The Wicked Are Cruel; the Liars Are Caught

‘A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips: but the just shall come out of trouble.” — xii. 10, 13.

INSISTENT kindness to brute creatures is one of the marks by which a really merciful man is known. When the pulse of kindness beats strong in the heart, the warm stream goes sheer through the body of the human family, and retains force enough to expatiate among the living creatures that lie beyond. The gentleness of Christ is one beauty of the Lord which should be seen on Christians. Over against this lovely light, according to the usual form of the proverb, yawns the counterpart darkness, habitation of horrid cruelty. Cruelty is a characteristic of the wicked in general, and in particular of Antichrist, that one, wicked by pre-eminence, whom Christ shall yet destroy by the brightness of his coming. By their fruits ye shall know them: the page of history is spotted with the cruelties of papal Rome. The red blood upon his garments is generally the means of discovering a murderer: the trailing womanish robes of the papal high priest are deeply stained with the blood of saints. The same providence which employs the bloody tinge to detect the common murderer has left more lasting marks of Rome’s cruelty. The Bartholomew massacre, for example, is recorded in more enduring characters than the stains of that blood which soaked the soil of France. By the accounts of those who did the deed and favour Rome, 30,000; according to other estimates, 100,000 Protestants were slain. Such were the heaps, in some places, that they could not be counted. The Pope and his cardinals greatly rejoiced when they heard the news. So lively was their gratitude, that they cast a medal to commemorate the fact. There stands the legend, raised in brass and silver, Strages Huguenotoiiim (“the slaughter of the Huguenots”), in perpetual memory of the delight wherewith that wicked Antichrist regarded the greatest, foulest butchery of men by their fellows that this sin-cursed earth has ever seen. That spot will not out by all their washings. That monument, reared by the murderer’s own hands, exhibits to the world now a faithful specimen of his tender mercies, and will remain to identify the criminal at the coming of the Judge. “Blessed are the merciful;” but a curse lies on the cruel ever since Cain shed his brother’s blood.

The Supreme has set many snares, in the constitution of things, for the detection and punishment of evil doers: the wicked are continually falling into them, and suffering. The liar’s own tongue betrays him: in some of its movements, ere he is aware, it touches the spring which brings down the avenging §troke. It is instructive to watch with this view the progress of a criminal trial In the faltering and fall of a false witness, you should see and reverence the righteousness of God. The first lie must be defended by a second, and that by a third. As the line of his defences grows in length, it grows in weakness. His fear and labour increase at every step. He is compelled at every question to consider what truth is like, and imitate it in lies. Ere long, when he is crossing his own path, he falls into a lie that he had left and forgotten there; he falls, and flounders, like a wild beast in a snare. When a man is not true, the great labour of his life must be to make himself appear true; but if a man be true, he need not concern himself about appearances. He may go forward, and tread boldly; his footing will be sure. Matters are so arranged, in the constitution of the world, that the straight course of truth is safe and easy; the crooked path of falsehood difficult and tormenting. Here is perennial evidence that the God of providence is wise and true. By making lies a snare to catch liars in, the Author of our being proclaims, even in the voices of nature, that he “requireth truth in the inward parts.” All the labour of swindlers to dress up their falsehood, so as to make it look like truth, is Satan’s unwilling homage to the true God. It is counted a glory to the Lord when his enemies feign submission unto Him (Ps. lxxxi. 15).

“The just shall come out of trouble;” that is the word; it is not said that he will never fall into it. The inventory which W 1C

Jesus gives of what his disciples shall have “now in this time,” although it contains many things that nature loves, closes with the article “persecutions” (Mark x. 30). The recorded description, “These are they who have come out of great tribulation,” belongs alike to all the redeemed of the Lord, when they come to Zion. These, who wave their palms of victory, and sing their jubilant hymns of praise, were all in the horrible pit once: they were held helpless by its miry clay, until the Mighty One lifted them up, and set their feet upon a rock, and established their goings.