THE

REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

JANUARY 2, 1865.

"I SPEAK OF THE THINGS

TOUCHING THE KING. -PSA. xlv. 1.

66 'WE ALL DO FADE AS A LEAF."

ISAIAH lxiv. 5.

THE Author of the book of revelation and of the book of nature is
the same.
He that formed the one formed also the other. It is
not surprising, therefore, that there should be an analogy between
them that the one, in many respects, should be an image of the
other. Our Lord in His teaching gave us many examples of this.
In His hands the fowls of the air, the lily of the valley, the fig tree,
the vine, the sower going forth to sow, are all made to yield in-
struction. More than all other teachers, He-

"Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything."

After the manner of Him of whose future sufferings and glory he so delighted to speak, the prophet takes up the season that has just passed over us, and tells us that even in the fading of the leaf there is instruction. It reminds us of

The moral deterioration of man."We all do fade as a leaf." In verse 5 we are told what we may expect and hope for through the mercy of God and righteousness of Christ, and then, in verse 6, what we are in ourselves, and what we may expect if left to ourselves. While there was everything in God, there was nothing in man. We faded like a leaf, all of us, for so may the words be literally rendered, and our iniquities like the wind will carry us away. The words, therefore, teach us, that in God's sight man is daily becoming worse and worse. One of the effects of the commission of sin is, that it entirely changes our relation to God. It makes us guilty creatures, exposed to the punishment due to the transgressor of the Divine law. But this is not all. We cannot remain with merely one single offence charged against us. Sin not only alters our relation to God, but changes our moral condition. It pollutes

A

our nature. It brings us into a state in which man ceases to entertain the right thoughts of God once entertained by him, and, as a necessary consequence, entertains thoughts of evil. There is no standing still in the same state of sin. Every day in which our thoughts towards God are not as they ought to be, we add to our sinfulness, we swell up the amount of our guilt in the sight of God. So far from remaining as we are, or rising to a state of holiness, when once we have sinned our condition is from bad to worse. Just as when Adam sinned, he first renounced communion with God, and then, when confronted with God, cast the blame upon Him, so do we after the commission of sin. We progress in evil. We all do fade as the leaf. When once the leaf has begun to fade, decay spreads, until what was once green-the very picture of vegetable life becomes dry, sapless, shrivelled, and withered, soon to break asunder into fragments, and these to crumble into the dust of the ground. In like manner is it with man as a sinner. Sin progresses in its hold over him. Evil passions become worse. Evil habits become confirmed, and our transgressions multiply. The heart becomes harder and harder, and, made far from God by our first act of sin, we are day by day, by new manifestations of sinfulness, wandering farther away from Him.

He

Man's inability to save himself.-The leaf cannot stay the progress of decay. It is all unable to arrest the approach of winter, and to clothe itself anew in the fresh green dress of early summer. It is destitute of power to revivify itself. Just so is it with man. has no restorative power. He has neither the ability to atone for the sin of the past, nor the will to keep from sin in the future. Men sometimes have spoken of their plenary ability, as if they were able by their innate power to repent and believe the gospel. But such assertions are of no more avail than to shew that their hearts have become hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, so as not to realise the teachings of Scripture, or the fearful nature of the malady that has seized the family of man; for everywhere Scripture openly asserts, or proceeds upon the principle of, the powerlessness of man to save himself. Conversion is represented as a new creation, as a being born again, as an awakening from the dead, as a giving of life-all effects which need a cause not to be found in man. Our Lord assures us, in language whose meaning does not admit of a doubt, "No man can come unto me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him."

But it may be objected, Are you not afraid of driving man to despair by thus telling him of his powerlessness? My answer is, that it is one grand object of the gospel to shew man that he is helpless -to convince him of his utter weakness-to persuade him that no human arm can save him-to drive him from all thoughts of his own ability to atone for sin, or keep the Divine law, and to present Jesus as saying, "Thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. Look unto me, and be ye saved, for I am God, and there is none else."

