The Retributive Character of Divine Justice
Observe:
I. That men who set what they foolishly count their interest against their convictions determined to stifle the latter lest they should sacrifice the former these allow that Christ wrought miracles, but persist in rejecting Him for fear of being overtaken by temporal calamity. We are apt to regard such a case as that of the chief priests and Pharisees as standing wholly by itself, and not to be paralleled by any amongst ourselves, because the precise case can hardly recur the case of the rejection of a prophet, whose miracles prove his claims, through dread of the consequences of acknowledging his authority; but we forget that the principle which produced this conviction may be at work in ourselves, that it may only be modified or disguised by external circumstances. Is it not a possible case a case, which may occur among ourselves, that of a man feeling the duty of confessing and obeying Christ; but who is withheld from the performance of his duty by fears of the effect on his temporal condition? In defiance of their own convictions, men determine to conciliate the world, either fearing that religion may injure their hopes, or hoping that irreligion may advance their temporal interests. What is the resolve to do wrong, after being satisfied that it is wrong, if not the gathering of a council to resist the truth, after being compelled to confess, "This Man doeth miracles?"
II. God will demonstrate His retributive justice by bringing on men the very evil they hope to avert by consenting to do violence to conscience. The Romans, whom the Jews hoped to propitiate by rejection of Christ, came down on their land with fire and sword and took their place and nation, which they thought to preserve by acting against conscience, and they were utterly destroyed and dispersed, and that by the very power whose favour it was their object to conciliate. There is often, if not always, an analogy between what men do and the punishment they are made to suffer; so that in reference, at least, to the temporal penalties of sin, God makes a scourge of the crime, or imprints on His judgment the very image of the provocation. The lesson from the whole subject is, that in place of averting any dreaded evil, we do our best to produce it, if through fear of it we are induced to sacrifice any principle.
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1503.
References: John 11:47-57. Homiletic Magazine,xvii., p. 160.