LEADING

SERMON.

The Hiding Man and the Seeking God.

BY THE EDITOR.

Gen. iii. 9-" Adam, where art thou?"

HIS is a most striking and solemn question. At first sight it appears a mere casual enquiry, but more earnest consideration will show that beneath this enquiry and the incidents connected therewith there are involved some of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith, and that we have a symbolical representation of the apostasy of the human race. For Adam was not only a man, but a typical man. He was not only the origin of the human race, but at the time the text was uttered he comprised within himself the whole responsibility and the whole destiny of human nature. All mankind was comprised in him, and in him was concentrated the probation, the will, and the fate of all mankind. He was the sole man, but as such he was as truly man as if his person had been composed of ten thousand million individuals. Hence, in treating the subject, we may look upon Adam not merely as the individual, but the race. When first placed in Paradise, man was supremely happy. He trusted in God and had peace. But when sin came, everything was changed. His eyes were opened. He loathed himself, and feared God. A few minutes had changed the whole complexion of his past, present, and future existence. In the morning he rose pure, and innocent, and happy ; but when the evening came, and God walked in the garden, he missed the customary greetings and worship of His creatures. And man, now ashamed and abashed by the consciousness of lost innocence, hearing his Master's voice, fled away, and hid among the foliage of the trees. The Divine Father, missing His children, called to them in the language of the text.

These are the circumstances;

let us now consider the teaching. We have implied

I. THE ORIGINAL EXISTENCE OF AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. The Almighty walks in the garden. Man is not there. Instead of hastening to greet his Lord, he was hiding in the trees of the garden. The Master calls. Not in the language of ownership or authority; not as a master calling a slave; but as a companion, with the familiarity of a friend.

Fellowship with God was one of the objects for which man was created. God has all the attributes which render Him friendly. He is love, and has an interest in His creatures. He is sociable, if we may use the term, and invites all men to draw near to Him. Adam as an innocent being enjoyed the fullest, freest intercourse with his Maker. Then, He is a father. A parent feels the deepest interest in the welfare and society of his children. God as a spirit breathed into man the breath of life. Thus man's soul became a part of God, a living, acting, feeling, thinking portion of the Deity itself.

How complete and perfect then was the communion between Adam and his Creator! The subject had the same tastes, qualities, and delights as the King, only in a less degree. The child participated in the same feelings as his Father. Man was made a sociable creature, and God did not intend to exclude Himself from his company. Unanimity of sentiment and feeling cement the bands of friendship among mortals. Unanimity of feeling and purity of heart united man to God and God to man. The possession of sinlessness made Adam a fit companion for Jehovah, and the King of kings did not refuse to commune with His innocent creatures. Such intercourse as this can never exist again. Ransomed sinners, even though restored to Paradise, must still be there as redeemed and ransomed beings-beings who have known sin, and have been polluted thereby, beings who, restored to brightness, have been tarnished, and whose lustre has been dimmed. Man will be pardoned, and restored, and renewed by divine grace, but the fact will still remain, and not even the power of an Almighty God can efface the fact of the fall, and the awful truth that millions upon millions of human creatures will have their eternal lot in the punishment of hell. Intercourse there will be, but it will be the intercourse of subjects with their King, and the original conditions which existed in the garden of Eden can never again be fulfilled. The question of the text implies—

II.—THAT THIS RELATIONSHIP HAD COME TO AN END. It had been abruptly broken off; for when God sought Adam, instead of responding to the advance he fled away. There was no longer unanimity of feeling, or oneness of sentiment. A vast barrier had sprung up, and man instead of rejoicing to meet his Maker feared His approach.

Observe that this barrier was entirely of man's own making. Although man had sinned, God came in His usual manner and called the sinner. It was the sinner who fled. Almighty God did not turn away His face and frown. He sought the erring sinner. The sinner refused to hear.

Sin ever flees from purity. Innocence does not avoid sin, but sin hates that which is good. The calm, steady gaze of holiness troubles the soul of the wicked; even as when God looked through the cloud upon the Egyptians they were troubled at the scrutiny. "Ye hate Me," says Christ, "because I am good and ye are evil." And so the sinner once

having fallen would go on sinking deeper in the mire, and the poor silly sheep would go on wandering further and further from the sheepfold whence it has strayed. O, deluded votary of Satan, who turns from Him who is his best, his only friend, his only and safe resource! O, blind and foolish wanderer, that will not listen to the voice that calls you home! Adam, seduced by the tempter, fallen from his high estate, should even then have prostrated himself on his knees before the King of Heaven, and sought for pardon from his offended God. But the nature of sin had imbued his character, and, like a convicted coward, he dared not face the fate which he had brought upon himself.

There is nothing manly in sin. It is sneaking, cowardly, mean. Adam, as a skulking coward, turned and laid the blame of the fault he had committed on the weaker creature, whom God had given him to cherish and protect; and he whose strength of mind ought to have been her support, acknowledged that he fell without a struggle into the snare of a thoughtless word to which the unthinking folly of a woman gave utterance. Eve, when taxed with the fault, in like manner blamed the serpent, happily unconscious that she had anything to do in accepting the bait which the serpent had so warily displayed. So through the whole history of sin. Go where we may, turn which way we will, we find it the same cowardly, mean, despicable thing it is represented in the text; a thing which is ashamed of itself, ashamed of its author, ashamed of its effects.

