cause the wrath of God to fall upon him, to his eternal ruin. Thus it is written: 'The ¹ wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness;' and again: 'Unto ² them that are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil.' Elsewhere it is written: 'Whosoever ³ shall keep the whole law; and yet stumble in one point; he is become guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law.' The meaning of this is clear from what we know of human law. If the law of any kingdom forbids certain acts, it is not only the man who is guilty of them all that is accounted a criminal. Whoever transgresses the law of the land in one single point is liable to punishment as a lawbreaker. This one breach of the law may cause him to be put to death; or to be imprisoned for life, So with the law of God. If a man does not commit murder and is not guilty of idolatry or theft, but bears false witness against his neighbour or falls into licentiousness, he is a sinner, just as much as is a murderer. All, transgression of God's holy law is sin. Hence it is written: 'All ⁴ have sinned, and come short,

of the glory. of God;' and again: 'If ¹ we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'

Many people are misled and deceived by the devil, and therefore think that sin is a light and trivial thing which God can easily forgive and pass over, if it pleases Him to do so. They do not think that leprosy is a slight thing; and yet what leprosy is to the body sin is to the spirit. The body must soon die, whether it be leprous or not, and the leper will in death escape from his miserable condition. But death does not release the spirit from the far worse leprosy of sin. This inner leprosy is worse than the outer, because, while the bodily leprosy destroys the leper's likeness to men, spiritual leprosy takes away man's original likeness ² to his holy Creator. A healthy man shrinks from contact with a leper, because his leprous condition is so foul and loathsome. In the same way sin is hateful and loathsome in the sight of the holy one. The leper is not always accountable for his condition, for he certainly did not choose to be so vile and diseased., even though he may have contracted leprosy through carelessness. But the sinner has willingly, and, often eagerly, indulged in the commission of sin, and has wallowed in the mire of wickedness as a hog does in the mud. Only, in the case of the sinner, the defilement is far worse, for it is inward and not merely outward. It is