In the pages of the Prophets, as truly, if not as fully as in the pages of the Evangelists, such truths as the following are written: “Sin has entered, and death by sin.” The world was not made as we find it; it has undergone some dread and terrible disaster. Ask the philosopher to explain this, and he is dumb! Ask nature herself thru any of her oracles, and she, too, is dumb! Her groans, that have not ceased since creation, are the only replies to your question. But consult the Scriptures; inquire of them, What is at fault? Their reply is, “Sin has entered, and death by sin.”
The earth was created holy and beautiful. God pronounced it good. Man’s sin has unhinged it. Every flower was once fragrance; every sound was once harmony; every sight was beauty; but sin has fallen upon the earth, like a drop of ink on the sensitive blotting-paper, encircling with its poisonous influence the widest sphere, until the whole earth is tainted—stricken, as it were, with paralysis, groaning in travail, waiting for redemption. The intellect is darkened by the exhalations arising from the swamps of sin. The truth is not seen in its beauty; not because it is dimly enunciated, but because the eye of him who looks upon it has become dim. The conscience also has become depraved, diseased, polluted. What a change has passed upon that faculty which was once the echo of the voice of God—the bright daguerreotype reflection of His own holy image! It, too, labors, as if anxious to be emancipated, to regain its lost sovereignty, and govern once more the heart and the affections of the soul.
If we desire to see what man is, let us shut our eyes to the harp of the poet, and visit the Mohammedan wife, the Indian maid, the Hindu widow; let us leave the romantic picture of mankind, and explore the lanes and alleys of London; let us inspect our prisons and penal settlements, Bridewell and Botany Bay. After we have gone the round of these places, let us go home and read the first chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and see if there is one exaggerating touch! That chapter is a terrible but true picture of the lower strata of humanity.
What were the deities in heathen times?—Jupiter was a monster, Mercury a thief, Mars a sort of cannibal who drank the blood of his victims. Such were the gods of the heathen; and like gods, like people. But of man’s corruption we have awful instances in modern times. Men baptized in the name of Christ, professing His religion and under His pretended sanction, have set up Inquisitions for the murder of saints, for the plunder of widows, and then they have built cathedrals with the produce. This Gospel, itself pure, precious, and indicative of its divine origin, has been perverted and made the patron of the buildings, under whose splendid towers are dungeons deep and dismal. So intense is man’s depravity that not only will he worship Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars, but he will take the very stones God has selected and shaped for a temple to Himself, and with these construct a temple vocal with men’s praise, and in which wickedness shall be consecrated.
When the Gospel has been preached as a witness to all, then shall Messiah come in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and the end shall come—the end of our disputes, quarrels, pride, sectarianism, selfishness, vain-glory; the end of despotism on the part of rulers, and of insubordination in the subjects; the end of the toils of slavery and the sufferings of martyrdom; the end of Popery, Puseyism, Paganism, and Mohammedanism—the Missal, the Breviary, the Shaster, and the Koran.
That great rainbow of the covenant that starts from the cross, vaults into the sky, and sweeps over the throne, shall complete its orbit, and rest again upon the ground, and Christ and Christianity shall be all and in all. Then shall the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose. Then the tree of life shall be where the cypress is. Then shall nations sing God’s praise, and Zion recount God’s marvels. Then shall history retrace with new joy God’s footprints. Then shall the glory of Jesus sparkle in the dewdrop, and in the boundless sea; in the minutest atom, and in the greatest star; and this earth, restrung, retuned, shall be one grand Æolian harp, swept by the breath of the Holy Spirit, pouring forth those melodies which began on Calvary, and shall sound thru all generations.—Rev. John Cumming, D.D.