things toward the Lord God of Israel:" Therefore was he
removed by an early death, and the residue of the family were
afterwards destroyed with the sword to punish the sin of the father,
"who had sinned and made Israel to sin."

The divine administration is still the same. In later ages instances
might be adduced, especially among princes, of families extirpated
(after a term of family probation, which had been abused by wickedness
and dishonored by crimes) to punish family guilt. But these might be
more liable to be disputed than those recorded in sacred history.
Though we think it evident, from common observation, that the curse of
heaven usually rests on the descendants of those who cast off the fear
of God and harden themselves in sin, and that God visits the
iniquities of fathers on their children.

We turn our attention next to larger communities. Here we find the
divine administration regulated by the same rules.

Morals are as necessary to larger communities as to families, or
individuals, alike required of them. And they are equally amenable to
HIM who is over all, and receive like returns from his impartial
hands, according to their works. The chief difference made between
communities and persons, respects the time and place, in which they
are judged and rewarded: Respecting the former, they take place in
this world; respecting the latter, in that to come. Persons will live
again after death. Communities, as such, exist only here.
Here therefore communities must be remunerated [sic]. They are so.
God tries them, and proportions retributions to their moral state.
"Righteousness exalteth a nation;" but wickedness degrades and
destroys it. The strength and happiness of a people are proportioned
to their morals, and increase and diminish with them.

Perhaps it will be said, These are the natural conferences of moral
good and evil. They are so. And these consequences are the effects of
divine order; of the constitution which God hath established. Hence
the divine declaration by the prophet: "At what instant I shall speak
concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to
pull down, and to destroy; if that nation against whom I have
pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I
thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning
a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do
evil in my fight, that it obey not my voice, then I will rep