This is Arthur Pink's lesson on God's judgments and justice. Definitely
worth the time to read.

May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/

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The Justice of God

by Arthur W. Pink

It is scarcely surprising that far less has been written upon the justice of
God than upon some of the other Divine perfections. We are accustomed to
turn our thoughts unto those objects and subjects which afford us the most
pleasure, and to avoid those which render us uneasy. But no servant of the
Lord should be guilty of pandering to this tendency. Rather must he
endeavour with all his might to declare "all the counsel of God" and to
portray the Divine character just as it is set forth in Holy Writ. He must
not conceal a single feature thereof, no matter how awe-inspiring it is or
how repellent to the fallen creature. It is impossible for us to entertain
right conceptions of God unless we have before us a full-orbed sight of His
varied excellencies. To view Him only as "Love"; to refuse to contemplate
Him as "Light"-will necessarily result in our manufacturing a false God in
our imaginations, a caricature of the true and living God.

God is a Being possessed of every excellence. Not one of them could be
lacking without changing His character, and therefore if any one of them is
either unintentionally or deliberately omitted, then the object of
contemplation is not the true God, but a figment which is the outcome of our
misconception. Yet while we are required to acknowledge all the Divine
attributes, nevertheless they do not all produce the same effect in our
heart and mind. Some are objects of pleasure, but others fill us with awe
and fear. Divine wisdom delights us with the wonders of its production and
the marvels of its contrivance. Divine goodness charms us with the richness
and variety of its gifts. As we contemplate God as a gracious Benefactor,
joy is awakened within us, and as we perceive Him ministering to our
numerous needs we are filled with gratitude. But when we turn our thoughts
unto the immaculate holiness of the Divine nature and the inflexible justice
of His moral government, a different order of sentiments is evoked.

When the human mind is focussed upon the ineffable purity of God and His
unchanging righteousness it appears to fallen creatures that He no longer
smiles, but frowns upon his works. That easy, peaceable disposition-so
pleasing to our hearts, so soothing when we feel the stirrings of
conscience-in which we contemplate God while considering His goodness alone,
gives place to far sterner aspects, and we are made to tremble when He is
also seen as an offended Ruler and Judge. Guilty sinners have no desire to
cultivate a closer acquaintance with One who is "of purer eyes than to
behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity" (Hab. 1:13), and whose wrath is
"revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men"
(Rom. 1:18). Such a view is terrifying, and they would readily flee to the
most distant place if they could escape His awful presence. In the sight of
holy angels justice gives a firmness and consistency to the Divine
character, but the criminal dreads justice and the Divine justice most of
all, since it is far more formidable and inexorable than man's.

But however distasteful Divine justice may be to the fallen creature, the
interests of Truth and not the pleasing of his hearers must be the principal
aim of the preacher. If he is regulated by the Scriptures and not by maudlin
sentiment, he will be preserved from one-sided and misrepresenting
conceptions of Deity, and he will not hesitate to declare that God is just,
as well as wise, and good-that He is not only the Creator and Preserver of
the world but also its Governor. And that as power and wisdom are requisite
to the guidance and maintenance of inanimate nature, so justice is equally
indispensable for the government of intelligent and moral agents who are the
proper subjects of law and will therefore require to be rewarded or
punished. As another has rightly pointed out, "To deny God's justice is to
wrest the sceptre from His hand and to expose His government to contempt and
insult by proclaiming impunity to its subjects."

Above we have stated that the Divine justice is far more formidable than man's
and that because of this it is so much dreaded by the guilty. The justice of
God is the justice of One who is both omniscient and omnipotent, so that it
is impossible we should conceal from Him our offenses or escape from the
execution of His sentence. God is possessed of both infinitely complete
knowledge of every detail of our lives and of the most absolute power to
enforce His verdicts. Frightful as it is for a guilty creature to
contemplate such justice, yet woe be unto the preacher who from the fear of
man or from coveting his praise, deliberately softens down the Divine
justice so as to cause less alarm. Woe be to the preacher who attempts to
show God's justice is not so formidable as some harsh and gloomy minds have
declared, or that it will not mark our sins with extreme strictness, or not
rigidly insist upon its demands, or that when it is displeased it may easily
be pacified.
Never was there a greater need for the ministers of the Gospel to proclaim
the inflexible justice of God than in the evil days in which our lot has
fallen. Not only is God Himself insulted and grossly dishonoured by the
perversions of His character which have been so widely promulgated during
the last few decades, but multitudes of people have been fatally deceived
thereby, until a generation has now arisen to whom the Deity of Holy Writ is
the "unknown God." All around us are those who have so erroneous an idea of
the Divine clemency that they suppose God is as easy-going as the modern
parent and as lax as many of our judges. They suppose that only in the most
extreme and exceptional cases (if indeed then) will He punish the crimes of
any with everlasting fire. By such ungrounded assumptions do they stifle any
occasional convictions of conscience and steal their hearts against any
apprehensions of danger which may visit them, persuading themselves that God
is so full of mercy His justice is virtually inoperative.

