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SERMON XXXIX.

THE WRATH OF LOVE.

PSALM Cvii. 6.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

IF I were asked to give a reason why I believed

the Old Testament to be an inspired and

divine book, as well as the New, I could not do better, I think, than to lay my hand on this 107th psalm, and say,-This is my reason for believing the Old Testament to be inspired. I have hundreds of others but this one is enough-this one psalm. It contains an account of God's dealings with men, such as the world never heard before, and very seldom since; save from a very few men, who really saw what the Bible meant, and honestly followed its teaching. It gives a notion of the justice of God, and an explanation of the chances and changes of this mortal life, such as you will find nowhere else, save in the Bible, and in the books of christian men who have been taught by the Bible. The man who wrote that psalm knew so much more than other men, that he must have been indeed inspired by the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Ghost of God.

And, I should say, I have come to this opinion mainly by comparing this psalm with the writings of heathens, even the wisest and the best of them. For the heathens, like all men, used to have their troubles, and to ask themselves, Who has sent this trouble? And why has he sent it? And their answers remain to us in their writings, some worse, some better, some very foolish, some tolerably wise. But when one compares the heathen writings with this psalm, or with any psalms or passages of the Old Testament which talk of God's dealings with man, then we shall be altogether astonished at the superiority of the Bible. The Bible will seem to us quite infinitely wiser than heathen books, on this matter, as on others--so much more simple, and yet so much more deep; so much more rational also, and so much more true; agreeing so much more with the facts which we see happen round us; agreeing so much more with our own reason, experience, inward conscience, about what is just and unjust:-that we shall begin to see as much difference between heathen books and the Old Testament, as there is between the dim dawn. of morning, and the full blaze of noonday light.

One of the earliest heathen notions why troubles came was, it seems, that the gods were offended with men, because they had not shewn them due honour, flattered them enough, or offered

sacrifices enough to them: or else they fancied that the gods envied men ; grudged their prosperity, did not like to see them too happy.

That dark and base notion gradually faded away, as men got higher notions of right and wrong, and of the gods, as the judges and avengers of wrong. Then they began to think these troubles were punishments for doing wrong. The Gods, or God, punished sin; inflicting so much pain for so much sin, very much as the heathens are apt to punish their criminals still, and as christian nations used to punish theirs, namely, with shameful and horrible tortures; before they began to find out that the end of punishment is not to torment, but to reform, the criminal, wherever it is possible.

But then the thought would come-Why, after all, should God, if he be just and merciful, punish my sin by pain and misery? How can it profit God, how can it please God, to give me pain? Because it satisfies his justice? How can it do that? It would not satisfy mine. Suppose my child, or even my dog, disobeyed me, would it satisfy my sense of justice to beat him? It might satisfy my passion: but God has no passions. It would be base, blasphemous to fancy that he takes pleasure in hurting me, as I take pleasure in beating my dog when I lose my temper with it. God forbid! The old prophets saw that, and wind,—' Have I any pleasure in

'the death of him, saith the Lord, and not rath 'that he should turn from his wickedness, and live

Then, naturally, the thought would come in the mind of a wise and serious man-I punish n child, or my dog: and God punishes me. May not punish me for the same reason that I puni them? I punish them to correct them, and ma them better. Surely God punishes me, to corre me, and make me better. I punish my child, b cause I love him and wish him good. God punish me, because he loves me and desires that I ma be a partaker of his holiness.

And as soon as that blessed thought had rise up in any man's mind, by the inspiration of God Holy Spirit, all the world would begin to loo bright and clear, and full of hope. This earth, wit all its sorrows and sufferings, would look no long to him as God's prison house, where poor sinne sat tortured and wailing, fast bound in misery an iron, till they should pay the uttermost farthin which they never could pay. No. It woul look to him as God's school-house, God's reform atory, in which he is training and chastening an correcting the souls of men, that he may delive them from the ruin and misery which sin brings o them, both the original sin which is born in them and the actual sin which they commit. Then Go appears to him a oracious and merciful father

He can see a blessed meaning and a wholesome use in all human suffering; and he can break out, as the Psalmist does in this glorious psalm, into praise and thanksgiving, and call on mankind to give thanks to the Lord; for he is gracious, and his mercy endureth for ever.

In every kind of human suffering, I say, he sees now a meaning and a use.

First, he takes, it seems, his own countrymen, the Jews, coming back from Babylon into their own country after the seventy years' captivity. They had been punished for their sins. But for what purpose? That they might know, (as Ezekiel said), that God was the Lord. And when they cried unto him in their trouble, he delivered them out of their distress.

Then he goes on to those who have brought themselves into poverty and shame, and sit fast bound in misery and iron. It is their own fault. They have brought it on themselves by rebelling against the word of the Lord, and lightly regarding the counsel of the Most Highest. But God does not hate them. God is not going to leave them in the net which they have spread for their own feet. When they cry unto the Lord in their troubles, he delivers them out of their distress. God himself, by strange and unexpected ways, will deliver them from their darkness of ignorance and sin, and

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