wicked inhabitants.