K 02 Consequences Sin World

2. Consequences of Sin to the World.

These are the principal results and effects of sin as it affects man. Its baneful influence, however, extends beyond man to the world of which he forms a part. Because of man’s transgression and apostasy a curse has come upon the

1 On this subject see Edwards On the Will, especially Part I. sec. 4; Truman s Essay on Natural and Moral Inability, edited by Henry Rogers; Fuller s Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation, Part III.; Works, vol. ii. p. 68; Hodge s Theology, vol. ii. p. 257. world, and the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together in consequence. The world was made for man, and is inseparably linked with the destinies of him who has been placed over it as its proprietor and lord. In his fall it fell; in his sorrow and disorder it shares. Through him it has become subject to vanity; and it waits and cries for that deliverance which can come to it only as it comes to him in the glorious manifestation of the sons of God. That it is so the Bible forcibly declares; and observation and experience amply confirm and illustrate the declaration. " We see at a glance," says Dr. Bushnell, " that, given the fact of sin, what we call nature can be no mere embodiment of God’s beauty and the eternal order of His mind, but must be to some wide extent a realm of deformity and abortion, groaning with the discords of sin and keeping company with it in the guilty pains of its apostasy." Men speak of the " order of nature," but in that part of nature with which man is connected perfect order is not to be found; rather does disorder everywhere prevail to a greater or less extent. " Fogs and storms blur the glory of the sky, and foul days, rightly so called, interspace the bright and fair. The earth itself displays vast deserts swept by the horrid simoom; muddy rivers with their fenny shores, tenanted by hideous alligators; swamps and morasses, spreading out in provinces of quagmire, and reeking in the steam of death." l Unexpected events disturb the course of things, falsify the calculations and disappoint the hopes of men. Storms and tempests sweep over the earth, altering the atmospheric con ditions and producing in many cases widespread ruin and desolation. Inclement seasons retard or hinder the growth of herbs; famines and pestilences and epidemics desolate nations; decay lays its wasteful hand, not only on man and his works, but on the solid globe itself. A curse rests on the ground for man’s sake, and only briars and thorns, useless weeds or noxious plants spring spontaneously from it. No where is perfect beauty or symmetry to be found; rather does deformity and vitiosity more or less mar all visible objects. " The world is not as truly a realm of beauty as of beauty flecked by injury. The growths are carbuncled and diseased; and the children have it for a play to fetch a perfect 1 Bublmell, Mature and the Supernatural, p. 192. leaf. Even more significant still is the fact, because it is a fact that concerns the honour of our personal organism, that no living man or woman is ever found to be a faultless model of beauty and proportion." There are things, indeed, in the world around us which strike us as beautiful, and the perfections of which poets delight to celebrate; but they will not bear the test of minute examination. Though " Some flow rets of Eden men still may inherit, The trail of the serpent is over them all." The glory and loveliness, the serenity and cairn of Paradise have for ever passed from our earth; and so has man’s sin disordered and injured the world, that before it can be restored to its original excellence and beauty it must pass through the purgation of the last fire.