The unappeasable wrath of Jehovah.
I. "OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE." Whether to burn and destroy the moral refuse of a people, to chasten and refine its remnant and elect, he is revealed as the pure Flame. The Gentiles had a deep sense of the national significance of fire, as the pure element not to be united with aught foreign to itself. In their simple way, the hymns of the Veda to Agni, the god of fire, betray this feeling; and, again, the idea, in Greek and Roman religion, of Hestia or Vesta, on whose altar the fire was kept ever burning, who "refused to wed," whose priestesses must be virgins.
II. WAR THE SCOURGE OF GOD. Deep has been the sense also of this truth. There is an obscure perception in the minds of men that war, with its attendant horrors, comes as a retribution. Attila the Hun was spoken of as the "scourge of God." To have seen a fair city black with smoking ruins, and corpses lying in its streets, is to have read with ineffaceable impressions the lesson that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." There are moments when the solid base of things seems trembling beneath our feet, the "eternal hills" as floors trembling beneath the awful tread of the Eternal as he "cometh to judge the earth."
III. THE DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. It seems as if it could not be exhausted, so vast is the mass of guilt to be purged away. A protracted war, a dragging famine, a prolonged season of ruin, seem, as we say in common speech, "interminable." The broad blue heaven, that seemed in sunny days as a benignant hand outspread above mankind, wears the expression of a stern and relentless frown. Long scores must be followed by long payment. The guilt of centuries cannot be wiped out in a day. Divine judgment may require even the obliteration of a whole people. But the individual may be saved. At no time are Jehovah's "mercies clean forgotten." In the saddest times, the repentant heart pierces through the gloom to the sanctuary and heart of him who slays to make alive, who by means of war reconciles to himself in Christ Jesus.—J.