Man was dead in Sin. You being dead in your Sins.' (Col. ii. 13.) There was in him no life to God; nothing left that under favourable circumstances might bud and blossom, and bring forth fruit unto God. The Apostle who had been caught up unto the third Heaven teaches this fact with the utmost clearness, saying, 'I know that in me, that is, in my flesh,' (man's state by nature, man's standing in himself) 'dwelleth no good thing.' (Rom. vii. 18.) And in Eph. ii. he speaks of himself, with others, as having been by nature the Children of wrath!' So long as man is in his natural state, that is, so long as he stands in himself before God, he is dead; there is not, and there cannot be in him any true movement of the soul towards God.

May we not then with wondering awe enquire, how could the Sinner in his Sin stand in the Presence of God? Must not the wicked perish at the Presence of God? O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!' (Rom. xi. 33.) God, who foreknew man's fall, had before the foundation of the World devised means that His banished be not expelled from Him. (2 Sam. xiv. 14.) 'God, who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest, by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ; who hath abolished

Death; and brought Life and Immortality to Light through the Gospel.' (2 Tim. i. 9, 10.) Man stood in his own Death before God, and heard the Promise of Life in Another. 'Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? Thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered.' (Isa. xlix. 24, 25.)

With the Tempted and Fallen stood the Tempter and Destroyer. With Adam and with Eve the Lord God had questioned as a Father with His children, but He suffered not the Tempter to speak. Accused before the Dread Majesty of the Eternal by her whom he had drawn to Sin and Death, no voice inquired of him, What is this that thou hast done? He had once known the voice of the Lord God, kindling into brighter radiance and more thrilling life the ranks of Cherubim and Seraphim; but he had fallen! 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from Heaven.' (Luke, x. 17-19.) And now his deadly aim was to ensnare and drag with him to Hell's dark depths the sinless children of Earth. His strength had overmatched their weakness; his guile had drawn them into the net, they were his captives, and even in the Presence of the Most High he held his prey; but on him and him alone fell the dread sentence of the Second Death,-that Death on which there gleams no hope; that Night that has no morning, no dawn, however distant, of Resurrection Light.

D

Fallen the Tempter was already, but he heard another Sentence now; he was to be crushed, his head bruised beneath the heel of that same woman's seed. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel.'

To Man the Tempted, Fallen, and dead in Sin, the Promise of Life in Another was given; while the merciful discipline of toil and pain was to humble in him the pride of self-exaltation, to prove the barrenness, emptiness, and vanity of all which would tempt the soul in pursuit of objects not given of God; while the weariness of toil and the disappointments of Earth, yielding the thorn and the thistle, should leave the yearning heart ready for the voice which would say, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' (Matt. xi. 28-30.)

'Till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' Words whose sad reality each generation learns beside the grave, awful in their fatal sound, but yet embalming Immortality! A body that could not die must have shut man up in enduring sin, and pain, and weariness for ever; but them that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him.' (1 Thess. iv. 14.) 'It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weak

ness, it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

So

when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory! O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory? The sting of Death is Sin, and the strength of Sin is the Law; but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' (1 Cor. xv. 42-44, 54-57.)

Another Sentence now has gone forth from the lips of the Eternal. A Sentence on whose awful issues hangs the bliss of Life that the shadow of Death can never darken, for it is everlasting Life; Life whose depths of purity Sin can never defile; Life whose joy is fathomless, and whose dwellingplace is beneath the overshadowing wings of the Most High; Life, that is one in God, and with God for ever! Or the Second Death,- the Death in which the Tempter of Man's soul must dwell for ever; the Second Death that those must suffer who, when the beloved Son of God gave His Life a Ransom, refuse to enter by that New and Living way; who sin against the Blood that would have brought them nigh, and justly die the Second Death, because they will not come to Him that they might have Life.' 'He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, because he believeth not the Record that God gave of His Son. And this is the Record,

that God hath given to us eternal Life: and this Life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath Life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life.' (1 John, v. 10-12.) 'He that believeth on Him is not Condemned: but he that believeth not is Condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God.' (John, iii. 18.)