this fact of man's unbelief as being an instance in which we may see
what the real nature of sin is. To use learned language, it is a
'typical' sin. In all other acts of sin you get the poison
manipulated into various forms, associated with other elements,
disguised more or less. But here, because it is purely an inward act
having relation to Jesus Christ, and to God manifested in Him, and
not done at the bidding of the animal nature, or of any of the other
strong temptations and impulses which hurry men into gross and coarse
forms of manifest transgression, you get sin in its essence. Belief
in Christ is the surrender of myself. Sin is living to myself rather
than to God. And there you touch the bottom. All those different
kinds of sin, however unlike they may be to one another--the lust of
the sensualist, the craft of the cheat, the lie of the deceitful, the
passion of the unregulated man, the avarice of the miser--all of them
have this one common root, a diseased and bloated regard to self. The
definition of sin is,--living to myself and making myself my own
centre. The definition of faith is,--making Christ my centre and
living for Him. Therefore, if you want to know what is the sinfulness
of sin, there it is. And if I may use such a word in such a
connection, it is all packed away in its _purest_ form in the act of
rejecting that Lord.

Brother, it is no exaggeration to say that, when you have summoned up
before you the ugliest forms of man's sins that you can fancy, this
one overtops them all, because it presents in the simplest form the
mother-tincture of all sins, which, variously coloured and perfumed
and combined, makes the evil of them all. A heap of rotting,
poisonous matter is offensive to many senses, but the colourless,
scentless, tasteless drop has the poison in its most virulent form,
and is not a bit less virulent, though it has been learnedly