[Footnote 79: Isia. liii. 4, 5, 6.]
Yes, every sin of every kind received its special reparation in the sufferings of Christ. His mouth is filled with vinegar and gall to atone for our luxury. His ear is filled with revilings to expiate the greediness with which we have drunk in poisonous flattery. His eyes languish because ours have been lofty, and His hands and feet are pierced with nails because ours have been the instruments of sin. He suffered death because we deserved it. He was accursed, because we had made ourselves liable to the curse of God, and hell had its hour of triumph over Him, because we had made ourselves its children. Nor was it our Lord's body alone that suffered. It would be a great mistake to suppose that His sacrifice was merely external. The chief part of man is his soul. St. Leo says that our Lord on the cross appeared as a penitent. It was not only that He suffered for the sins of men, but it was as if He had committed them. The horror of them filled His soul; sorrow for the outrage they had done to the Majesty and Holiness of God consumed Him. "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death," He said. Afterward the evangelist says He began to be very heavy, and it was sinners that on the cross made Him bow His head and give up the ghost. He was not killed. His enemies did not take His life. The flood of sorrow for sin came into His soul, and overwhelmed Him. It was too much. His heart was broken. Oh, the weight of that sorrow! He bowed His head and gave up the ghost. Then sin was expiated. Then the work of man's atonement was completed. At last man had done adequate penance. At last sorrow for sin had reached its just proportion as an offence against God.
Here, I say, we have a revelation of the evil of sin. God does nothing in vain: His works are as full of wisdom as they are of power. Since, therefore, Christ died for sin, the cross of Christ is the measure of sin. "From the consideration of the remedy," says St. Bernard, "learn, O my soul, the greatness of thy danger. Thou wast in error, and behold the Son of the Virgin is sent, the Son of the Most High God is ordered to be slain, that my wounds may be healed by the precious balsam of His blood. See, O man, how grievous were thy wounds, for which, in the order of Divine wisdom, it was necessary that the lamb Christ should be wounded. If they had not been unto death, and unto eternal death, never would the Son of God have died for them. The cross of Christ is not only an altar of sacrifice, but a pulpit of instruction. From that pulpit, lifted up on high, Jesus Christ preaches a lesson to the whole world." The burden of the lesson is the evil of sin. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And yet, my brethren, the law was published afresh by Jesus Christ. Mount Calvary but repeats the message of Mount Sinai—nay, repeats it with more power. Here, indeed, God does not speak in thunders and lightnings, as He did there, but He speaks in the still small voice of the suffering Saviour. Oh, what meaning is there in those sad eyes as they bend down upon us! Oh, what power in those gentle words He utters! He does not say, "Thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness." No. He cries to a guilty people, a people who have already broken the law, and He says to them: "See what you have done. See My thorn-crowned head. See My hands and feet. Look at Me whom you have pierced. Is it a light thing that could have reduced Me to such a state of woe? Is it a light thing that could have bound Me to this cross? Me, the Creator of all things, to whom you owe all life and liberty? Who by My word and touch have so often healed the sick and released them that were bound to Satan. They say of Me, 'He saved others, Himself He cannot save.' And they say truly. Here must I hang. Not the Jews have nailed Me to this cross, but My love, and thy sins. Yes, see in My sufferings your sin displayed. See in the penalty I pay the punishment you have deserved. See your guilt in My sorrow. Look at Me, and see what sin is in the presence of the All Holy God!"
