tings.

Now, what does the Bible mean by a curse, and cursing?--For we are
bound to believe, in all fairness, that the Reformers meant the
same, and neither more nor less. The text, I think, tells us
plainly enough. We know that its words came true. We know that the
Jews _did_ perish out of their native land, as the Author of this
book foretold, in consequence of doing that against which Moses
warned them. We know also that they did not perish by any
miraculous intervention of Providence: but simply as any other
nation would have perished; by profligacy, internal weakness, civil
war, and, at last, by foreign conquest.

We know that their destruction was the natural consequence of their
own folly. Why are we to suppose that the prophet meant anything
but that? He foretells the result. Why are we to suppose that he
did not foresee the means by which that result would happen? Why
are we, in the name of all justice, to impute to him an expectation
of miraculous interferences, about which he says no word? The curse
which he foretold was the natural consequence of the sins of the
nation. Why are we not to believe that he considered it as such?
Why are we not to believe that the Bible meaning of a curse, is
simply the natural ill-consequence of men's own ill-actions? I
believe that if you will apply the same rule to other places of
Scripture, you will have reason to reverence the letter and the
Spirit of Scripture more and more, and will free your minds from
many a superstitious and magical fancy, which will prevent you alike
from understanding the Bible and the Commination Service.

The Book of Deuteronomy, like the rest of Moses' laws, says nothing
whatever about the life to come. It says, that sin is to be
punished, and virtue rewarded, in this life; and the Commination
Service, when it quotes the Book of Deuteronomy, means so, so I
presume, likewise. Indeed, if we look at the very remarkable, and
most invaluable address which the Commination Service contains, we
shall find its author saying the same thing, in the very passages
which are to some minds most offensive.

For even in this life the door of mercy may be shut, and we may cry
in vain for mercy, when it is the time for justice. This is not
merely a doctrine: it is a fact; a common, patent fact. Men do
wrong, and escape, again and again, the just punishment of their
deeds; but how often there are cases in which a man does not escape;
when he is