And next--what is it after all, but what we see going on round us
all the day long? God does visit the sins of the fathers on the
children. There is no denying it. Wives do suffer for their
husbands' sins; children and children's children for whole
generations after generations suffer for their parents' sins, and
become unhealthy, or superstitious, or profligate, or poor, or
slavish, because their parents sinned, and dragged down their
children with them in their fall. It is a law of the world; and
therefore it is a law of God. And it is reasonable to be believed
that God might choose to teach the Israelites, once and for all,
that it WAS a law of his world. For by swallowing up those women
and children with the men, God said to the Israelites, it seems to
me in a way which could not be mistaken, 'This is the consequence of
lawlessness and disorder--that you not only injure yourselves, but
your children after you, and involve your families in the same ruin
as yourselves.'
But there was another lesson, and a deep lesson, in the earthquake
and in the fire. And what was this? that the earthquake and the
fire came out from the Lord.
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