But if the consideration of God's justice fills the unbeliever with dislike
and dismay, it is far otherwise with those in Christ. In very early times
Abraham consoled himself with the fact that "The judge of all the earth"
would assuredly "do right" (Gen. 18:25). In his wondrous song Moses
declared, "I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto
our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment:
a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He" (Deut. 32:3, 4).
David extolled his God as, "The LORD is righteous in all His ways and holy
in all His works" (Psa. 145:17).

Most remarkable is that word in Jeremiah where the Lord is designated "the
Habitation of justice" (50:7) so that His people might take hope from and
shelter in His righteousness. So, too, His Prophets found comfort therein in
the dark days of Israel's declension: "the just LORD is in the midst
thereof, He will do no iniquity" (Zeph. 3:5). While from Revelation 15:3 we
learn that the denizens of Heaven exclaim, "great and marvellous are Thy
works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints."

"Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne: mercy and truth
shall go before Thy face" (Psa. 89:14). This is perhaps the most helpful
passage of all in the casting of light upon the most-important,
awe-inspiring, and yet glorious subject we are now seeking to study. The
great Jehovah is here exhibited to our view under the idea of Sovereign and
judge, being presented to our adoring regard as upon His throne. It is the
Throne of universal empire and of absolute dominion. From that throne the
Lord exercises His authority and executes His laws with omnipotent but
impartial hand. Justice and judgment are magnified as being the "habitation"
or "foundation" (as the Hebrew word is also rendered) of Jehovah's throne.
There seems to be an allusion unto the bases or supports of an ancient
monarch's throne, as we are told the throne of Solomon had "stays on either
side of the sitting place" (2 Chron. 9:18).

Let us first consider, briefly, the nature of God's justice. In seeking to
arrive at a true conception thereof we need to be very much on our guard
against carnalizing the same, degrading the Divine majesty by drawing
analogies from that which appertains to the human realm. In human affairs
justice is simply the giving to everyone his due: but such a rule cannot
possibly be applied to the Most High, for the simple reason that He owes His
creatures nothing. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon in this day of
fleshly arrogance and spiritual ignorance that there is a vast difference
between God's government over His rational creatures and that of an earthly
prince over his subjects, and that consequently our notion of justice with
regard to the latter cannot be lawfully applied to the former. It is failure
at this very point which has resulted in the most wild and irreverent
postulates in connection with the justice of God, whereby He has been
brought down to the level of His creatures.

A secular ruler is set up for the good of his subjects, this being the
principal end of his constitution. The people are not formed for him, but he
for them, therefore the administration of justice is a common and public
right, whereby he is entrusted with the supreme rule for them. The bare
statement of this obvious fact is at once sufficient to show the infinite
distance which separates between the King of kings and His administration
and any secular ruler and his government. God exists not for the well-being
of His creatures, but is independent and self-sufficient: for His pleasure
they are and were created (Rev. 4:11). Consequently He owes them nothing,
nor can they profit Him anything. Therefore it necessarily follows that He
could not be said to wrong His creatures had it so pleased Him to ordain an
economy in which no provision was made for the infliction of punishment upon
offenders according to their demerits: that was something which must be
determined solely by His own sovereign pleasure.

Absolutely considered, God's justice is the universal rectitude of His
nature, for antecedent to all the acts of His will respecting the government
of His creatures the glorious and incomprehensible God was essentially and
intrinsically righteous in Himself. Divine justice may also be considered
relatively, that is, with regard to its exercise in the superintendence and
government of rational creatures. It is with the latter the Scriptures are
chiefly concerned, that is, with how God acts under the economy which He has
instituted. Yet here and there the Sacred Pages give us a glimpse of what
God was in Himself prior to His work of creation and taking upon Himself the
office of Ruler and Judge. Those glimpses enable us to gain some idea of
what Deity is in Himself, considered apart from all His works and workings.
Here, too, yea, here particularly, we need to be doubly on our guard lest we
be guilty of "limiting the Holy One" by circumscribing His actions beyond
that which Holy Writ warrants.

