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THEOLOGICAL CABINET.

'ABOUNDING SIN AND SUPERABOUNDING GRACE.'

By Rev. F. Ferguson.

THESE words, my hearers, are but slightly altered from the form in which they are found in Rom. v. 20, ‘Where sin abounded grace did much more abound.' The consideration of them this night is rendered appropriate not only on account of the striking light in which they represent the mercy of God, but also because they stand connected with those verses from which the Scripture doctrine of original sin' has been expounded to us. 'Moreover,' says the apostle, at the end of his comparison, or rather his contrast between Christ and Adam, the law entered so that the offence has abounded (the preposition being used in what is called the ecbatic sense; for God did not add the law to cause the abundance of sin, but, owing to the wickedness of man, the effect of the entrance of law has been sin's increased abundance) but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.'

These words are plainly divisible into two great branches. We have first the great ruin, and next the greater remedy; first the great darkness, and then the greater light; first the great cause of grief, and then the greater cause of joy; first the great disaster that Adam began, and then the greater deliverance which Jesus brought in; first sin's dark, cold, dreary winter with its wide-spread dominion, and then we have the splendid, warm, cheering, reviving summer of grace, and its dominion more lasting and extensive still. To use the words of the title of our address, we have first abounding sin and super-abounding

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and grieving to the heart of the Holy One.

The apostle says, where sin abounded. I direct you to the place of its prevalence. Where? Where is this, where? What are its geographical limits ? what its latitude, and what its longitude? Heaven answers, Not here. As to the universe of creation we cannot tell whether or not sin reigns among the bright orbs. We presume, from the vastness and certain value of these worlds, that they are not uninhabited, but the abodes of moral and responsible being; yet we cannot say whether or not sin has invaded their mighty borders. But, O Earth, Earth, Earth, thou to thy shame and confusion of face, must plead guilty to the harbouring of the fell destroyer within thy once pure and innocent confines! We fix our attention, then, upon the reign of sin on the earth. There, in truth, it has abounded? And where on earth has sin abounded? Are there some regions that are sinful, and others that are innocent? As we can map out the torrid and temperate and frigid zones, can we so trace upon the globe the rebellious and the loyal-the holy and the sin-stained districts? Ah no! As some men are civilized, and some are savage, can we say that some are pure while others are impious? Alas, no! As the little boy, when asked where God was, cleverly replied, Where is he not? so may we, confining the question to this world, when asked, Where does sin abound? reply, 'Where does it not abound?' It is everywhere. The blight is universal. It has not seized merely upon portions of God's garden, it has fallen upon it all, and has ruined it all. Not only is it everywhere, but it abounds everywhere. Of course I refer here to the rational and responsible portion of men; for although I think that a proneness to depravity lurks in infants, I would consider it an entire murder and misappropriation of language to call them sinners. Sin, then, abounds

among men. Whatever quarter of the globe you examine, there will you find sin as surely as you find the sun, the rain, and the atmosphere. Look at that lovely landscape! The fields are clothed in living green. The orb of day shines from an unclouded sky. A noble river winds down the valley, whose banks are covered with the lowing herds. The voices of the happy rustics are heard at intervals coursing sweetly upon the ear. One may ask, Is not this something like paradise? Could Eden be fairer than this?' Ah! my friend, go into these rural retreats. Examine the hearts of these apparently artless people. And what do you find cherished there? Listen to the fearful yet truthful disclosure-SIN. Yes, sin is to be found where least expected. In the bosoms of the most amiable and apparently guileless are to be found the most evil imaginations. The land of the savage shows us sin in, perhaps, its wildest and fiercest appearances, but the civilized land only gives us more refined representations of the same abounding evil.

