The text exhibits a surprising contrast; and the design of my improvement upon it, is to consider separately, and oppose to each other, the constituent parts of that contrast; to the end that we may enjoy an opportunity of seeing, how low human nature hath been sunk by sin, and to what a height of exaltation it hath been raised by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one view will help to inspire gratitude into the breast of a saved sinner; the other will give him cause for self-humiliation, and afford him an inexhaustible topic for praise and wonder, through everlasting ages. This contrasted representation, like a happy mixture of light and shade in a well-executed piece of painting, will place the great doctrines I am to insist upon, in such an advantageous point of view, as to display the consistency, connexion, wisdom, and beauty, of the whole. From whence we shall see, of course, that, though the text presents a dark side, in which the principal and awful figures in the back ground are “sin and death;” yet, like the pillar of a cloud and fire that followed the camp of Israel, it has a bright side too, sufficiently luminous to guide the Christian pilgrim through the wilderness of this world, and to light him to glory, with safety and triumph. The first thing to be considered is, that “the wages of sin is death.” But, as death is an event so humiliating and so formidable, let us attend a little to the nature of that great evil that produces it.—According to the definition given by an inspired apostle, “sin is the transgression of the law”—of that moral law, or rule of rectitude, which had been originally written on the heart of man, and which, when the characters of it were obliterated there, by the first act of disobedience, was afterwards inscribed on two tables of stone. A circumstance that wisely suggested the propriety of placing the decalogue in the most conspicuous part of our churches; to the end, that whenever we cast our eyes on these two sacred tables, and reflect on the sanctions and purity of their precepts, we might see our transgressions, and implore that mercy which God hath revealed through that Saviour, who is the “end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” The law is “holy” in its precepts, “just” in its requisitions, and “good” in the end, for which it was originally given. It delineates, as it were, and transcribes the moral image of the Deity. And such is the rigor and extensiveness of its demands, that it not only condemns every the least deviation from the letter of its commandments, but it also takes cognizance of the thoughts of the heart, as well, as the actions of the life. “The law is spiritual.” Rom. vii. 14. And its spirituality extends to the most latent recesses of the mind. Its penetrating light breaks in upon the desires and inclinations of the heart, in their darkest retreat, and condemns sin in embryo, as well as when it “is brought forth” into actual commission.