Smiting and healing closely connected in God's counsels.
God's smiting is no doubt twofold,
Once only has he visited mankind at large penalty—at the Deluge; but a thousand times has he visited them remedially. Similarly with nations. He smote Egypt in Moses' time with the ten plagues, not to destroy, but to chasten. So again at the Red Sea. So now by the hands of Esarhaddon and his son. So by Nebuchadnezzar, Cambyses, Ochus. And at last he bowed their hearts and caused them to turn to him, first partially, when Judaism gained an influence over them; afterwards, as a nation, when they accepted Christianity. Former chastisements had doubtless some remedial force, or the nation would scarcely have been borne with so long; but they did not fully heal, and blow after blow became requisite. So God went on "smiting and healing." And the course of his providence is similar with individuals. Primarily he smites to heal. Each offence brings down his red, but the stroke is comparatively light at first, and intended to warn, admonish, call to amendment. If men persist in wrong courses, the blows become heavier. But still the intention is the same; it is sought to bring them to repentance. God has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth. Only after repeated trials, after blow upon blow, warning upon warning, if they will not repent, if they will not be healed, the penal sentence goes forth to "pluck up and destroy" (Jeremiah 12:17).
Unity in religion joins together the bitterest foes.
As, ultimately, the establishment of the kingdom of Christ among all the nations of the earth (Isaiah 2:2) will produce a reign of universal peace, so that men will everywhere "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks" (Isaiah 2:4), so, on a lesser scale, wherever true religion prevails, asperities are softened, old enmities die out and disappear, a friendly spirit springs up, and former adversaries are reconciled and become friends. Assyria, Egypt, Israel, long the bitterest foes, were drawn together by a common faith in the later days of Judaism and the earlier ones of Christianity—felt sympathy one with another, and lived in harmony. The Papacy was an attempt to bring all the Roman communion into a species of political unity, to abolish wars between its various members, and unite it against heathendom. This attempt had, however, only a partial success, owing to the admixture of bad with good motives in those who were at the head of the movement and had the direction of it. That war has not yet ceased among all Christian nations is a slur upon Christianity, and an indication that nations are still Christian in name rather than in spirit. The league of Assyria, Egypt, Israel, may well be held up to the modern Christian world as an example that should shame it into the adoption of "peace principles." If such foes, so fiercely hostile, so long estranged, could become close friends through the influence of a community of religion, why cannot the Christian nations of modern times attain to a similar unity?
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON