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But the great Discerner of Hearts, thought otherwise. He saw that all this cruelty, great as it undoubtedly was, arose, not from a disposition naturally savage and ferocious, but from ignorance, from early religious prejudices, from misguided zeal, from a firm persuasion that by these acts of severity against the first Christians he was doing God service. He saw that this same fervor of mind, this excess of zeal, properly informed and properly directed, would make him a most active and able advocate of that very cause which he had so violently opposed. Instead therefore of an extraordinary act of power to dsstroy him, he visibly interposed to save him. He was in a miraculous manner converted to the Christian faith, and became the principal instrument of diffusing it through the world. We see then what baneful effects would sometimes arise from the immediate punishment even of notorious delinquents. It would in this case have deprived the Christian world of the abilities, the eloquence, the indefatigable and successful exertions of this learned and intrepid apostle, whose conversion gave a strong additional evidence to the truth of the Gospel, and who laid down his life for the religion he had embraced.

Yet notwithstanding all the reasons for sometimes delaying the punishment of guilt in the present world, it cannot be denied that there are some instances of prosperous wickedness, which cannot well be accounted for by any of them; and therefore, for a complete vindication of the moral government of God, we must have recourse to the concluding part of the parable, which will give us the fullest satisfaction on this interesting subject. To the question of the servants, whether they should gather up the tares from the midst of the wheat, the householder answers, "nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up the wheat also. Let both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn." The harvest, our Lord tells us in his explanation, is the end of the world,

at which awful period the Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall "gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."*

Here then is the great master-key to the whole of this mysterious dispensation of Heaven. God we see, has appointed a day when every deficiency in his administration shall be supplied, and every seeming disproportion and inequality shall be rectified.†

Even in this world it appears that wickedness is punished in some measure, and to a certain degree; and we have seen that the interests of virtue itself, among other considerations, require that it should not be instantly punished to the full extent of its deserts. God is perpetually showing, even in the present life, his different regard to right and wrong, by every such method as the constitution of the world which he has created admits; and therefore no sooner shall that world come to an end, and all obstacles to an equal administration of justice be taken out of the way, than he shall come to execute righteous judgment upon earth.

"He is not slack as men count slackness," that is negligent and remiss; he only waits for the proper season of doing all that hitherto remains undone. Human weakness indeed, by a small delay of punishing, may loose the power of doing it forever. "But in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Human inconstancy may be vehement and passionate at first;

*Matth. xiii. 41, 42, 43.

"As the soul survives the dissolution of the body (says the excellent Plu tarch) and exists after death, it is most probable that it will receive rewards and punishments in a future state; for it goes through a kind of contest dur ing the present life, and when that is over, it will have its due recompence hereafter." 561. A.

How nearly does this approach to the doctrine of the Gospel, which had been promulgated nearly one hundred years before Plutarch wrote. But thanks be to God, what this great man thought only probable, we have the happiness of knowing to be certain.

2 Pet. iii. 9.

§ Isaiah xxvi. 4.

then negligent and languid. The sense of an unworthy action that does not injure us, quickly wears out of our mind; and if we take no immediate notice of it, we shall possibly take none at all. But we must not think God to be such an one as ourselves. Eternity itself will make no change in his abhorrence of wickedness, nor will any thing either transport him to act before his appointed time, or prevail upon him to give a respite when that time comes. The sinners of the antediluvian world, abusing the long space of one hundred and twenty years which he allowed for their repentance, perished at the end of it without mercy. The angels who fell from their first estate before this earth was created, he has reserved for torments, that shall not finally take place till it is consumed.*

The same important period his infinite wisdom has marked out for the final judgment of men. And undoubtedly it may produce advantages of unspeakable moment thus to defer justice, with a design of rendering some chosen parts of duration memorable throughout the universe, by a more extensive and illustrious exercise of it. For it must needs make an inconceivably strong and lasting impression upon every order of beings that shall then be present at the solemn scene, to hear the final doom of a whole world pronounced at once; and to behold sins that had been committed thousands of years before, punished with the same attention to every circumstance as if they had been but of yesterday.

How far off these judgments of the Lord may be, we none of us know. But with regard to ourselves, they are near, they are even at the door. The few days we have to pass in this transient scene will determine our condition forever, and bring us into an eternal state, compared with which the continuance of the present frame of nature, from its very beginning, will be as nothing. Then every act of the government of God will be seen in its true light; the imagined length of distance between guilt and its punishment will totally dis

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appear; and offenders will lament in vain that sentence is executed so speedily as it is against evil works. But with peculiar severity will it be executed on them, who despising the riches of that goodness which would lead them to repentance, "treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."*

Upon the whole then let not either the sinner triumph, or the virtuous repine, at the apparent impunity or even prosperity of the wicked in the present life. To the audacious sinner we apply those most opposite and most awful words of the son of Sirach. "Say not who shall control me for my works, for the Lord shall surely avenge thy pride. Say not I have sinned, and what harm hath happened unto me; for the Lord is indeed long-suffering, but he will in no wise let thee go. Say not, his mercy is great, he will be pacified for the mul titude of my sins; for both mercy and wrath come from him, and his indignation resteth upon sinners. Make therefore no tarrying to turn unto the Lord, and put not off from day to day; for suddenly shall the wrath of the Lord come forth, and in thy security shalt thou be destroyed, and perish in the day of vengeance."t

To the religious and virtuous on the other hand we say, "Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither he thou envious against the evil doers. Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide patiently upon him; but grieve not thyself at him whose way doth prosper, against the man that doeth after evil counsels. Wicked doers. shall be rooted out; and they that patiently abide the Lord, those shall inherit the land." "Be patient. therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruits of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.")

It is not indeed always an easy task to exercise this patience, when we see conspicuous instances either of individuals or of nations, notorious for their profligacy, iumphant and prosperous in all their ways. We can

*Rom. ii. 5. † Eccl. v. 6. ‡ Psalm xxxvii. 7. § James v. 7,

scarce repress our discontent, or forbear joining with the prophet in his expostulation with the Almighty, "Righteous art thou, O Lord! yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Why do the ways of the wicked prosper? Why are all they happy that deal very treacherously?"* To this we can now answer in the words of Job: "Knowest thou not this, since man was placed upon the earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Though his excellency mount unto the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds, yet he shall perish forever, and they that have seen him shall say, where is he?"'+

In fact it has been proved, in the course of this enquiry, that in such an immense and complicated system as that of the universe, there are many reasons which we can discern, and a thousand others perhaps totally unknown to us, which render it necessary that the vir tuous should suffer a temporary depression, and the wicked enjoy a temporary triumph. But let not these apparent irregularities dispirit or discourage us; for whenever the purposes of Providence in these mysterious dispensations shall have been accomplished, every disorder shall be rectified, and every appearance of injustice done away. The time and the season for doing this God has reserved in his own power: and we must not presume to prescribe rules to the wisdom of the Almighty. To men excruciated with pain, every moment seems an age; and to men groaning under oppression, their deliverance, if it come not instantly, may seem extremely distant. But let them not despair: in due season they shall reap if they faint not. At the period marked out by infinite wisdom, and which it is their duty to await with patience, God shall cause his judgment to be heard from heaven, and the earth shall tremble and be still. He shall then demonstrate to the whole world "that his hand is not shortened that it cannot redeem, and that he still retains the power to save." He shall prove in a manner the most awful * Jerem. xii. 1. ↑ Job. xx. 5.

Isai. 1, 2.

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