And shall we repine or murmur at this forbearance, | this indulgence of God towards sinners? Are not we ourselves all of us sinners, miserable sinners: and do we think that God treats us with too much indulgence? Is there any one here present who would be content that God should immediately, and without mercy, inflict on him the utmost punishment which his sins justly deserve? What, alas! would become of the very best of us, if this was the case; and who could abide these judgments of the Lord? And how then can we refuse to others that mercy, of which we stand so much in need ourselves? It is evident, and we see it every day, that men who once were profligate have in time become eminently virtuous and what pity would it have been if extreme or untimely severity had either suddenly cut them off, or hardened them in their wickedness! Great minds are sometimes apt to fly out into excesses at their first outset, but afterwards, upon reflection, and with proper culture, rise up to the practice of the noblest virtues. And it is mercy worthy of God to exercise, and which men instead of censuring ought to admire and adore, if he chooses the milder, though slower methods, with those who are capable of being reformed by them. These sentiments cannot be better illustrated than by the example of St. Paul. That illustrious apostle was, we know, once, as he himself confesses, "the chief of sinners;" he was a fiery zealot, and a furious persecutor of the first Christians, breathing out continually threatening and slaughter against them, making havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women to prison; and being, as he expresses it, exceedingly mad against them, he persecuted them unto strange cities, and when they were put to death, he gave his voice against them. In the eye of the Christian world, then, at that time, he must have been considered as one of the fittest objects of divine vengeance, as a persecutor and a murderer, who ought to be cut off in an instant from the face of the earth. 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 fervour 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 destroy 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 pros perous 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 till 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*." * Matt. xiii, 41, 42, 43. 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 t," 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 lose the power of doing it for ever. "But in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength+." Human inconstancy may be vehement and passionate at first; 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 "As the soul survives the dissolution of the body," says the excellent Plutarch, "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 during 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. + Isaiah xxvi, 4. † 2 Pet. iii, 9. 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 for ever, 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 disappear; 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 Godt.' 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 apposite and most awful words of the son of Sirach: "Say not, who shall control me for my works? for the Lord will surely avenge thy pride. Say not, I have sinned, and what harm hath happened unto me? for the Lord is indeed * Jude 6; 2 Pet. ii, 4. + Rom. ii, 5. long-suffering, but he will in no wise let thee go. Say not, his mercy is great, he will be pacified for the multitude 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 the day of vengeance*." To the religious and virtuous, on the other hand, we say, "Fret not thyself because of the ungodly, neither be 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 landt. "Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit 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 night." 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, triumphant and prosperous in all their ways. We can 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 they all 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 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 for ever, and they that have seen him shall say, Where is he||?" In fact it has been proved, in the course of this inquiry, 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 Ecclus. v, 3-7. + Psal. xxxvii, 7-9. + Jam. v, 7, 8. |