IV.

THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION.

BE NOT DECEIVED; GOD IS NOT MOCKED: FOR WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP.-Galatians vi. 7.

I UNDERSTAND these words, my brethren, as laying down in some respects, a stricter law of retribution than is yet received, even by those who are considered as its strictest interpreters. There is much dispute about this law at the present day; and there are many who are jealous, and very properly jealous, of every encroachment upon its salutary principles. But even those who profess to hold the strictest faith on this subject, and who, in my judgment, do hold a faith concerning what they call the infinity of man's ill-desert, that is warranted neither by reason nor scripture; even they, nevertheless, do often present views of conversion and of God's mercy, and of the actual scene of retribution, which in my apprehension detract from the wholesome severity of the rule by which we are to be judged. Their views may be strong enough, too strong; and yet not strict enough, nor impressive enough. Tell a man that he deserves to suffer infinitely, and I am not sure that it will by any means come so near his conscience, as to tell him that he deserves to endure some small but specific evil. Tell him that he deserves an infinity of suffering, and he may blindly assent to it; it is a vast and vague something that presses upon his conscience, and has no edge nor point: but, put a

sword into the hand of conscience, and how might this easy assenter to the justice of infinite torments, grow astonished and angry, if you were to tell him that he deserved to suffer but the amputation of a single finger! Or tell the sinner that he shall suffer for his offences a thousand ages hence, and though it may be true, and will be true, if he goes on offending till that period, yet it will not come home to his heart with half so vivid an impression, or half so effectual a restraint, as to make him foresee the pain, the remorse and shame, that he will suffer the very next hour. Tell him, in fine, as it is common to do-tell him of retribution in the gross, and however strong the language, he may listen to it with apathy; he often does so; but if you could show him what sin is doing within him at every moment; how every successive offence lays on, another and another shade upon the brightness of the soul; how every transgression, as if it held the very sword of justice, is cutting off one by one, the fine and invisible fibres that bind the soul to happiness; then, by all the love of happiness, such a man must be interested and concerned for himself. Or tell the bad man that he must be converted, or he cannot be happy hereafter, and you declare to him an impressive truth; but how much would it add to the impression, if, instead of leaving him to suppose that bare conversion, in the popular sense of that term-that the brief work of an hour, would bring him to heaven, you should say to him, "You shall be just as happy hereafter, as you are pure and upright, and no more; just as happy as your character prepares you to be, and no more; your moral, like your mental character, though it may take its date or impulse from a certain moment, is not formed in a moment; your character, that is to say, the habit of your mind, is the result of many thoughts

and feelings and efforts; and these are bound together by many natural and strong ties; so that it is strictly true, and this is the great law of retribution; that all coming experience is to be affected by every present feeling; that every future moment of being must answer, for every present moment; that one moment, sacrificed to sin or lost to improvement, is for ever sacrificed and lost; that one year's delay, or one hour's wilful delay, to enter the right path is to put you back so far, in the everlasting pursuit of happiness; and that every sin, ay, every sin of a good man, is thus to be answered for, though not according to the full measure of its ill-desert, yet according to a rule of unbending rectitude and impartiality. This is undoubtedly the strict and solemn Law of Retribution but how much its strictness has really entered-I say not now into our hearts and lives; I will take up that serious question in another season of meditation-but how much the strictness of the principle of retribution has entered into our theories, our creeds, our speculations, is a matter that deserves attention.

It is worthy of remark, indeed, that there is no doctrine which is more universally received, and at the same time, more universally evaded, than this very doctrine which we are considering. It is universally received, because the very condition of human existence involves it, because it is a matter of experience; every after period of life being affected, and known to be affected by the conduct of every earlier period; manhood by youth, and age by manhood; professional success, by the preparation for it; domestic happiness, by conjugal fidelity and parental care. It is thus seen, that life is a tissue, into which the thread of this connection is everywhere interwoven. It is thus seen that the law of retribution presses upon every man, whether

he thinks of it or not; that it pursues him through all the courses of life, with a step that never falters nor tires, and with an eye that never sleeps nor slumbers. The doctrine of a future retribution has been universally received, too, because it has been felt that in no other way, could the impartiality of God's government be vindicated; that if the best and the worst men in the world, if the ruthless oppressor and his innocent victim, if the proud and boasting injurer and the meek and patient sufferer, are to go to the same reward, to the same approbation of the good and just God; there is an end of all discrimination, of all moral government, and of all light upon the mysteries of providence. It has been felt, moreover, that the character of the soul carries with it, and in its most intimate nature, the principles of retribution, and that it must work out weal or wo for its possessor.

But this doctrine so universally received, has been, I say, as universally evaded. The classic mythologies of paganism did, indeed, teach that there were infernal regions; but few were doomed to them: and for those few, who failing of the rites of sepulture, or of some other ceremonial qualification, were liable to that doom, an escape was provided by their wandering on the banks of the Styx awhile, as preparatory to their entering Elysium. So too, the creed of the Catholics, though it spoke of hell, had also, its purgatory to soften the horrors of retribution. And now there are, as I think, among the body of Protestants, certain speculative, or rather may I say, mechanical views of the future state, and of the preparation for it, and of the principles of mercy in its allotments, that tend to let down the strictness of that law, which for ever binds us to the retributive future.

Is it not a question, let me barely ask in passing,

whether this universal evasion does not show that the universal belief has been extravagant; whether men have not believed too much, to believe it strictly and specifically to its minutest point? It certainly is a very striking fact, that while the popular creed teaches that almost the whole living world is going down to everlasting torments, the popular sympathy interposes to save from that doom, almost the whole dying world.

But, not to dwell on this observation, I shall proceed now briefly to consider some of those modern views, which detract from the strictness of the law of retribution.

I. And the first which I shall notice, is the view of the actual scene of retribution, as consisting of two conditions, entirely opposite and altogether different. Mankind according to this view, are divided into two distinct classes; the one of which is to enjoy infinite happiness, and the other to suffer infinite misery. It is a far stronger case, than would be made by the supposition, that man's varied efforts to gain worldly good, were to be rewarded by assigning to one portion of the race, boundless wealth, and to the other, absolute poverty; for it is infinite happiness on the one hand, and, not the bare destitution of it, but infinite misery on the other.

Let me observe, before I proceed farther to point out what I consider to be the defect which attends this popular view of retribution, that the view itself is not warranted by scripture. The Bible teaches us that virtue will be rewarded and sin punished; that the good shall receive good, and the evil shall receive evil; and that is all that it teaches us. It unfolds to us this simple and solemn and purely spiritual issue, and nothing more.

All else is figurative; and so the most learned in