aganism, men must earn their heaven. The idea of
_mercy_,--of clemency towards a transgressor, of pity towards a
criminal,--is entirely foreign to the thoughts of Plutarch, so far as
they can be gathered from this tract. It is the clear and terrible
doctrine of the pagan sage, that unless a man can make good his claim to
eternal happiness upon the ground of law and justice,--unless he merits
it by good works,--there is no hope for him in the other world.

The idea of a forgiving and tender mercy in the Supreme Being, exercised
towards a creature whom justice would send to eternal retribution,
nowhere appears in the best pagan ethics. And why should it? What
evidence or proof has the human mind, apart from the revelations made to
it in the Old and New Testaments, that God will ever forgive sin, or ever
show mercy? In thinking upon the subject, our reason perceives,
intuitively, that God must of necessity punish transgression; and it
perceives with equal intuitiveness that there is no corresponding
necessity that He should pardon it. We say with confidence and
positiveness: "God must be just;" but we cannot say with any certainty
or confidence at all: "God must be merciful." The Divine mercy is an
attribute which is perfectly free and optional, in its exercises, and
therefore we cannot tell beforehand whether it will or will not be shown
to transgressors. We know nothing at all about it, until we hear some
word from the lips of God Himself upon the point. When He opens the
heavens, and speaks in a clear tone to the human race, saying, "I will
forgive your iniquities," then, and not till then, do they know the fact.
In reference to all those procedures which, like the punishment of
transgression, are fixed and necessary, because they are founded in the
eternal principles of law and justice, we can tell beforehand what the
Divine method will be. We do not need any special revelation, to inform
us that God is a just Being, and that His anger is kindled against
wickedness, and that He will punish the transgressor. This class of
truths, the Apostle informs us, are written in the human constitution,
and we have already seen that they were known and dreaded in the pagan
world. That which God _must_ do, He certainly will do. He _must_ be just,
and therefore He certainly will punish sin, is the reasoning of the human
mind, the-world over, and in every age.[4]

But, when we pass from the punishment of sin to the pardon of it, when