Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/126

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the forbearance and
[ser. vi.

species of wickedness that is now, or ever has been committed. Yet we behold his sun rising upon the just, and upon the unjust, we have the regular return of the seasons: "He gives us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Why is this? Since the wickedness of man is still great in the earth, why do we not see the vials of unmitigated wrath, poured out upon its guilty inhabitants? Why do we not see the heavens gathering blackness and the red thunderbolt hurled down in flaming vengeance? To these inquiries unassisted reason can give no satisfactory answers. To see virtue, humanity, truth and justice lying prostrate upon the earth, while vice, cruelty and gross injustice receive honor and support, would be to us an incomprehensible mystery, were it not for the revelation of the truth contained in the text, that, the Lord is slow to anger. This truth will receive further confirmation from its application to our own