The old story lends itself to us as a kind of general expression to which all the falsehoods of sin may be reduced. Ye shall not surely die.' I suppose that if any man had clear before him at the moment of any temptation,howsoever fiery and strong, the whole sweep of the consequences that are certainly involved in his yielding to it, he would pause on the edge, and durst not do it. But sin suppresses facts; and here are a few of the barbed points which she hides. She does not tell you anything about outward consequences. I have been speaking about gross forms of sin. I wish I could believe that there is no man among my hearers to whom dehortations from them are appropriate, but I fear that in a great city like this there are never gathered as many men and women together as are here, without there being some whose sin lies in the direction of sensuous passion and animal indulgence. And I beseech such to remember the hook as well as the bait, and rethink of the outward consequences in broken constitutions, poisoned blood, enfeebled frames, damaged reputations, loss of faculty, position, prospects, and a thousand other things which hang round about the path of the profligate man'. Every year there come into Manchester young men who fancy they can play the game and not pay the stakes. Every month, I was going to say, there drop out of this great city, bankrupt in reputation, ruined in health, driven from positions of hopes and profit, the heart-break of their families, and a curse to themselves, young fellows that listened to such words as I am speaking to them now, and went away and said: We will chance it! It is exaggerated.' Yes, it would be, if I said that this was true about the whole circle of evil:doers, but it is not exaggerated, if you remember that a definite percentage of all the young profligates of Manchester, year by year, go away to die, with their bones full of the iniquity of their youth.' Did Pleasure show you that hook when she dangled her bait before your eyes?
She suppresses the action of conscience. There is nothing more awful than the occasional swiftness and completeness of the revulsion of feeling between the moment before and the moment after. While yet escape from the temptation was possible, the thing looked so fascinating, so all-desirable; and the next moment, when the thing is done, and can never be undone, and you have got round to the back of it, it looks so hideous and threatening. Conscience lulled, or at least unheard during the hubbub of the clamant voices of the passions that yelled to be fed, lifts up her solemn voice sometimes, the moment that they are silent, gnawing the poisoned portion that is thrown to them, and speaks. Did Pleasure tell you about that hook when she dangled the bait before your eyes? She suppresses the action of sin upon character.
We do not perceive how all our deeds, even the small and apparently transitory and incidental, are really linked together in an iron net-work of cause and effect, so as that every one of them lives on and on, in more or less perceptible and distinct effects upon our characters, You cannot do a wrong thing, departing from the living God,' without thereby leaving an indelible mark upon your whole spiritual and moral nature. Loftier aspirations die out of you, the incapacity for better actions is confirmed, and that awful, mysterious thing that we call habit' comes in to ensure that once done, twice will be probable, and twice done, thrice and innumerable times more will be almost certain. There is nothing more mystical and solemn about our lives than the way in which unthought of and trifling deeds harden themselves into habits, and dominate us, whether we will or no. And so the sin which once stood in front of us with a smile and tempted us, because it was desirable, afterwards comes behind us with a frown, and is a taskmaster with a whip. Instead of being drawn from before by anticipated delight, we are driven from behind by tyrannous habit, and commit the old sin, not because we expect pleasure, but to get away from misery. The flowery fetters become iron, and the evil once done gets to be our master, and we are held and be!rod in the chain of our sins. And more than that, there is the necessity for perpetual increase, heavier doses, more pungent forms of evil, in order to titillate the increasing insensitiveness of the nature. You take a tiger cub into your house when it is little; it is prettily striped, graceful in its motions, playful and affectionate; and it grows up, and when it is big, it is the master of you, if it is not the murderer of you! Do not you take the little sin into your hearts. It will grow, and its claws will grow, and its ferocity will grow.
And now all these consequences suggest the last of sin's suppressions that I would specify.
They all make a future retribution a probable thing. And that future retribution is a plain and necessary inference from any belief at all in a God and in a future life. But the tempting sin has nothing to say about that future judgment or if it has, has only this to say: Ye shall not die.' Is it not strange that it is almost impossible to get many of you--reasonable, far-dighted, prudent men and women as you are, in regard to ordinary things--to look that fact fairly in the face? You are like sailors who get into the spirit-room in a ship when she is driving on the rocks, and as long as you can get the momentary indulgence, never mind about what is coming.
But you cannot, jump the life to come.' Let no man deceive you with vain words; because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the children of disobedience.' And so, dear brethren, let me plead with you. Weak my w or(is are, I know, to break down the walls with which we surround ourselves. But oh, let me try to get within the defences, and plead with you not to let wishes, inclinations, and earthly tastes make you so short-sighted; but take into view all the consequences of your actions, and then tell me, if, regard being had to the whole duration of their results, anything is so wise as to love and serve and cleave to God who dwells in Christ, and in whom is our portion and our all. It is an evil thing and a bitter to depart from the living God.'
