Then is not God merciful to the world in punishing them, even in
destroying them out of the world, where they only do harm? The world
does not want fools, it wants wise men. The world does not want bad men,
it wants good men; and we ought to thank God, if, by His eternal laws, He
gets rid of bad men for us; and, as the saying is, civilizes them off the
face of the earth in the third or fourth generation. And God does so.
If a family, or a class, or a whole nation becomes incorrigibly
profligate, foolish, base, in three or four generations they will either
die out or vanish. They will sink to the bottom of society, and become
miserably poor, weak, and of no influence, and so unable to do harm to
any but themselves. Whole families will sink thus, I have seen it; you
may have seen it. Whole nations will sink thus; as the Jews sank in
Ezekiel's time, and again in our Lord's time; and be conquered, trampled
on, counted for nothing, because they were worth nothing.
But now suppose, again, that the children, when their father's sins are
visited on them, are NOT incorrigible.
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