THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD
Isaiah 26:9-10. For when Thy judgments, &c.
I. The judgments of God are frequently in the earth—such as earthquakes, hurricanes, pestilence, commercial disasters. These are not, as the infidel asserts, merely the result of the working of natural causes: these public calamities are the punishment of public sins. Nations are thus punished, because they have no immortality, and therefore, if they are to be judged at all, must be judged here and now. Without these chastisements, which often astonish the hearts of the most insensible, and bring the most incredulous to their right mind, the world would be only a theatre of atheism and crime. That these calamities are strictly “the judgments of God,” is the testimony of Scripture (Amos 3:6; Jeremiah 32:23, &c.), of the universal conscience, which speaks loudly in times of calamity [1066] and of reason. Acknowledge a First Cause which directs all things, and we are obliged to confess that public calamities are the judgments of God.
[1066] We see that people of every description endeavour to appease Heaven, in time of public calamities, by prayers, incense, sacrifices, and solemn humiliations. And though many of them have been deceived in the object of their worship, and have erred in many of the practices which they adopted as proper to appease the Divinity, their actions set forth the feelings of man’s conscience, and prove that it is a general sentiment, that in public calamities we ought to learn righteousness.—Superville.
II. God’s design in sending His judgments upon the earth is that the inhabitants thereof should learn righteousness—righteousness towards Him, towards their neighbours, and towards themselves. This is His design, and to comply with it is the indispensable duty of those whom He afflicts [1069] natural tendency of these chastisements is to remove the obstacles that ordinarily oppose themselves to our conversion: indolence, thoughtlessness, abuse of God’s patience, the hope of long life [1072]
[1069] Judgment that falls upon another should be as a catechism to us by way of instruction; when judgments are abroad in the world, shall not the people learn righteousness? Shall the lion roar and the beasts of the field not tremble? Shall God’s hand lie heavily upon us, and we stand by, as idle spectators, nothing at all minding what is done? Shall our very next neighbour’s house be on fire, and we look on as men unconcerned in the danger? It cannot be, it must not be. There is, without all doubt, the same combustible stuff—the same, if not greater sins—lodged in our hearts, and the same punishment hovering over our heads; it is, therefore, high time to look about us.—Donne, 1573–1631.
[1072] Herodotus informs us, that in a certain temple of Egypt there was a statue of Sennacherib with an inscription, the sense of which was, “Learn to fear the Deity, in looking at me.” The judgments of God upon rebellious sinners are monuments which God erects in the world, and which express, in characters which all men should read, “Learn to fear the Deity, in looking at us.” A celebrated poet among the ancient Romans, in describing the divers punishments of hell, presents us with a fine sentence, “Learn righteounesss by us, and do not despise the gods.” It appears by this, that the secrets of man’s conscience, and his natural sentiments, lead him to profit by the examples which God exhibits of His justice, whether in this world or the next, and to respect a Supreme Being who knows how to avenge Himself, both now and hereafter.—Superville.
III. God’s design in sending judgments upon the earth is often frustrated by the fact that some sinners are so obdurate that neither judgments nor mercies will move them (Isaiah 26:10). The “favour” here spoken of is a temporal favour, a deliverance from physical misery, a suspension of the judgments which were falling upon the wicked. Such favours, instead of calling forth gratitude, are frequently turned into reasons for sinning (Ecclesiastes 8:11; Exodus 8:15). To harden ourselves against the “judgments” of God is a great sin, but to harden ourselves against His “favours” is a still greater sin. Those who commit it leave the Almighty no alternative but to utterly destroy them.—Daniel de Superville: Sermons, pp. 332–361.