that God is just, than to prove that He is
merciful.[2] But this is not the thought and feeling of man when outside
of the pale of Revelation. Go into the ancient pagan world, examine the
theologizing of the Greek and Roman mind, and you will discover that the
fears of the justice far outnumbered the hopes of the mercy; that Plato
and Plutarch and Cicero and Tacitus were far more certain that God would
punish sin, than that He would, pardon it. This is the reason that there
is no light, or joy, in any of the pagan religions. Except when religion
was converted into the worship of Beauty, as in the instance of the later
Greek, and all the solemn and truthful ideas of law and justice were
eliminated from it, every one of the natural religions of the globe is
filled with sombre and gloomy hues, and no others. The truest and best
religions of the ancient world were always the sternest and saddest,
because the unaided human mind is certain that God is just, but is not
certain that He is merciful. When man is outside of Revelation, it is by
no means a matter of course that God is clement, and that sin shall be
forgiven. Great uncertainty overhangs the doctrine of the Divine mercy,
from the position of natural religion, and it is only within the province
of revealed truth that the uncertainty is removed. Apart from a distinct
and direct _promise_ from the lips of God Himself that He will forgive
sin, no human creature can be sure that sin will ever be forgiven. Let
us, therefore, look into the subject carefully, and see the reason why
man, if left to himself and his spontaneous reflections, doubts whether
there is mercy in the Holy One for a transgressor, and fears that there
is none, and why a special revelation is consequently required, to dispel
the doubt and the fear.

The reason lies in the fact, implied in the text, that _the exercise of
justice is necessary, while that of mercy is optional_. "I will have
mercy on whom I _please_ to have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I _please_ to have compassion." It is a principle inlaid in the
structure of the human soul, that the transgression of law _must_ be
visited with retribution. The pagan conscience, as well as the Christian,
testifies that "the Soul that sinneth it shall die." There is no need of
quoting from pagan philosophers to prove this. We should be compelled
to cite page after page, should we enter upon the documentary evidence.
Take such a tract, for exampl