hich
the Lord would not pardon_." ++

* Jeremiah xv. 1-4. + Numbers xxxv. 33. ++ 2 Kings xxiii. 26,
xxiv. 3, 4.

Manasseh was gone off the stage; so were all who had shared in his
guilt; that prince had, moreover, repented and obtained personal
forgiveness; but his crimes had filled up the measure of national
wickedness, and judgment must follow. There was no remedy.

These are conclusive evidence that the sins of a people, and
especially of the rulers of a people, which are not punished by the
civil arm, are charged to the people, and eventually punished upon
them.

As there are seasons in which God judgeth nations and communities, and
renders to them according to their works, there are also seasons in
which he doth the same by the world. That this will be done at the end
of the world, or at the judgment of the great day, is not matter of
doubt with believers in revelation. But some other seasons of divine
judgment are now more particularly intended. For there are seasons in
which God's judgments are abroad in the earth--in which the sins of
the world seem to be brought to remembrance, and punished on its
inhabitants.

Eminently such was the six hundredth year of the life of Noah. "When
the earth was corrupt before God, and filled with violence," he
entered into judgment, and punished the sin of the world, in the
destruction of its inhabitants. God did not "do his work, his strange
work, or bring to pass his act, his strange act," as soon as "the
wickedness of man was great, and every imagination of the thoughts of
his heart only evil continually." He waited long. But when the vast
term allowed to antediluvian sinners was expired, he swept off a race
who had been disobedient while long suffering mercy waited with them.

The sin of the world was then full. Human guilt had long been
augmenting, and at length occasioned that awful display of divine
justice. Many who were at that time destroyed were, no doubt great and
old offenders; but many others differed from them, were but entering
on life, not capable, of personal guilt, yet they were involved in the
general calamity. Those of every character perished together, "The
flood came and took them all away."

There hath been no other season in which the divine judgments toward
the whole world have been so signally manifest as at the deluge. There
have however, been times in which they have been very general and very
severe. One of those times was at hand in our Sa