aws by which He judges:
and rather than believe in your theory of Providence, your theory of
judgments, we will believe in none.

Thus, in age after age, in land after land, has fanaticism and bigotry
brought forth, by a natural revulsion, its usual fruit of unbelief.

But--let men believe or disbelieve as they choose--the warning of the
Psalmist still stands true--"Be wise. Take heed, ye unwise among the
people. He that nurtureth the heathen; it is He that teacheth man
knowledge, shall He not punish?" For as surely as there is a God, so
surely does that God judge the earth; and every individual, family,
institution, and nation on the face thereof; and judge them all in
righteousness by His Son Jesus Christ, whom He hath appointed heir of all
things, and given Him all power in heaven and earth; who reigns and will
reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet.

This is the good news of Advent. And therefore it is well that in
Advent, if we believe that Christ is ruling us, we should look somewhat
into the laws of His kingdom, as far as He has revealed them to us; and
among others, into the law which--as I think--He laid down in the text.

Now I beg you to remark that the text, taken fully and fairly, means the
very opposite to that popular notion of which I spoke in the beginning of
my sermon.

Our Lord does not say--Those Galilaeans were not sinners at all. Their
sins had nothing to do with their death. Those on whom the tower fell
were innocent men. He rather implies the very opposite.

We know nothing of the circumstances of either calamity: but this we
know--That our Lord warned the rest of the Jews, that unless they
repented--that is, changed their mind, and therefore their conduct, they
would all perish in the same way. And we know that that warning was
fulfilled, within forty years, so hideously, and so awfully, that the
destruction of Jerusalem remains, as one of the most terrible cases of
wholesale ruin and horror recorded in history; and--as I believe--a key
to many a calamity before and since. Like the taking of Babylon, the
fall of Rome, and the French Revolution, it stands out in lurid
splendour, as of the nether pit itself, forcing all who believe to say in
fear and trembling--Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth--and a
warning to every man, class, institution, and nation on earth, to set
their houses in order betimes, and bear fruit meet for repentance, lest
the day come when th