130 Saint Paul on Law and Gospel. CHAP. 



forgiveness cancels the severest part of the punish- 

 ment of sin, which is the Divine anger, yet we know 

 that in this present life it does not always, nor 

 generally, destroy those secondary effects of sin 

 which, by the operation of natural law, tend to make 

 sin its own punishment ; and there is no reason to 

 believe that the law shall ever be repealed which 

 ordains, " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 

 also reap." ] We have no reason to think that he 

 whose work is burned up in the fiery trial which, 

 either in this life or in that which is to come, is to 

 test every man's work, 2 shall ever attain to an 

 equality with him whose work withstands the test. 

 All punishment may, and I believe will, finally 

 disappear as pain, but not as loss. 



I go back to those passages from the Old Testa- 

 ment quoted above, which teach that God's mercy is 

 revealed through justice, not by setting justice aside. 

 It may be urged that they are from the Old Testa- 

 ment, and therefore belong to a dispensation which 

 has been superseded by the fuller revelation of 

 mercy in the Atonement of Christ. To this I give 

 Saint Paul's reply, that the law is not made void, but 

 on the contrary is confirmed, through the faith. 3 

 The Old Testament has made known the righteous- 

 ness of God, with hints and foreshadowings of a 

 further and profounder revelation of the same ; 

 the New Testament, taking this as known, reveals 

 that God is not only Himself righteous, which He 

 1 Gal. vi. 7. 2 1 Cor. iii. 10 et seq. 3 Rom. iii. 31. 



