MOURNING OVER SIN AND HATRED OF IT"I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning." Psalm 38:6A lover of the world will perhaps say, If the effect of religion is to make me like a mourner bowed down with grief at the funeral of some beloved friend, let me escape it. Life is given us for enjoyment. Our natural appetites were formed to be gratified. Therefore, as the time is short, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.All this might seem reasonable, did we die like the beasts that perish. But, even were this the case, formed as we are with minds capable of improvement, and living as we do under a Divine Moral Government, where cause and effect are made to operate for our weal or woe, would it not increase our temporal enjoyment to cultivate the virtues of temperance, sobriety, and prudence, with all the charities of domestic and social life? Every day's experience proves the truth of this, from the destructive consequences which result from a life of thoughtless dissipation, and those anti-social crimes which desolate the earth.The whole framework of society, with its complicated changes, demonstrates a Moral Governor of the world, who has established laws over which the libertine, the spendthrift, and the infidel have no control. Do men throw the reins upon the neck of their lusts? They fall unhappy victims to their excesses. They live not out half their days. Do they squander away their property in splendor or dissipation? They sink into the depths, either of poverty or disease. Do they deny the immortality of the soul, or a day of future retribution? They are emboldened in crime, until, violating the laws of their country, they pay the penalty by dying an ignominious death.If these things are so, what a friend is true religion to mankind. What unnumbered blessings follow in her train. But what is true religion? It is the religion of Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the word of his grace. The entrance into this way of life is indeed strait, and the path in which we must walk is narrow; but, though it be commenced with tears and sorrow, the tears of repentance, and sorrow for sin, it will terminate with songs and everlasting joy. The way of the world, on the contrary, allures the heart by its gaieties and pleasures, but its end is eternal death! "Blessed," then, " are those who mourn; for they shall be comforted." "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy." "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning." "What sorrows await you who are rich, for you have your only happiness now. What sorrows await you who are satisfied and prosperous now, for a time of awful hunger is before you. What sorrows await you who laugh carelessly, for your laughing will turn to mourning and sorrow."What an evil and bitter thing is sin! How dreadful are the polluting injections of Satan. But here lies the believer's comfort, that the Spirit of Light is greater than the spirit of darkness; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. As God is a sin-hating, and a sin-avenging God; so is sin a soul-tormenting, and a soul-destroying evil. We behold its direful effects in our fallen world, under every form of misery. But at the Cross of Christ, the awful character of sin is written in letters of blood! There we learn its dreadful nature, so offensive to a God of Holiness, so rebellious against a God of Justice. Either the Eternal Son of the Most High must suffer in our stead, or a world of sinners must perish everlastingly!Oh! may a view, a saving view of the Cross of my Emmanuel, melt my whole soul into contrition and love. Crucify, O Lord, your enemies and mine. Slay them all before you. Let no Agag, no first-born of the flock, be spared. Fortify my heart against the inroads of Satan. Enable me to keep a constant watch against those inbred corruptions, from which nothing but death will wholly rid me.Mourning over sin may appear to some, as little better than the cant of the enthusiast. The language of humiliation does not necessarily prove the heart to be humbled. But when the soul, like David's, is truly broken and contrite, it will express its feelings, without regard to the opinions of men; it will pour out its sorrows to God, who hears and answers prayer. "I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning," is not the language of the nominal, but of the deeply tried and experienced Christian. It is most important to examine ourselves, for nothing is so easy as self-deception.When sin is working within us, do we allow the enemy quietly to carry on his work of destruction, or do we fly instantly to the throne of grace for strength to resist him? The efficacy of believing prayer is truly wonderful. When the soul is troubled; when it is bowed down under the weight of conscious guilt; the prayer of faith, resting on the promises, and pleading the merits of Christ, obtains deliverance, and is turned into a song of praise.
