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CHAPTER IV.

THE SENTENCE.

GOD IS NOT A MAN THAT HE SHOULD LIE, NEITHER THE SON OF MAN THAT HE SHOULD REPENT; HATH HE SAID AND SHALL HE NOT DO IT, OR HATH HE SPOKEN AND SHALL HE NOT MAKE IT GOOD?'-NUM. XXIII. 19.

'ADAM heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day;' that voice that until now awoke in him the deepest thrill of life and joy; the voice of Him who made him, and caused each moment as it came to breathe on him in blessing; he heard that voice again, it brought the bliss of Heaven no more; his guilty soul grew darker still in fear beneath it, while he fled to hide both body and soul amidst the Trees of God.'

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'And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said, Where art thou? And he said, I heard Thy Voice in the Garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the Tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the Tree, and I did eat.'

In this tremendous Interview, does the listening ear expect the dread sentence of Death from the voice of the Lord God?-having called the Sinner before Him and heard from his own lips the fearful fact, 'I did eat.' God had said, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die!' Had God reversed the sentence that He speaks not to Man of Death? Was Man's vain hope still to be suspended on the Devil's lie, 'Thou shalt not surely die ?' No. There was no need to speak of Death, that Sentence was already executed! He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast.' (Ps. xxxiii. 9.) Heaven and Earth may pass away, but the Word that God hath spoken shall not pass away. (Luke, xxi. 33.) The Sentence had taken effect. Man, whom God made a Living Soul, stood before his Maker 'Dead in trespasses and sins.' (Eph. ii. 1.) Nothing could stay the Word. Sin and Death are Eternally united. By one man. Sin entered into the World, and Death by Sin; and so Death passed upon all men, for that all have Sinned.' (Rom. v. 12.) In the Day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'

What was it then to die? We call the failure of the bodily powers death. When the body yields its breath, we say, This is death! While the body breathes, we call it life. We speak according to the things of earth, and our brief space of earthly existence. We are willingly blinded to Eternal realities, even though they are pressed by every power

ful motive and solemn warning on our attention, by Him who hath made us partakers of His own Eternity. We think of life as that which enables us to use the bodily senses; but the soul or spirit of man with all its powers is left more deeply sensible, more keenly conscious of all that opens around and before it, when the bodily senses narrow its vision no longer, and Eternity breaks on its astonished

view.

That which made man to be a living soul was his spiritual life flowing from God. The moment that Man by his Sin separated himself from God he became a dead soul, his life was cut off at the Fountain Head. Instead of flowing freshly from God, the Eternal Well-spring of Life, it became a dead and stagnant pool, where Corruption and defilement gathered. The decay of the body must follow; a dead soul could not retain a living body; that which is allied to Sin must partake its nature and its sentence, Death.

It is a solemn thought, how certainly, how silently, how instantly, God's sentence is fulfilled. There was not a moment's delay, no fresh utterance of the terrible decree. Death followed Sin as the shadow follows the substance. Man sinned, and lo! the living soul rejoicing in the Life that flowed from and that rendered all to God, by Sin slew itself and was dead.

Those living souls were dead. Dead to God. Their innocence was dead, they were sinful now.

Their trust in God was dead, they were afraid at His familiar voice, and hid themselves. God had given to Adam so clear a knowledge of His Works in Creation, that Adam could name each object brought to him, that act of deepest insight and highest intelligence, by which the distinct character of each was uttered in a special name;-so brightly shone the light of knowledge in the soul of Adam! God is spoken of as watching with Divine interest to see what Adam would call the Creatures brought before him, and whatsoever Adam called every living Creature, that was the name thereof. This knowledge no doubt extended to all that surrounded him; trees, plants, and flowers, inanimate as well as animate nature in the Garden in which God had put him, to dress it and to keep it. How unspeakably sorrowful then to see him hiding from His Gracious Creator, his Glorious Father and Friend, amongst those very Trees! Trees whose nature he so well knew, and beneath whose foliage he may have walked in familiar converse with God.

O Lord, I have heard Thy speech and was afraid.' (Hab. iii. 2.) But man lost in the bewildering darkness of Sin, had not yet that holy fear, that reverence and awe of God. He could not then say, 'O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to Thee my God, for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespass is grown up unto the Heavens.' (Ezra, ix.) It was as yet that dread of God of which the Prophet speaks: They shall

go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of His Majesty.' (Isa. ii. 19.) It was remorse, terror, and shame, that dared not look upon God; not repentance, contrition, and love.

True love and reverence are one in the soul of man, and cannot be parted; where the one is the other is; but Sin had withered both in man. When called into the immediate Presence of God and questioned, with the calm Majesty of Him who is the TRUTH, Adam sought to find the source of his sin in God, and in that highest gift of God which had been until he sinned his Crown of Earthly Blessing. The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the Tree, and I did eat.' 'And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.' The first utterance of Life towards God, had they still retained any, would have been in each the heartfelt confession of their own Sin against the infinite love, that had poured out every blessing upon them; but dead in Sin, they felt not its evil toward God; they knew not any way of return, they sought not any, their effort was to hide, to excuse Sin. 'If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding my iniquity in my bosom.' (Job, xxxi. 33.) Sinking deeper in the Darkness of that Death, into which had God Himself not followed them in infinite Mercy, they had been lost for ever.