SERMON IV. THE WORLD PURIFIED BY THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. COLLECT your thoughts, my brethren, and listen attentively to my words, for I shall solemnly address you to-day on the most solemn subject that the human mind can conceive-the judgments by which the Lord of the universe makes manifest his righteousness. I will direct your view to God, who sits in judgment on our sinful race, that veneration and pious awe may penetrate your hearts; but that then, when you perceive in the Judge the Father also, and discover in the revelations of his justice, the manifestations also of his love, trust and hope may mix with these feelings, and your meditation end in deep adoration of the highly exalted Being, who sits eternally enthroned in solemn majesty, and yet is a God of grace and compassion. But that you may rightly interpret my words, and estimate the divine judgments agreeably to the doctrine of Christianity, I shall first of all oppose a double error, which at one time misleads men into uncharitable judgments, at another involves them in inextricable difficulties, and has often shaken their faith. This is partly the opinion, according to which the Divine justice is conceived as only occasionally acting, and consequently the Divine judgments are looked upon not as a continuing, but as an interrupted operation of God; and partly the presumption, that the misfortune, which falls upon individuals or on whole nations and ages, is the measure of their guilt. The living, the ever-creating and ruling, the all-pervading and all-animating God, whom Christianity teaches us to know and adore, never turns his eye from human affairs, never lets his arm rest, and does not, like an earthly king, rise but occasionally to chastise the disobedient, and to curb the daring. His justice as well as his goodness continues through all times, and is a progressive uninterrupted operation. Sin is unceasingly punished; retribution begins with the evil deed, yea with the evil intention, although in the external world it is often not visible till after a long time, and often not at all; for the laws of the holy Governor of the world are eternal and immutable, nothing stops his everlasting rule, which penetrates the whole world, "the Lord never suffers his eyes to sleep, nor his eyelids to slumber." But it is still more important to combat the opinion, that misfortune is the measure of guilt, which is then most clearly discerned to be error, when we con template the judgment of God gone out against whole countries and generations. For since in fact the generation which sinned, and the people that deserved its misfortunes, remain; but the individuals which compose the people or generation, change; it is possible, that the children on whom the punishment, the consequence of sin, falls, are less guilty than their fathers. Although, therefore, all are guilty, whom punishment, which follows sin, overtakes, (for all partake more or less in the universal guilt) yet we are not to take their misfortune as the measure of their delinquency, and assert that the nations and people whom great distress, occasioned by sin, has befallen, are guiltier than others. Hence it is that not all misfortune can be considered as punishment, and we have no sure marks by which to distinguish deserved from undeserved sufferings. For God sends calamity not merely to punish but to prove, and not only sin but nature also, (which destroys while it builds, and wounds while it delights), and the will of others, prepare sorrow and pain for man. Unmerited sufferings, therefore, often befal the individual, as well as whole people and generations. On this account, fate must not be the measure of guilt and of merit; and whoever attempts to adopt such a measure concerning individuals or nations, soon finds himself entangled in such difficulties, that he despairs of perceiving the hand of God in human affairs. |