It is one thing to say that God cannot act contrary to His own perfections,
it is quite another to affirm that God must needs exercise those
perfections. We need to use the greatest possible caution in saying what God
cannot do. God cannot give His glory to another (Isa. 42:8), for to do so
would be to admit a rival. God cannot look with approbation upon evil (Hab.
1:12) for to do so would sully His holiness. God cannot deny Himself (2 Tim.
2:6), for then He would be unfaithful. God cannot lie (Titus 1:2), for He is
without variableness or shadow of turning. But to declare that His justice
obliges God to inflict punishment on sinners and that He cannot pardon
without an atonement, is to daringly assert that which Scripture nowhere
teaches. That He "will by no means clear the guilty" (Exo. 34: 7) warrants
no man in saying that He "can by no means clear the guilty."

It should be pointed out that a thing may be just in a twofold sense:
negatively, as that which justice does not disapprove of; and positively, as
that which justice does require. And it is a question of vast importance if
we are to have right conceptions of the absolute independence of God-to
consider whether His will to punish sinners antecedently to His purpose to
introduce the economy in which such now obtains-was just in the former sense
only or also in the latter. Whose rights had God violated had He willed
otherwise than He did? Certainly not the creature's, for He owed them
nothing. Nor His own, had He been pleased to forego them. God rules now
according to the constitution which He has made, yet none can show-for
Scripture contains not the slightest hint thereon-that this constitution was
the necessary effect and was obliged by His justice.

God was pleased to place His creatures under law-law which was accompanied
and enforced by sanctions, promising the reward of life to the obedient and
denouncing the penalty of death upon the disobedient-and as the
Administrator of that law He is morally obligated to execute its terms. But
to insist that a regime wherein sin must be punished or that He was limited
to the appointing of a Substitute unto Death if the guilty were to go free,
strikes this writer as little (if any) short of blasphemy. Against this it
has often been objected that the words of the Redeemer, "If it be possible
let this cup pass from Me," prove that there was no other way in which His
people could be saved except by His drinking that cup. We answer, the reason
why it was impossible that the Saviour should be spared that awful cup was
not because the hands of Omniscience were fettered, but because the veracity
of God must fulfill His own declarations to that very end.

It would be just as unwarrantable and wrong for us to say that the great God
could not create this world any other way than He has. Or that His nature
obligated Him to make it just as He did, is to insist that no alternative
was left Him than to place it under the system of government which He has
instituted, wherein virtue is rewarded, sin is punished, His grace
illustriously displayed, His holiness and justice magnified by means of the
satisfaction rendered to Him by His incarnate Son. God's wisdom is no more
limited than is His power, and to argue that any one of the Divine
perfections-be it holiness or justice -placed a restriction upon the
contrivances of God's wisdom is presumption of the worst kind. The Divine
omniscience is as truly regulated by God's sovereign will as is His
omnipotence. All we are justified in saying is that the economy which God
has appointed is the one which He deemed best and most glorifying unto
Himself.

Under the economy which God instituted He has determined the manner and the
extent in which His perfections shall be exercised and displayed. For
example, He has determined the several offices which each Person in the
Godhead shall respectively hold, and this He did freely of His own sovereign
pleasure. He has determined the number of creatures He shall bring into
existence, the length of their earthly life, and what shall be their eternal
destiny, and in this, too, He acted without any restraint. He determined to
give us a written revelation from Himself, concerning which He alone decided
how much or how little of His everlasting counsels should be revealed and in
which He has made certain promises that He has pledged Himself to fulfill.
Certainly He was under no obligation to make any promises at all, but having
made them His veracity and His faithfulness require Him to make them good.
Thus, the only limitations which the Almighty has placed upon Himself in His
dealings with His creatures are those which His own imperial will saw meet
to impose.

