er aspects man's sin may have been an
interruption and a contradiction of the divine purpose, out of the
evil has come a good; that the more obdurate and universal the
rebellion, the more has it evoked a deeper and more wondrous
tenderness. The blacker the thundercloud, the brighter glows the
rainbow that is flung across it. So these two front each other, the
one settled in her established throne--

'Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell--'

the other coming on her adventurous errand to conquer the world to
herself, and to banish the foul tyranny under which men groan. 'Sin
hath reigned.' Grace is on her way to her dominion.

II. Notice the gifts of these two Queens to their subjects.

'Sin hath reigned in death' (as the accurate translation has it);
'Grace reigns unto eternal life.' The one has established her
dominion, and its results are wrought out, her reign is, as it were,
a reign in a cemetery; and her subjects are dead. If you want a
modern instance to illustrate an ancient saw, think of Armenia. There
is a reign whose gifts to its subjects are death. Sin reigns, says
Paul, and for proof points to the fact that men die.

Now, I am not going to enter into the question here, and now, whether
physical death passes over mankind because of the fact of
transgression. I do not suppose that this is so. But I ask you to
remember that when the Bible says that 'Death passed upon all men,
for all have sinned,' it does not merely mean the physical fact of
dissolution, but it means that fact along with the accompaniments of
it, and the forerunners of it, in men's consciences. 'The sting of
death is sin,' says Paul, in another place. By which he implies,
I presume, that, if it were not for the fact of alienation from God
and opposition to His holy will, men might lie down and die as
placidly as an animal does, and might strip themselves for it 'as for
a bed, that longing they'd been sick for.' No doubt, there was death
in the world long before there were men in it. No doubt, also, the
complex whole phenomenon gets its terror from the fact of men's sin.

But it is not so much that physical fact with its accompaniments
which Paul is thinking about when he says that 'sin reigns in death,'
as it is that solemn truth which he is always reiterating, and which
I pray you, dear friends, to lay to heart, that, whatever activity
there may be in the life of a man who has rent himself away from
dependence upon God--however vigorou