No wonder, then, that the first man, conscious of his guilt, broke away from the bonds which bound him to God. "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, your sin has made Him hide His face from you." Isaiah utters these words many years after the world had seen the full development of iniquity. And we may apply the truth in detail to our own characters. Why, we can never indulge even an evil thought but that evil thought deadens the religious sensibility of our souls. If we indulge in sin, we hate divine things. The two are incompatible. So soon as we cherish evil, or permit evil to obtain a footing in our hearts, we feel an unconquerable aversion to the presence of God, and when He calls to us we flee away, and fain would hide from His presence.

The next truth suggested in the text is—

III.-HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY. You will observe that no sooner had man sinned than God calls him-"Where art thou, Adam?" This call is individual and personal. Not "Where is Eve?" or Where are you two?" but " Adam, where art thou?"

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Every man is immediately responsible for his own actions. Unconvinced sinners are always anxious to have their individuality absorbed in the generality. They would not say, “I have sinned," but are ready enough to acknowledge that we have sinned. They object to say, "I have

we have

erred and strayed," but have no hesitation in affirming that " erred and strayed like lost sheep." We don't mind confessing our sin if we are lost in the multitude of sinners. But this is not God's way. He comes to us and says, "Thou art the man." Each man and each woman is to Him a distinct and separate unit, as responsible to Divine laws and penalties as if there were no other creature living.

That it is only natural for man to be accountable to God will appear from many considerations. It is a right of His kingship. God is King. As an absolute monarch He has a full claim on our services and subjection. It is part of His royalty to control men's actions; and although there are radical Christians as well as radical politicians, the principle is an inalienable one. God is the great King upon whom we all depend. His lordship necessitates it. We are His servants, living upon His bounty, employed in His work, engaged in His service. He has given to us talents which it is our bounden duty to use and improve. His ownership proves it. We are His, and for His pleasure we were and are created. His judgeship proves it. At the last great day all men shall be arraigned before the throne of judgment, and then shall receive the reward of their deeds.

So the great King, the Divine Master, the Heavenly Judge, called the first man to account for his transgression. So He calls all men to account, and for every idle thought, every sinful act, every unholy tendency, we shall each one be justly compelled to submit to the searching investigation of His almighty wisdom.

Adam tried to conceal himself from the Divine scrutiny. In vain. No mortal can escape from God. And the cowering sinner stood before his Lord. He was not questioned about his sin. His guilty conscience did not wait for any investigation. "I was naked,” said he, “and therefore afraid, and so I hid." "Who told thee thou wast naked?" was the reply. Alas! Adam had learnt it soon enough, and the fatal knowledge had brought its curse. The sinner convicted himself. Sin requires no judge, or jury, or witnesses, in order to ensure its condemnation. It carries its conviction in its own hands. It bears its own stain, like the brand of Cain, on its own brow. It blurts out its own iniquity, it cannot rest at peace. "The wicked are like the troubled sea, that casts forth

mire and filth."

Sin, too, reveals unwelcome truths. It revealed to Adam an unpleasant fact, or rather it first made the fact unpleasant and then made it evident. In a state of innocence there was nothing to cause a blush at his natural nakedness. Sin awoke an embarrassed self-consciousness. It revealed to him that this circumstance was not consistent with a state of impurity, and having revealed this, it made him painfully aware of the state in which he was placed.

The whole progress of the seed which Satan had sown in the soul brought the victim to self-conviction. God called him. The call itself

was sufficient to bring him to a knowledge of his state and his fall. It does not require a throne or a seat of judgment to convict a sinner. There is that within him which does the work of an avenger. God has only to call. But that call will come, and conviction will ensue, for man is a responsible creature.

Our text has still another lesson; it brings before us

IV. THE MERCIFUL INTERVENTION OF GOD. We have already observed that it was man's own conduct which raised the barrier between himself and his Maker Sin avoided purity. Now what would have been the natural sequence of this? Man would have continued to avoid his God. He would never have returned. He would never have sought for pardon. Further and further from light, and life, and grace he would have wandered, till he would have been lost for ever in the thickening gloom-lost without remedy. He would have become either as depraved as the devil himself, or else he would have found relief in death alone.

This is no matter of speculation. Sin is an evil seed which, like the germs of all our fatal diseases, develops itself in congenial soil with startling rapidity. One sin begets ten thousand. One evil thought brings forth myriads. Once open the floodgates and the whole country is inundated. Once let loose the hell-dogs of wickedness, and there is no staying their progress. An evil habit, an evil desire, does not end in itself. It rolls on like the thunder, pealing from one end of the heavens to the other. The first step is the prelude to the second, the second leads on to the third, until, like a stone rolling down the mountain side, an impetus is gained which nothing can resist.

How did God act? Did He leave the wretched wreck of the masterpiece of His creation to ignominiously perish, or to become the willing captive of Satan? Nay, He followed the wandering sheep-" Adam, where art thou?" He recalls him before he has gone too far. He summons him to an account of his actions. In mercy He went to save. In compassion He could not see the beings, upon whom He had expended so much, utterly lost. And He followed the wandering steps, bearing indeed the message of vengeance, but at the same time showing a method of escape, and a plan of ultimate renewal.

This fact affords us a commentary on all God's dealings. We follow it out in history. Man grew worse. There came the flood. There was the preaching of the righteous Noah. Trace the course of the devoted Jews. When they sinned, God called-loudly sometimes, at others softly. Mercies, judgments, dispensations, punishments, almost annihilation, were heaped upon them to arrest their progress towards ultimate destruction. We trace it in the Gospel. What does Christ say? "I am come to seek and to save that which was lost." In the exquisite parable of the lost sheep He exemplified His beneficent mission. He left His throne of light to follow, to rescue, to redeem the lost wanderer, who would other