Now under the constitution or economy which it has pleased God to institute
in the superintendence or government of His rational creatures, His justice
is known among men by different names according to the different objects
which it is immediately conversant. Does the Most High, for instance, enact
laws for His creatures? then His moral rectitude appears in these laws as
equity. They are not cruel, but "holy, just and good" (Rom. 7:12), framed
for our well-being. How thankful we should be for such a law. Has God
condescended to express Himself in promises? then His rectitude therein is
seen as fidelity, for He is immutably faithful in making good every one of
them. Has He denounced punishment upon all disobedience? then in the
execution of His threats, God's rectitude appears in His absolute veracity.
Does He administer those laws both with respect to reward and punishment,
with strict impartiality, so that He is no respecter of persons? then His
rectitude appears as glorious righteousness.

It will thus be seen that His absolute justice expresses what God is in
Himself, the moral rectitude of His nature; whereas His relative justice
considers Him as standing in relation to His creatures. The one pertains to
Him in His private character, the other in His public. It is in His
assumption and discharge of His office of Ruler and Judge the latter is
exercised. As the Sovereign of the universe He maintains the rights of His
throne and order among His subjects. Because of the moral rectitude of His
nature, when He enacts laws they are equitable, when He makes declarations
they are true, when He expresses Himself in promises they are faithful, and
when He declares threats against disobedience they are righteous and
inexorable. As the "Habitation of justice" God is to be revered: as the King
of kings He is to be submitted unto. He cannot be injured by us, nor does He
suffer by our disobedience, but He will assuredly avenge it and vindicate
His name.

ITS RULE

We now come to consider, second, its rule. Righteousness in creatures is
according to some law, which is the rule of it and to which it is conformed:
the moral law of God, which is holy, just, and good, is our rule of
righteousness or right doing. But the Most High has no law outside Himself:
He is a law to Himself. His nature and His will are the law and rule of
righteousness to Him. This is an attribute common to the three Persons in
the Godhead: necessarily so, since They partake of the same undivided
essence. Hence we find the first Person is designated the "righteous Father"
(John 17:25), the Son is called "Jesus Christ the righteous" (1 John 2:1),
and that it is proper to the Holy Spirit is evident from the fact that He is
here to convict the world "of righteousness" (John 16:8). As the present
aspect of our subject is of such great importance we must endeavour to give
it our best attention.

"The will of God is the highest rule of justice, so that what He wills must
be considered just: for this very reason, because He willed it. When it is
enquired, therefore, why the Lord did so? the answer must be, Because He
would. But if you further ask why He so determined, you are in search of
something greater and higher than the will of God, which can never be found"
(Calvin's Institutes, book 3, chapter 3, section 2). How great was the light
granted to the eminent Reformer and how clearly and boldly he expressed
himself thereon. What a contrast from the obscurity which now obtains in
this so-called age of enlightenment, with its ambiguous, hesitant and
apologetic declarations. That Calvin was by no means alone in this exalted
view will appear from other quotations given below.

In answer to the question, "Why was it that Adam was permitted to fall and
corrupt his whole posterity when God could have prevented his fall?" Luther
said, "God is a Being whose will acknowledges no cause: neither is it for us
to prescribe rules to His sovereign pleasure, or call Him to account for
what He does. He has neither superior nor equal, and His will is the rule of
all things. He did not therefore will such and such things because they were
right and He was bound to will them, but they are therefore equitable and
right because He wills them. The will of men can indeed be influenced and
moved but God's will never can. To assert the contrary is to undeify Him"
(Bondage of Man's Will). To the same effect Bucer said, "God has no other
motive to what He does than His own mere will, which will is so far from
being unrighteous, it is justice itself."

God is absolute Lord, so that "He doeth according to His will in the army of
Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand or
say unto Him, What doest Thou?" (Dan. 4:35). And why not? Because He not
only has the might but also the fullest right to do as He pleases. None was
before Him, none is above Him: nay, He has no equal to direct Him, and
therefore there is none unto whom He must render an account of His matters.
What God ordains for us and what He orders from us is just and right simply
because He so wills it. Hence it was that Abraham looked upon it as a
righteous act to slay his innocent son. But why did he so esteem it-because
the written law of God authorized murder? No. On the contrary, both the law
of God and the law of nature peremptorily forbade it; but the holy Patriarch
well knew that the will of God is the only rule of justice and that whatever
He is pleased to command is on that very account righteous.

