By
what laws He rules other worlds we know not, save that they are, because
they must be--just and merciful laws. But of the laws by which He rules
this world we do know, by experience, that His laws are of most terrible
and unbending severity, as I have warned you again and again, and shall
warn you, as long as there is a liar or an idler, a drunkard or an
adulteress in this parish.
And if this be so--if Christ be a God of severity as well as a God of
love, a God who punishes sinners as well as a God who forgives penitents-
-what then? We are, He tells us, made in His likeness. Then, according
to His likeness we must behave. We must copy His love, by helping the
poor and afflicted, the weak and the oppressed. But we must copy His
severity, by punishing whenever we have the power, without cowardice or
indulgence, all wilful offenders; and, above all, the man who destroys
God's image in himself, by murdering and destroying the mortal life of a
man made in the image of God. And more; if we be made in the likeness of
God and of Christ, we must remember, morning and night, and all day long,
that most awful and most blessed fact.
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