old world; was the cause of Sodom’s destruction; and will, at last, bring a deluge of fire upon the world that now is. In a review of those innumerable evils, of which, even death is not the greatest, it will be incumbent upon us, therefore, to keep our eye fixed on the origin of them all, SIN. Hereby we shall be able to vindicate the righteous procedure of God, even when we behold him sending death to pull down the beautiful fabric, which his own hands had made; and opening the grave, as the sad and silent repository of his own curious workmanship. When we reflect, that it is _sin_, that hath produced this melancholy change, and that this evil is found upon us; the reflection will help to restrain the extravagance of grief, and to suppress that predominancy of discontented repining, which often makes sinners fly in the face of God, and charge him foolishly. For, if death be not duly considered and acknowledged as the desert and wages of sin, I can easily conceive that, for want of such humble consideration, sinners may be led to arraign the dispensations of the Most High; to charge unerring wisdom with foolishness; infinite justice with unrighteousness; and mercy itself with cruelty. But, when once sin is viewed, in its _damning nature_, its _dreadful_ _effects_, and _just deserts_; the discovery will produce submission to the divine will, under the most severe dispensations. It will make us “put our mouths in the dust,” in silent acquiescence in the wise and sovereign disposals of Heaven. Or, if we open them, it will only be to confess, that “the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” By attentively considering the nature of sin and the manner of its introduction, in order to account for the origin of all the evils that prevail in the natural and spiritual world, and to vindicate eternal Providence, and justify the ways of God with men; we shall hereby also possess the consequent advantage of beholding, in its most glorious point of view, the inestimable REMEDY for sin, by the death and resurrection of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. And, if the former considerations may be deemed sufficient to work in the heart patient submission, and unrepining acquiescence in the dispensations of Jehovah; _this_ will inspire it with a hope blooming, and full of immortality. If reflections on the demerit of sin can stop the mouth in silence in the dust; _this_ will open it in bursts of praise, and glowing effusions of gratitude and admiration. _Sin_ is redemption’s advantageous _foil_. And as the variegated colors of the rainbow shine with greatest beauty on the blackest cloud: so, the malignity of sin, and the gloom of death, tend proportionably to set off the glory of the Saviour, and to give additional lustre to that bright manifestation of life and immortality, which are brought to light by the gospel.