Can any thing show more than this what a mysterious evil sin is, that it is an offence against God, an assault upon His throne, an attack upon His life, an evil all but infinite? All the other expressions of the evil of sin, the cries of misery which it has wrung from its victims, the warnings which natural reason has uttered against it, the tender lamentations with which the saints have bewailed it, the penalties with which God has threatened to visit it, all pale before the announcement that God sent His Son into the world to die for it. I do not wonder that, as the evangelist tells us, the multitudes who came together at the sight of our Saviour's crucifixion returned smiting their breasts. Oh, what an awakening of stupefied consciences there must have been that day! How many, who came out in the morning careless and thoughtless, went back to the city with anxious hearts, with a secret grief and fear within they had never felt before. I suppose that even the scribes and Pharisees, who had plotted our Saviour's death, felt, for the moment at least, a guilty fear. Why, even Judas, when he saw what he had done, repented, and went and hanged himself saying: "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood." And this book of the Passion has been ever since the source from which penitents have drawn their best motives for conversion, and saints their strongest impulses to perfection. Here, on the cross, is the root of that uncompromising and awful doctrine about sin—the doctrine, I mean, that sin is in no case whatever to be allowed, that even the smallest sin for the greatest result can never be permitted; that it is an evil far greater than can be spoken or imagined; that it must never be trifled with, or made light of; that it is to be shunned with the greatest horror, and avoided, if need be, even at the cost of our life—which has always been so essential a part of Christianity.
And now, my brethren, it is because men forget the cross, because their minds no longer move on a Christian basis, that they make light of sin. There is a tendency in our day to do so. Crime—men acknowledge that, an offence against law, an offence against good order. Vice—they acknowledge that, a hurtful and excessive indulgence of passion; but sin, a creature's offence against God, that they think impossible. "What! can I, a frail creature," say they, "ignorant and passionate, can I do an injury to God? I err by excess or defect in my conduct; I bring evil on myself it is true; but what difference can that make to the Supreme Being? Can He be very much displeased at my follies? Will His serene Majesty in heaven be affected because I on this earth am carried too far by passions? Can He care what my religious belief is? or will He separate Himself from me eternally because I have happened to violate some law?" Such language is an echo of heathenism, and heathenism not of the best kind, for some heathens have had a doctrine about sin which approached very near to the Christian doctrine. It is moreover, a degrading doctrine; for, while it leaves a man his intellect and animal nature, it takes away his conscience. What is that conscience within us but a witness that God does concern Himself about us—that my heart is His throne, and that my everlasting destiny is union with Him. "Every one that is born of God," says the apostle, "doth not commit sin, for he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Not that sin is a physical impossibility with him, but it is in contradiction to his regenerate nature. In order, then, to soothe yourself into the belief that sin is not so very bad, that God cannot be very angry with you for it, you have got to tear conscience from your heart, you have got to give up the good gift, and the powers of the world to come, which came upon you at your baptism; and you have to give up all the brightest hopes of Christianity for the life hereafter. Nay, more, you have got to deny the cross, to deny our Lord's divinity, to deny His sufferings for sin, and thus to render yourself without faith as well as without conscience. I conclude with the affectionate exhortation of St. John the Apostle. "My children, these things I write to you that ye sin not." "All unrighteousness is sin." Every breach of the moral law is a failure in that homage, that obedience, that service we owe to God. It is a direct offence against God. It is a thing exceedingly to be feared and dreaded. A wrong word spoken or a wrong action done has consequences which go far and wide. Do not say, you have sinned, but have done harm to no one. You have done harm to God, and you have certainly done harm to yourself. Do not sin. Do not commit mortal or venial sin. Do not make light of sin. Do not abide in sin. If you are in sin now, remember at this holy time to repent and turn back to God: and if your conscience tells you that you are now in the friendship of God, oh, let it be all your care to avoid sin. Fly from the face of sin. Fly from the approach of sin. Avoid the occasions of sin. Watch against sin, and pray continually, not to be led into sin: and when your hour of trial comes, when some strong temptation assails you, then be ready to say, as the prophet Joseph, "What! shall I do this wicked thing, and offend against God?" This is that fear of God which is the beginning of wisdom. This is the happiness of which the Psalmist spoke: "Blessed is the man that hath not walked in the council of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence; but his will is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he shall meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters, which shall bring forth its fruit in due season. And his leaf shall not fall off; and all, whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper." [Footnote 80]
[Footnote 80: Ps. i. 1-3.]