"Telephone 16966-7 cess would incur the censure of any civilized community, Therefore it is only reasonable to allow that God, as the Moral Governor of His own created universe, should judge and punish sin and that He should be unerring in His justice.
In assessing the equity of any given judgment it is necessary to measure, not merely the sufferings of the one' punished, but the extent of his guilt. Speaking personally I have no doubt that should I witness the execution of a murderer I would turn ok with horror and be tempted to write.a polemic against capital punishment, but. let he also get a true picture of the heinousness of the man's crime and sane balanced judgment will be the result. This is where your, shall I so call them, anti-RANKIN correspondents are making the mistake; these are appalled at the present sufferings of the nations but largely indifferent to the enormity of man's wickedness: thus their judgment is swayed by human sentiment rather than by spiritual perception.
That the thought that the peoples are suffering on account of sin is a disagreeable one, no one will question; the point is—"Is it true I have urged that sin demands punishment, but let us think what is meant by the term (punishment let us consider at least three aspects of the expression, (1) Punishment for the sake justice alone and implying no thought of either gratifying the. feelings of the executioner or of in any way bene-Athy the victim morally.
Corrective punishment for ne ther motive than that of brin ultimate benefit To the. victim am to the potential victims of his misdeeds In its purity, love and goodwill would be the motive in the mind of the executioner ity mean In the very best of men, be it in a judge or in a parent, all three of these aspects might be mixed: in God, the first two might run side by side, but the third must be utterly excluded. A God who punished for motives of personal revenge would indeed be a product of the dark ages, but such is not the God of the Bible.
Now God's judgments are often brought about by His permitting men to inflict suffering on one anoth not that the perpetrators of evil are absolved from responsibility on that count, but that God permits them do the evil they intend to do up to the limit dictated by His own purposes. To those who are interested, this principle is clearly explained in
ment Isaiah, chapter 10, in the Old Tesia-
But there is another aspect of punishment that I have not yet mentioned, namd the consequential aspect, which is simply illustrated by the fact that, if I insert my finger nto the fire I shall suffer pain, Now
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.