never overturn the dominion of the Lord God of heaven and earth. Let us rather modestly confess our ignorance, and be assured that it is that ignorance alone which prevents us from discovering the reasons of the divine proceedings.

The reader will see other remarks bearing on the same point in the section on Exod. xx. 5, and Matt. xxiii. 35, 36.

SECTION XVIII.

1 KINGS XXi. 29.—“ Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house."

THE justice of this course has been questioned, or rather has been violently assailed. But as the circumstance mentioned here is only a particular or individual application of a much more general case, occurring in Matt. xxiii. 35, 36, the reader is directed to the remarks on that passage. If a general plan of Scripture is cleared from difficulties, specific illustrations of it can carry no new objection.

The Jews mentioned in St. Matthew had indeed not repented, and Ahab had; but this does not invest the subject with any fresh difficulty worthy of consideration.

SECTION XIX.

PSA. ix. 17.-" The wicked shall be turned into hell."

2 THESS. i. 7.-" The Lord Jesus shall be revealed in Aaming fire, taking vengeance on those that know not God."

Heb. xii. 29.—“ Our God is a consuming fire." And see PROV. i. 24-31.

It is asked, Why does God not convert, instead of resorting to punishment?

It is well for the authority of Scripture, that it can appeal from the written to the unwritten word; that it can refer for the truth of its doctrines to a tribunal, of which few but maniacs deny the equity; that it can support itself on the same foundations on which are built the laws of the everlasting God. Otherwise, true as its doctrines are, it would have been left to its own bare assertion, and would have had to maintain single-handed the contest with scepticism.

Nor do these remarks seem anywhere more

just than in the case before us. Revelation is accused of pursuing a plan, which, however, is strictly pursued by nature, and which, had it not had the sanction of nature, would have appeared unable to resist the assaults of its adversaries, or even to satisfy the suspicions of its timorous friends.

Let us ask, then, a few simple questions, bearing on the course which Providence has thought fit to take in the government of the world.

What mean our bridewells and prisons, our penitentiaries and houses of correction, our stocks, our galleys, our tread-mills, our gallows? How happens it that offenders are transported for years, and sometimes for life? How is it that shame and disgrace, misery and ruin, embitter the days of the malefactor? How do we account for the remorse of conscience, and the desperate fury of the mind, which compel criminals to declare their crimes, and to deliver themselves into the hands of justice?

We must acknowledge, then, that God, in the usual course of things, acts in His dealings in strict consonance with the strong character of His justice as delineated in the Scripture.

We find that punishment forms an important part of His government in the world. He knows that methods of chastisement are acted on, and He does not anticipate and prevent their application by changing the purposes and the hearts of those who are on the point of making themselves the subjects of it. Where, then, is the wisdom displayed in raising objections to the representations of Scripture, which are in exact concurrence with the daily events of the natural world? Rather, what is not the folly and madness of such conduct? This is certain, that the whole course of the world must be altered to give effect to such objections.