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THE REV. A. H. FINN ON 



He can decree the extermination of entire nations, but it is 

 because " the land is defiled . . . and the land vomiteth 

 out her inhabitants " by reason of their abominations 

 (Lev. xviii, 25). Even in these judgments, He shows Himself 

 patient and forbearing. He waits, and His Spirit still strives 

 with man, for 120 years while the ark is a-preparing : He is 

 willing to spare the cities if only ten righteous can be found in 

 them : He postpones the sentence on the Canaanites for 400 

 years because " the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full " 

 (Gen. XV, 16) : nor does He leave them to sin in ignorance 

 without warning. Noah was " a preacher of righteousness," 

 and Lot, " sorely distressed by the lascivious life of the wicked " 

 (2 St. Pet. ii, 5, 7), vainly tried to dissuade them from the wicked- 

 ness they meditated : Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in their 

 goings to and fro, " called upon (i.e. proclaimed) the name of 

 the Lord." In the same way God delivered His own people 

 into the hands of their enemies to be led away captive, but 

 only after He had " sent to them by His messengers, rising up 

 early and sending . . . till there was no remedy " (2 Chron. 

 XXX vi, 15, 16). Everywhere He is represented as Just and 

 Righteous even in wrath, and withal Merciful and Loving. When 

 He proclaims His own Name and Nature, it is as " a God full 

 of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in 

 mercy and truth : keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving 

 iniquity and transgression and sin : and that will by no means 

 clear the guilty " (Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7). These qualities of 

 Righteousness and Mercy are proclaimed in Psalm after Psalm, 

 and re-echoed by prophet after prophet, till all culminates in 

 the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb, " just and true 

 are Thy ways, Thou King of saints " (Rev. xv, 3). Again, 

 He is a God of Truth, both in detesting all that is false, and 

 in being true to Himself and to His people, " the faithful God, 

 which keepeth covenant and mercy . . . to a thousand 

 generations " (Deut. vii, 9). His especial Name declares both 

 His eternal existence, and also His unswerving faithfulness 

 as the changeless I AM. All these characteristics — Righteousness 

 and Justice, Mercy and Compassion, Faithfulness and Truth — 

 unite in the conception of a Holy God, a conception unknown 

 in the sacred books of any other religion. He is Holy, that is 

 separate, not by reason of His exalted majesty or the might 

 of His power, but by the essential purity and goodness of His 

 nature. His day is Holy : His dwelling is the Holy of Holies : 