The universality of this deterioration and inability.—We all do

fade, or faded as a leaf. As the autumn advances, the fresh grecu of summer gradually passes away, the leaves acquire a sombre hue, spots appear upon their surface, and, as the days shorten, they become sere and yellow. Perhaps in some sequestered, sheltered glade, into which the cold winds do not easily sweep, or the frosts readily penetrate, the leaves may retain much of their freshness long after the exposed trees of the forest have been stripped bare, but as the year advances they too fade away, and, long ere it closes, they share in the common decay. In all this we are reminded of the wide-spread nature of our moral deterioration and inability. Go where we may, we shall find man to be a sinner. A sinless people has nowhere been found. Nay, the nations that on first discovery seemed comparatively sinless, have, on further acquaintance, been found as guilty as their fellow-men. And there is nothing extraordinary in this. The sin which man has committed is no light offence. It is no trivial matter for which he can easily make amends. It is an offence against God. This is the case even when it has taken the form of wrong done to his fellow-man. However much it may be committed against his neighbour, in a far higher and more important sense, it is committed against God. this view of the nature of sin that led David, though he had grievously offended against Uriah the Hittite, to say to God, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." God, as our creator, as our bountiful benefactor, from His infinite superiority to us, from His infinite excellence, has infinite claims upon our love and obedience. In sin, these claims are set at nought, we put our will above that of Him who made the universe and daily sustains it in being. But what is this? It is to do that whose heinousness can only be estimated by the claims it despises; and these claims are infinite. Hence the heinousness of man's sin is infinitely great. And man at best is merely a creature, and, as such, can never perform a work infinite in value--can never make a reparation that will equal the wrong he has committed. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that the history of our race furnishes us with no example of men who, by their own efforts, have attained to sinlessness, or that Scripture should assume or plainly teach that tears, that prayers, that alms, that tithes, that many things done well, cannot atone for sin.

It was

The destruction that awaits us all.-Erelong the sere and yellow leaves will everywhere have fallen from off the trees; the cold winds will carry them to and fro; the frosts of winter will shrivel them; men will trample them under foot; and, long before the earth assumes its summer robe, they will have wasted away,-destruction will have overtaken them all.

Now, under this we have presented to us, in a figure, the destruction that will yet overtake us because of our sins. As decay in the leaf ends, so does sin in the heart; it ends in death. "The wages of sin is death." This destruction is complete. It extends to the whole man; it is death of the soul as well as the body. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." He against whom we have sinned is able to

destroy both soul and body in hell. It is irretrievable. When once the withering winds of the autumnal equinox have begun to blow, no human power can avert the fading of the leaf; its ultimate decay is sure and certain. Just so is it with man; he cannot turn away from him the punishment due to his sin―he cannot even quiet the upbraidings of his guilty conscience, or banish from his mind fearful forebodings of the wrath to come. Men have sometimes tried to remove their fears, and secure the Divine favour, by a round of painful observances, but they have never succeeded; and no wonder, for it is not in nature that pilgrimages, that a monastic life, that sums of money, that deeds of kindness should correspond with an evil that is infinite in its heinousness. How irretrievable is the punishment of the sinner is strikingly taught us in Scripture, by the representation of the finally impenitent, on the great day of final account, as seeking that which cannot be. "They hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" And it is exceedingly awful. It is the destruction that follows the commission of crime, and, as sin is committed against God, this destruction is the manifestation of the Divine wrath. And how intense the opposition of Infinite excellence to wrong-doing, it surpasses the powers of the creature to say. "Who knoweth," asked Moses, "the power of thine anger?" But we may be certain that this opposition will shew itself in something exceedingly awful to the transgressor. The statements of Scripture regarding the punishment of the impenitent tell us this. "He that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him"-"They that have done evil shall come forth to the resurrection of damnation." Hell is the fire that never shall be quenched; and of the worshippers of the beast it is said, "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night." These passages plainly teach us that the punishment of the wicked is something inconceivably awful, and is never to come to an end. Some have, indeed, rejected the doctrine of eternal punishment; but they have erred, not knowing the Scriptures, or the exceeding evil of sin. It is true, that the passages in Scripture which speak of the everlasting nature of the punishment of the wicked, are not many more than those just quoted; but, few as they are, they sufficiently prove the doctrine. Moreover, when sin is seen in its true character, as a setting at nought the infinite claims God has upon our obedience, it will be found that its wickedness is as great as the claims it despises; it is infinitely wicked, and the only reparation a creature can make for such a crime is to go away into everlasting punishment. And it must not be forgotten, that the scheme of salvation, through a crucified Saviour, assumes the endless character of the punishment due to the transgressor. It was because man, as a creature, was unable, within a limited time, to