ways and live?"[1] It is only because the Divine Being had to deal with such corrupt and wicked nations—stiff-necked and rebellious, as the Jews themselves were, and depraved and idolatrous as were the nations around them,—and because the Sacred History necessarily relates those dealings,—that in that Volume there are found so many accounts of seeming severity. It is not that the Lord would have it so, for He is goodness and mercy itself. But the wicked must be restrained, as much for their own good, as for the protection of the innocent whom they would destroy. Real mercy in a king or governor is shown as much in punishing the thief or murderer, as in direct acts of blessing to the good citizen: for the end is protection and peace. Now, the Sacred Volume is written and given to men, both as a support and encouragement to the good, and as a check and warning to the bad; and it is because the Divine Being has to deal with both kinds and all classes of men, and reveals His will in regard to all—that the Writing containing such revelation necessarily contains words of warning and threatening as well as of promise, and relates instances of punishment inflicted on the evil, as well as of blessings bestowed on the good. This view, when carried fully out, will be found a key to all such passages of Scripture as appear to represent the Divine Being as angry and wrathful, or as exercising His Almighty power in any other than direct acts of blessing.
But there are innumerable instances, in the Sacred Volume, of the exertion of wondrous power in the direct conferring of benefits, as in healing disease, raising the dead to life, providing food for the hungry.
- ↑ Ezekiel xviii. 23.
