stand in the scriptures, there is no inconsistency between them. But in addition to those evils which are regularly, and constantly executed in punishment upon sinners by the moral government of God, there are certain special judgements or external calamities unto which individuals and nations subject themselves by a certain course and continuance of vice. And there is a case recorded in the Old Testament, of one of these special judgments being threatened on a certain people, and their afterwards being preserved from the suffering of it: on which we will here offer a few remarks, lest it should be thought by some readers to be inconsistent with the views which have now been given on the subjects of punishment and forgiveness. The word of the Lord came unto Jonah, saying, arise, go unto Nineveh, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.' And Jonah went, and he cried and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.' But the people repented, and the threatened punishment was not executed upon them. Did not forgiveness in this case oppose the threatening of God, and clear that sinful people from the punishment which was their just desert? To give a correct view of the subject of this inquiry, it is necessary to remark that God informed the people by his prophets, that whenever he should give them warning of any special calamity into which their course of conduct was tending to bring them, and they on receiving his warning should repent, they should escape the calamity of which they were warned. There

1 Jonah Chap, iii. 2 Ezekiel xxxiii, 13, 16.

2

could not indeed be any reasonable motive to send a messenger to forewarn sinners of an evil unto which their course of conduct was exposing them, unless it were to afford them an opportunity to avoid the threatened evil by timely repentance. Judging of the case of Nineveh by the light of this principle, by which God assured the people that he would direct his conduct in all such instances, we must understand it to be the meaning of the message which God sent to the Ninevites by Jonah, that by a continuance in their present course of iniquity forty days, they should become overwhelmed in destruction.

But they repented, and did not continue in their wicked course the forty days longer; and so they did not suffer the threatened punishment of temporal destruction. Accordingly the divine forgiveness in this case did not oppose the divine threatening, nor screen those sinners from deserved punishment. While they were sinners, they must have suffered those evils with which the regular administration of the divine government always punishes the wicked. But they were not to be considered as having incurred, or they were not to be reckoned by the judgment of God as fully deserving, that special external calamity, until they should have continued and multiplied their transgressions to a certain given extent. And as their repentance prevented their continuance in iniquity to that duration and degree on which was predicated the threatening of destruction, they were freed from that degree of sin which would have incurred or fully deserved it. Consequently nothing is found in this instance of God's dealing with sinners, inconsistent with the

doctrines of punishment and forgiveness as be fore explained.

6

The humble acknowledgments of Ezra and David, saying in their addresses to God, that he had not dealt with them after their sins, nor rewarded them according to their iniquities,' may at first strike the ear as being opposed to the universal application of the testimony of the same David, Thou renderest to every man according to his work.' But we think that by a fair construction of the language referred to, such opposition will not appear. It is not pretended that mankind receive no benefits but on the ground of their merits. The recompense which God renders to every man according to his deserts, is the good or evil which men enjoy or suffer as the fruit of their moral conduct. Besides these fruits of human doings, there are blessings which God bestows upon mankind of his own munificent goodness, and not according to their works. Even in punishing the wicked according to their deserts, God designs their correction and consequent benefit; and this benevolent design of punishment is a good unto the sinner, which is not according to his sins, but according to the free mercy of God. And when Ezra and David offered the language above mentioned, their people had been far astray in the path of sin, and God had punished and reformed them, and bestowed upon them many blessings which they they could not have claimed on the ground of merit. Being deeply afected with the view of this unmerited goodness of God, and having that

1 Ex. ix, 13. Ps. ciii, 10.

2 Ps. lxii. 12.

view of their own ingratitude which caused David on another occasion to say, 'I was as a beast before thee,' under these circumstances, their saying in prayer to God, He hath not dealt with us after our sins,' &c. cannot be fairly construed as a disproof of the doctrine that men suffer, while in their sins, according to their deserts. For though they felt at such a time not only to confess the divine goodness to be above their merits, but also to magnify the demirit of their sins as being above the punishment which they had suffered, yet we are not to take an expression of self reproach, which one utters under a deep sense of ingratitude and shame, and employ it as if it disproved the well supported and abstract doctrine of the Bible concerning the retributive government of God.

V. In concluding this article, it will be proper to say a few words on the forgiveness which it is required of us to extend to one another. How are we to forgive our fellow creatures? Surely not by remitting all punishment. The scriptures consider those rulers who punish evil doers to be ministers of God, ordained of him to be a terror to evil works. Whosoever resisteth them,' saith St. Paul, resisteth the ordinance of God." But can these ministers of God, as the apostle calls civil rulers, be what God has appointed them to be, a terror to evil doers, and a praise to them that do well, if they are always to clear the guilty from punishment? If we cannot fulfil the command to forgive those who trespass against us,

1 Rom. xiii, 2. 3.

without clearing them in all cases from punishment, then we are every day living in violation of the divine requirement, by supporting our present system of civil government; for our civil government inflicts punishment on those who transgress its wholesome laws.

6

We

But we have seen that the divine forgiveness is not a deliverance from deserved punishment, but a deliverance from sin. And although we cannot in a strict sense forgive sins, so as directly to free others from guilt, yet we can forgive the sins of others so far as it respects our own feelings and conduct towards them. We can cherish towards them that spirit of favor, which will employ such means as human agency can use, to lead those who trespass against us out of their errors, and restore them to the favor of society. can exercise towards them that spirit of love and good will, which shall forgive the injury as far as we can forgive, sending it away from' our feelings, so that it shall not put into action a spirit of revenge, to injure them because they have injured us. And this forgiveness may be exercised towards one whom we are the means of bring-` ing to punishment. We may chain or confine a madman, in the exercise of the best of feelings towards him, when his own safety or that of the community seems to require it. Even so we may bring a transgressor to punishment when his own good or the safety of the community seems to require it, while we harbor no unfriendly disposition towards him, but exercise that love which pities his folly, and aims to promote his welfare. This same disposition, if the punishment which we are the means of having inflicted proves salu