The Climax of Retributive Justice

“The Lord is slow to anger, and will not at ail acquit the wicked.” — Nanom i. 3.

IS not this a contradiction? No; I understand the prophet to mean that there are more complete modes of rooting out evil than the destruction of the evildoer. As a matter of fact, violent passion does not remedy wrong. It sometimes exhausts itself; it sometimes oversteps the mark and creates sympathy with the wrong side. I take Nahum to mean that the best way to root out evil is to make it work the ends of mercy. What is the greatest judgment on sin? Is it the annihilation of the sinner? That leaves the act untouched; it simply adds a new catastrophe. Is it the destruction of the sinner’s work? That merely enables one to begin again: it does not remedy the loss of time. But imagine that you could convert the barrier into

a gate. Imagine that you could make the opposing wall the first wall of your own city. Imagine that, instead of demolishing the crosses raised by your Pilates and your Herods, you could make these crosses the stepping-stones of Christ’s glory. Would not Nahum’s view here be vindicated! Would not sin be destroyed by the very mercy of God — the slowness of His anger! It would be a stronger judgment on sin than the thunderbolt or the earthquake or the pestilence. It would be a turning of sin’s weapons against itself, a rooting-out of the disease by its own germ, a transformation of the lake of fire into the river of life eternal. Lord, I have often marvelled at the slowness of Thine anger. I have seen the enemy sow tares in Thy field. I have looked for the floods to blight it, and they have not fallen. I have expected the winds to blast it, and they have not risen. I have called on disease to smite it, and it has not come. And I have said, “Surely Thou art indifferent to good and evil; Thou smilest alike on both!” Then I have seen a strange thing. The tares which I wanted Thy servants to pluck out have sprung up to view, not as tares, but as wheat. The bad seed which the enemy sowed has risen in fruit and flower and foliage, and drawn the wondering eyes. The blood of the martyrs has become the seed of the Church; the desert has been crowded; the wilderness has sung. In that hour I knew that I was wrong, that the prophet was right. I saw the world’s sin condemned by the very slowness of Thine anger, by the very patience of Thy waiting. If the servants had plucked up the tares it would have been a poor judgment; others could have sown new tares to-morrow. But when the tares themselves burst into flower, there was no chance for evil. The enemy made a cross for Thee, O Lord — a cross that was to erucify Thy glory. The servants cried, “Pull it down; break it in pieces like a potter’s vessel!” But Thou saidst, “Let it stand until the harvest!” And lo! in the autumn field it is the fairest of all the flowers, the sweetest of all the fruits, the greenest of all the leaves! Was there ever judgment on sin like that! Where are the tares gone? They were not plucked, yet they are not here; whither have they vanished? They are all in the garden of Thy grace. The thorn has become a fir-tree and the briar a myrtle-tree and the bramble a Christmas-tree. The withered are waving; the barren are budding; the seedless are springing; the fruitless are flourishing. That which came to quell has quickened; that which came to smite has smiled; that which came to blast has blessed; that which came to burn has beautified. Thou hast conquered sin by the slowness of Thine anger.