Sin abounds not only in its native deformity, but in its frightful consequences! Where do we not see the print of its iron tread? Even as war leaves behind it the lamentable fruits of its presence-such as the smoking embers of cities-spoiled harvests-impoverished men-weeping widows and orphans; so sin has left unnumbered horrors in her train. Whence comes disease? Why does that son of Adam toss all night, stung by goading pain? It is on account of sin. Why does that little infant, that never did any harm, scream with agony and die? On account of sin. What sows discord among friends, so that they be come alienated and hostile? It is sin. What is the parent of tears and sighs; of griefs and fears? It is sin. And, above all, what has lighted up the fires of an awful hell, and placed before multitudes the prospect of a miserable eternity? Sin. O Sin, what hast thou done! Thou hast blighted God's fair creation. Thou hast grieved the Holy One! Thou hast made miserable the heart of many a man, whose soul was susceptible of the most exquisite felicity. Thou hast filled this world with lamentation and woe and blasphemy,

that should have resounded only with songs of joy and the praise of God. Who, then, would love sin ? who would wilfully practise sin and hug it to his breast?

Let me apply this part of the subject to every hearer. Sin has abounded not on the earth only, but in your heart-in your history. How frequently have you committed sin! Has it not abounded in your sad experience? Could you number your sins or could you weigh their enormity in the scales of a balance? Would to God that I could succeed, as an instrument in his hands, in convincing every one hearing me of the evil of his sin! Has a single day ever passed over your heads free from the stain of sin? How dreadful must be the aggregate of your guilt! How heavy the treasure of wrath which you have heaped up! Ye that are proud, thinking that ye abound in fair accomplishment, know this that your sin aboundeth-that your proper seat is in dust and ashes, and sackcloth your appropriate attire, rather than fine raiment. Ye that are self-righteous know that your sin aboundeth, and that even your imagined good works are sins till you take on the yoke of Christ, and that your proper spirit is that of the publican who smote his breast, and said, 'Lord be merciful to me a sinner!'

It is a wonder that men who know that their sins have abounded should nevertheless remain unconcerned. If these very men who know that their sins abound, come to know that their debts abound, or their difficulties abound, to feel their infirmities abound, or that slanders against them in the world abound; they are immediately disquieted, and begin to lose their rest and to be unhappy. Do they not care for God's tribunal where sin is to be judged? Do they not care for hell where sin is to be punished? Do they not care for that omnipotent God whose wrath they have roused? Bold, presumptuous, infatuated men! My hearers, be not their companions! Think not that the numbers in the place of punishment will lessen the agony. Console not yourself with the dreadful idea that you will get plenty of company in that place where sin will be punished! No doubt this will be true

if you madly pursue your obstinate path. Sin will abound there as well as here. It will reign with absolute dominion-a doomed and exiled monarch-yet a monarch still. O tremble, my hearer, lest there you feel the smarting of its cutting lash. Sow not madly one grain of pleasure to reap a harvest of eternal woe!

The picture that I have been drawing is dark indeed. Abounding sin! Sin abounding everywhere? No light to relieve the darkness! None righteous, no not one! No star twinkling in the horizon! No health in the diseased frame all wounds and bruises and putrifying sores! No loyal spot in No loyal spot in the wide dominion, but anarchy, rebellion, treason everywhere! But is there no relief-no remedy? Is there not a place on which our exploring minds can rest, even as the dove that Noah sent from the ark could find no spot on which to rest her wandering foot, while she might fold her wet and weary wing? Has the flood of sin so entirely inundated the world that we cannot bring a single twig-a solitary leaf-to show that in one part the flood is not so high? 'Tis true that sin has abounded in the earth as universally and ruinously as did the waters of the mighty flood; but just as the will and winds of heaven caused that inundation to subside, so by God's love and wisdom a great remedy has intervened for the conquest and removal of sin. Grace has come to war with sin. The text says, 'where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' The word rendered, did much more abound,' is redundant in its force. It means literally, not super-abounded, but supersuper-abounded. It tells us that God's grace was more than over-abundant. It was over-superabundant. Using the word superfluous in its literal sense-something flowing over-the grace of God was superfluous in its superfluity. It did not merely extend to a parto an equality with sin-it far exceeded it. There is a time in the morning and in evening when the light struggles with the darkness when we cannot tell which prevailscalled the twilight. This is not the relation which the grace of God holds to sin as to the provision of it. Always

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and everywhere, abounding sin is far eclipsed and outshone by hyper-superabounding grace!