"What is the justice of God? It is an essential property in God, whereby He
is infinitely just in Himself, of Himself, for, from, and by Himself alone,
and no other. What is the rule of this justice? His own free will and
nothing else for whatsoever He wills is just, and because He wills it, it is
just, and not because it is just therefore He wills it" (James Usher, Body
of Divinity). In answering the objection that "it is unjust for God to
inflict eternal punishment upon temporary offenses, there being no
proportion between the infinite and the finite," the Puritan, Thomas Brooks,
wisely began his reply by saying: "First, God's will is the rule of
righteousness and therefore whatever He doeth or shall do must needs be
righteous. He is Lord of all: He has a sovereign right, and an absolute
supremacy over the creature" (Vol. 6, p. 213).

We have added one quotation after another from these renowned servants of
God of the past because the truth which we are now labouring has been
repudiated in quarters in which it was not to be expected. Even in circles
which might justly be termed orthodox- where in the main the onslaughts of
infidelity were steadfastly resisted and the "landmarks" of the fathers
steadily maintained-the sharp edge of the Spirit's Sword was dulled and
those aspects of Truth most of all repellant to human pride toned down. In
their well-meant efforts to refute the errors of Socinians a few even of the
Puritans suffered their zeal to override knowledge, so that in their
determination to concede nothing unto their opponents, they sacrificed some
important elements of the Truth; and only too often later generations have
followed their lead rather than those who were uncompromising.

In the above paragraph we alluded to those who have, under the guise of
magnifying God's holiness, subordinated the Divine will to the Divine
nature, insisting that "things are not just because God has commanded them,
but He has commanded them because they are just." Our meaning is that there
was a reason for them in the nature of things, and that therefore He has
enforced them by His authority. In plain language they mean that the Most
High was not free to frame whatever laws He pleased, but was limited by the
fitness of things, that His imperial will must conform to some standard ab
extra to itself. Before we examine this position more closely, and turn upon
it the light of Holy Writ, we will give yet one or two further quotations
from eminent servants of God in the past for the purpose of showing how
radically it differs from what they taught.

Thomas Manton, who was personal chaplain to Sir Oliver Cromwell, took the
position that in contemplating the Divine justice, "God must be considered
under a twofold relation: as absolute Lord, and as Governor and Judge of the
world. As absolute Lord, His justice is nothing but the absolute and free
motion of His own will concerning the estate of His creatures. In this
respect God is wholly arbitrary and has no other rule but His own will: He
does not will things because they are just, but therefore they are just
because He wills them. He has a right of making and framing anything as He
wills in any manner as it pleases Him . . . As Governor and Judge, He gives
a law to His creatures, and His governing justice consists in giving all
their due according to His law" (Vol. 8, pp. 438, 439).

"The will of God is so the cause of all things as to be itself without
cause, for nothing can be the cause of that which is the cause of
everything: so that the Divine will is the ne plus ultra of all our
inquiries: when we ascend to that, we can go no further. Hence we find every
matter resolved ultimately into the mere sovereign pleasure of God as the
spring and occasion of whatever is done in Heaven and earth . . . The only
reason that can be assigned why the Deity does this or that is because it is
His own free pleasure so to do" (from the pen of the author of "Rock of
Ages" and other well-known hymns, in his "Observations on the Divine
Attributes": 1750). Such teaching as this alone preserves the Divine
independence and presents the true God in His unrivalled freedom and
supremacy, unhampered by anything within or without Himself.

But against this God-exalting teaching it is objected that such postulates
obliterate all distinction between God's sovereignty and His justice,
merging the latter entirely into the former. With equal justification might
we complain that the objector fails to maintain any distinction between the
Divine holiness and the Divine justice, making the former to completely
swallow up the latter. Should it be asked, Wherein shall we distinguish
between the Divine holiness and justice? We answer, the one has to do more
with what God is, the other respects what He does. Or to state it in other
words, holiness pertains to the Divine character, justice to His office.
Thus, "Justice and judgment are the habitation (and "foundation") of His
throne" (Psa. 89:14), that is, they relate to His public administration, to
the government of His creatures. It is as Ruler and Judge that the Divine
justice is exercised and displayed.

As to the objection that we obliterate all distinctions between the Divine
sovereignty and justice, our reply is that we cannot do otherwise if our
thoughts are to be formed entirely by the Scriptures. "Being predestinated
according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of
His own will" (Eph. 1:11). There is no getting around that explicit
statement, and to it we must rigidly subordinate our minds and formulate our
theology if we are to "think God's thoughts after Him." Observe well it is
not here said that God works all things according to the exegencies of His
holiness, or according to the dictates of His wisdom, but "according to the
counsel of His own will."

