to give us such knowledge. And this is given in two ways. One is by description11 of God's character, as, e. g., that in Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7: "The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgivin~ iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children," &c. The other is by the authentic record of God's acts, specially in the gift of his only be- gotten Son to be the Saviour of the world, and in the Saviour's work as related in the Gospels, and also generally in hie providential dealings with his people Israel, as set forth in the Old Testament. Of the latter method the Book of Judges, of which this section is an epitome, is a striking and instructive specimen. In it we have represented to us in vivid colours two characteristic features of the mind of God. I. GoD'B HATRED OF BIN, With the usual anthropomorphism of Holy Scripture, we are told that when the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, they "provoked the Lord to ~anger." "The anger of the Lord,was hot against them," it is twice repeated, and ' hie hand was against them for evil." Here, then, we see God's hatred of sin. And if God is infinitely good and holy, and if he knows the full misery that sin has brought into his creation, with what other sentiment can he regard sin hut with that of hatred and indignation? Sin excites a holy anger in his mind, and his hand must be stretched out to punish and to check. If we reflect calmly, we must see that both of these are inevitable. God must look upon sin with displeasure, and he must ACT upon that displeasure. Evil must excite displeasure in one that is perfectly good; and in the moral Governor of the universe such displeasure cannot be quiescent and impotent, it must be active and effective. Reason teaches us so, and revelation sanctions, enlarges, and enforces the lesson. II. GoD's EXCEEDING AND TENDER MERCY. To use the same anthropomorphism as before, we see God ever relenting, ever yearning over the miseries of his people, ever repenting of the evil that he had brought upon them, when he heard their groanings, ever forgetting their provocations and offences, and-stepping forward to deliver them. It is impossible to have mercy, forgiveness, benevolence, and love, depicted in more vivid colours. Anything more remote from the idea of a vindictive, hard, wifor- giving nature it is impossible to conceive. And when we go on to inquire what are the conditions in man which, so to speak, draw out these not opposite, but different sides of the Divine character, we find that it is against persistent sin that the wrath of God burns, and upon which his heavy hand falls to smite; and that it is to the contrite and penitent who forsake their sins that his quick and willing mercy is extended. And then a little further reflection seems to show that just as in nature different forces are found ultimately to resolve themselves into one common force, so these two attributes of God, hatred of sin, and mercy, may really be e::i:pressed by one term-goodness, or love. Goodness or love relatively to persistent sin is right- eous punishment; relatively to penitent sorrow it is mercy and forgiveness. And the reason of this is plain. Sin involves the misery of all who are subject to it, and of all God's creation, if it is suffered to continue and grow in it. It must therefore be the part of a good and loving God to extirpate sin, and that doubtless is the purpose of punishment, which is only another way of saying that punishment is remedial: remedial, if possible, to the being punished, that is, if it brings him to repentance; but anyhow remedial to creation, which in the continued punishment of the impenitent sees the evil of sin, and avoids .it. The further doctrine of the ATONEMENT does not arise here, but it may just be observed how entirely it agrees with what we see here of God's character, since in it, as made by the death of the only begotten Son upon the cross, the two attributes of hatred of sin, and ineffable mercy, stand out with marvellous force and brightness. \Ve conclude then that while mercy is goodness acting towards those who are not beyond the reach of goodness, severity is goodness acting with a view as far as possible to the happiness of the whole creation. And we see in the atonement a provision of infinite wisdom, by which the risk of injury to the many by mercy to the few is removed and done away with, and by which the severity and the mercy infinitely enhance and magnify each other. Sin when it is finished lrringeth forth deatli. Other important lessons of the DEADLY FRUIT OF SIN, and of the lNVETERATE PERVERSENESS OF MAX, recurring; 26 'l'HE BOOK OF JUDGES. [ell, II, 14-23.
to sin again and ag;ain, in spite of bitter .experience, like a moth flying into tho can~le, ~nd of the BARRIERS :"hich l~an's st:-ibborn disobedience sets up against the commg m of all the good thmgs which God s love had prepared for him flow spon- taneously from the narrativo in this section. So also does the lesson of the use of trouble as THE TRIAL OF FAITH (1 Pet. i. 7) and the test of obedience. In fact it opens 11 large and comprehensive chapter on the providential government of th" Vburch and of the world.