O sinners, come here and view the glory of God! 'Twas he who gave us this grace, even as he gave us this light of day. Even as he said, Let there be light, and light poured forth its infant beams upon an infant world; so did he say concerning a moral world where dark and dreadful sin beclouded all, let grace arise; and forth came Jesus the Sun of Righteousness, and the spirit of Jesus, the gracious conductor of his golden beams. Again I say, sinners come hither and view the glory of your God! More splendid than at Sinai's fiery mount, or Sodom's burning plain, or Egypt's stricken capitalmore splendid does God's glory appear in the sweet manifestations of his universal grace!

I am thus necessarily led to consider God's super-abounding grace. I wish you to consider three things concerning it.

3.

1. Its Nature. 2. Its Fitness, Its Fulness.

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1. Consider the nature of the grace of God. What is it? This expression is very much mis-used in the current theological language of our day. When men speak of Divine grace, they gener ally mean a mysterious special influence. Now it is an entire begging of the question to maintain that this is the meaning of the word in the Bible. The word simply means favour, mercy, goodness, love. Whatever is unmerited is grace. Favour bestowed by God is divine grace. It is this grace that is represented in the New Testament as justifying. Rom. iii. 2, Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.' Rom. iv 16, It is of faith that it might be by grace.' Again this grace is represented as being that in the bosom of God, which led to the gift of Jesus. For the grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.' Tit. ii. 11. The word is also applied to the love displayed by Christ in dying for us. Acts xv. 11, 'But we believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved as well as they.' And 2 Cor. viii. 9, ' for ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. that though he was rich, yet

for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.' Heb. ii. 9, 'That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.' Paul also says, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.'-1 Cor. xv. 10. In few words then it appears that by the expression, the grace of God, is to be understood the free, rich, unmerited favour displayed by God towards us sinners, whether applied to the love of the Father, the work of the Son, or the work of the Spirit.

2. Notice the fitness of the grace of God to man's case: 'Where sin abounded grace did much more abound.' There is a manifest adaptation in the grace to meet and master the sin. Even as the medicine meets the case of the sick, as the water meets the case of the thirsty, and the pardon meets the case of the condemned, in some such way does the grace here spoken of meet the case of the sinful. In order to see the fitness of God's grace to man's need, we must consider his circumstances as a sinner. These present two prominent points-1. Condemnation for sin, and 2. The pollution of sin. Now, I maintain and wish clearly to demonstrate that God's grace meets the case of a man as a condemned and as a polluted sinner, (1.) Consider man as condemned. As such he lies beneath the penalty of a broken law. The wrath of Divine justice abides upon him. He is an heir of hell. In these circumstances he stands eminently in need of the grace of God. But observe that mercy coming in a common course would not suffice the transgressor-in fact would not reach him. Had God (with reverence, and only for clearness' sake let the supposition be made) had God sent a pardon, a universal amnesty to sinners-liberating them all from condemnation and death and hell, what would have been the consequence ? His justice would have been disregarded; his law would have lain bleeding and dishonoured. Men might be taken to heaven by his omnipotent arm, but then it would be at the expense of his righteousness, and his character would be blotted and stained in the estimation of high and holy intelligences. Heaven, moreover, would be an atmosphere too holy for sinners--they would be miserable there.

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What, then, is needed that God's grace be fit and appropriate grace? I answer, an atonement. It behoved Christ to suffer. It was necessary that he should die. Glory be to his grace, he did die for us! He died, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God.' He gave himself a ransom for the enslaved captive, so that the gladsome light of liberty straightway beams upon all the malefactors doomed to die. Christ is made unto us 'redemption.' O, sinner, is not this precious-precious grace! Suppose yourself a criminal doomed to die, how grateful would the sound of pardon be to you

