MEDITATION XXXIX.
MEDITATION XXXIX.
ON THE PATIENCE OF GOD WITH SINNERS.
Off France, June 27, 1758.
In very truth you are God, who can thus bear with the wickedness of men—though you are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Did our superior officers meet with equal disobedience to their mandates, the same irreverence, insult and reproach to their very face, from these abandoned wretches—would they put up with it? No! Death, or some dreadful punishment, would immediately be inflicted on the vile transgressors. God will be glorified in the bright display of all his divine perfections.
The desperate madness of sinners against the God of heaven, and their blasphemous talk against the most High, cannot prevail with him to change his purpose, and punish them before the time appointed—because he is infinite in his patience. Nor shall their miseries and bemoaning, their anguish and their entreaties, make him spare them a moment longer, when the appointed day comes, or mitigate their torments—because he is perfect in his justice. A thousand years are with God but as one day, seeing all eternity is his immoveable NOW.
Now, what are the few unhappy years of a thoughtless desperado's life—but as a few moments to a criminal between his sentence and execution? So God will fill up the measure of his patience; and if they fill up the measure of their sin, in the time of God's patience, his justice shall fill up the measure of their punishment in the day that his thundering right hand shall cast the strength of his fury and fiery indignation on them forever!
He is silent now in the day of his patience, and they will not hear the voice of his goodness. But he will loudly punish them in the day of his anger, and they shall hear the thunders of his wrath. God, by his patience, has a double work on his potter's wheel— 1. His wrath to show, and his power to make known on the vessels of wrath, who are prepared for destruction. 2. The riches of his glory, to make known on the vessels of mercy, who are thus prepared for glory. Let the sinner acknowledge the patience of God, and be led to repentance; and the saint adore the patience of God, and be encouraged to perseverance; and may God be glorified in all his divine perfections.
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