and of all men is exceedingly evil and terrible. The essence of sin is the heart's opposition to and enmity against God. Yet God is holy and pure, and He is the essence of genuine love and mercy man day by day receives from Him unnumbered favours and mercies, but still opposes Him, and does not walk in the way of His will and commandments. Besides this, God made man pure and desired to render him like Himself in purity and holiness, and He commanded him to attain to perfection of these good attributes. Accordingly these qualities were necessary for and their attainment incumbent upon man. Yet, contrary to this, man's heart is full of impurity, and of opposition and enmity to God. Is it not, therefore, evident from all this how evil and hateful sin in its very nature is? especially if we glance at the miseries and the fearful consequences which result from sin both in this world and in the next. And if you consider the desires and imaginations of your own hearts and become properly acquainted with them, you will confess that your state also is such that you do not love what God loves and do not do what you should do, and that your heart is full of unworthy thoughts and evil desires and lusts, and that inwardly, if not outwardly, you everyday commit numberless sins. Therefore, since my condition and yours and that of other men is naturally such, is it possible that the holy God should approve of a heart impure and full of sin, and should be satisfied with our state of

sinfulness? Nay, for He has thus spoken and commanded: 'I¹ am the LORD your God: sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be Ye holy; for I am holy'; and again it is written that He said: 'Ye² shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.' Sin is so completely contrary to His holiness and so displeasing to Him that His holy and just wrath must undoubtedly be incurred by all sinners, as it is written: 'The³ wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.'

SECTION II

THE RESULTS OF SIN

Having treated of the nature of sin, we now proceed to explain its fruits and its punishment, in order that in this manner sin may be properly known in its awful consequences, and, by God's grace, the yearning for salvation may be increased in the reader's heart.

The results of sin are of two kinds: firstly, those which are met with in this world; secondly, those which will come about in the world to come. The very first result of sin and its first punishment is shame and fear and disquiet of heart, such as befell Adam in the Garden of Eden. Even now this is the case with every person, or with almost every one, after the commission of a sin. That is to say,