'If then, just then, all thoughts of mercy lost, When Hope, long ling'ring, at last yields the

ghost,

The sound of PARDON pierced your startled earYou'd drop at once your fetters and your fear, A transport glow in all you'd look and speak And the first thankful tears bedew your cheek,' Equally appropriate to your case is the grace of the Lord that bringeth salvation;' and joyful, surely, should you be when you hear 'the joyful, joyful sound.' And Consider man as a polluted sinner. This is a most precious aspect of God's grace, that it is as eminently calculated to melt and purify the heart of the sinner, as to purify his conscience, and justify his soul. It is represented as being the great weapon of sanctification in the hands of the Holy Ghost. Jesus prayed to his Father, 'Sanctify them through thy truth.' In Acts xv, 9, we have the expression, purifying their hearts by faith.' Is it asked, 'How does the grace of God purify the heart when applied to it?' I answer, it casts light upon the evil nature of sin. Suppose that a man has been all night on the brink of a deep ravine. When the sun rises in the morning, his light answers two purposes. Not only does it show him the way to safety, but it shows him the danger and dreadfulness of his past situation. So the grace of God, displayed in the cross of Christ, not only shows the sinner the way of pardon and peace, but also shows him the darkness of that pit in which he formerly dwelt. The grace of God, moreover, contains the sanctifying element of love. The man who believes in that grace feels himself bound to serve that God who has done so much

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3. Notice the freeness of this grace. Perhaps some one is saying-Is this grace for me?' It is. This text proves it. The grace-the saving grace of God is said to be more abundant than sin. Now, the question comes up, how abundant is sin? It is universal-therefore the grace of God must be universal too-aye, and so universal as to encircle and enclasp within its wider embrace universal sin. Grant that sin has spread itself like a ring round all this globe, the grace of God like a larger but concentric circle, describes its great circumference round this ring in every part wider still! Does not this text prove the universality of the love of Father, Son, and Spirit? I consider it a proof-text of this. It raises up its mighty veto against the unconditional predestination of some to eternal life, against special love in God the Father, against limitation in the love and work of Christ the Son, and against the special influence of the Holy Spirit. What will the Calvinist do with this passage? How can he explain it according to his creed? It will not lie upon his procrustean bed. It rebels against the shackles of his confining system, and seeks for free and untrammelled scope that it may erect its high and towering head, and spread out the hand of sweet invitation to all mankind. This is the great characteristic motto that is inscribed upon the benignant front of the religion of Jesus. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.' O sinner do you wish to know whether or not Jehovah loves you-whether or not there is salvation for you? That I may answer this question satisfactorily I simply ask you, Are you a sinner?' If you be, there must be salvation for you, for where sin aboundeth, grace doth much more abound.' Your duty is to receive this grace gladly into your heart and live a life of faith upon the Son of God, and you will be able

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RELIGION ENNOBLES OUR
WHOLE NATURE,

1. Religion ennobles the heart. Religion ennobles the heart, or, in other words, the affections, by drawing them from unworthy objects, and placing them on a noble object-the great God, the Almighty and Eternal One, the Creator and upholder of all things. What is there in the wide universe comparable to him? Or what is there on which the human affections may fix themselves and be satisfied? Nay, what is there, of terrestrial objects, worthy the affections of the immortal soul? The very natures are distinct-the one is an emanation of the Deity himself, and, if not perverted or corrupted, tends upward to its source-while the other is earthly, and tends to dust. Man, although fallen far beneath his original dignity, is still an exalted being, and cannot be satisfied with things unsuited to his nature. His desires are infinite, and consequently cannot be filled by any but an infinite object. Such an object is presented to him, and claims his supreme affections. He beholds him, beautiful in holiness, full of dignity, wisdom, strength, and goodness, and to him he gives his heart, him he worships, and him he serves. Yea, he would risk every earthly consideration to obtain his love-he would part with every desirable object rather than forfeit his friendship. And while he admires and adores, his heart is changed, in some measure, into the same image. Is there anything ignoble in this? Does not disgrace rather attach to those who place their affections on things so far beneath them?

2. Religion ennobles the intellect. When man transgressed, the curse of God fell heavily on his intellectual powers. His mind became deranged in all its parts, so that now he is inclined to take falsehood for truth, and truth for falsehood-evil for good, and good for evil. But religion, if she be but listened to, will, in a great measure,

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