True, blessedly true, that every volition of His is both a holy and a wise
one, yet God alone decided what is holy and what is wise. He is under no law
and tied by no rules, but ever acts according to His own good pleasure and
that alone-and very frequently He does that which is flatly contrary to our
ideas both of wisdom and justice.

It is this very fact which infidels and agnostics have sought to make
captive out of. In the face of what confronts them both in creation and in
providence they have drawn the conclusion that either the Almighty is a
capricious or cruel Tyrant, or that having brought the world into existence
He has withdrawn and left it to work out its own destiny. They ask, Why are
there such glaring inequalities in nature: one child being born normal and
another cripple, one enjoying health, and the other being a sufferer all its
days? Why are some born under a government which gives them freedom while
others are doomed to abject slavery? Why have some men more enlarged
understanding than others, and some stronger passions than their neighbours?
Why is it that virtue so often passes unrewarded and the wicked flourish and
prosper? If it be replied, All of this is the consequence of sin, then the
infidel asks, Why is there untold suffering among innocent animals?

And what is the answer to these expressions of unbelief, these outbursts of
rebellion? How shall we silence those who wickedly affirm that the works and
ways of the Most High are stamped with injustice? Or, what is far more to
the point, how are young Christians to be dealt with who are disturbed by
such troublers of their peace? The blatant enemies of the Lord we can well
afford to treat with silent contempt, for the great Jehovah needs no efforts
of ours to vindicate His character-in due time He will Himself close their
mouths. But as to removing such stumblingstones from the path of our fellow
pilgrims, there is but one satisfactory and sufficient way, and that is by
maintaining the sovereign rights of Him with whom we have to do-by insisting
that He is the Potter and we but clay in His hands to be molded just as He
pleases.

Why has God given light to the sun, grass to the fields, heat to fire, and
cold to ice? Why, in short, has He done any of those things which we see He
has done when He could easily have done otherwise? There is only one
adequate answer: in the varied manifestations of His attributes and in the
communication of good or evil to His creatures, God has acted according to
the sovereignty of His own will. Nor is it to the slightest degree
unbecoming that God should act thus. Sovereignty is the most godlike of all
the perfections of the Divine character, for it is that on which the awful
supremacy of the great Jehovah chiefly rests. Our concept of "the high and
lofty One who inhabiteth eternity" would not be raised but lowered if we
discovered that He was hampered in His actions. The display of His own glory
as the King of kings and Lord of lords must take precedence over everything
else.

"The Lord is upright . . . there is no unrighteousness in Him" (Psa. 92:15).
Yet this is patent not to carnal sight, but to the vision of faith alone.
The eyes of the naturally blind cannot discern the light of the sun,
nevertheless it is full of light. In like manner, the eyes of the
spiritually blind are incapable of perceiving the equity of God's ways, yet
they are all righteous. But we repeat, they are righteous not because they
are conformed to some external standard of excellence, nor even because they
are in harmony with one of the Divine attributes, but solely because they
are the ways of Him who "worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will." God's commanding Abimelech to deliver Sarah to Abraham, or else He
would destroy both him and his household" (Gen. 20:7), may seem unjust in
man's estimation, but has not the great God the right to do as He pleases?

Take the most extreme example of all: God's choosing one unto eternal life
and another unto eternal death. Yet none who, by grace, bow to the authority
of Holy Writ find any stumblingblock therein. Though they do not profess to
understand the reason for God so acting, yet they unhesitatingly acknowledge
His right so to do. Distrusting their conceptions of justice and injustice,
they submit to the high sovereignty of Him who is Lord over all. And it is
this very submission which brings to their hearts a peace which passes all
understanding. Amid the profound mysteries of life, the perplexities of
their own lot, though God's judgments are a "great deep" and His ways often
"past finding out," they have the unshakable assurance that the Judge of all
the earth has done, is doing, and shall do, "right."

And why is it that the believer is so confident that simply because God does
a thing it is necessarily right and good? Because he has learned this very
lesson from the lips of Christ, "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and
earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy
sight" (Matt. 11:25, 26). Observe the character in which the Father is here
viewed: "Lord of Heaven and earth," that is, as Sovereign supreme with
indisputable right. Note the basis of action which the Redeemer attributes
unto Him: "for so it seemed g