second commandment and what Ezekiel says in this
chapter. They are but two different sides of the same truth; and Moses
is shewing the Jews one side, because they needed most to be taught that
in his time, and Ezekiel showing them the other, because that was the
teaching which they needed most then. For they were fancying themselves,
in their calamities, the victims of some blind and cruel fate, and had
forgotten that, when God said that He visited the sins of the fathers on
the children, He qualified it by saying, "of them that hate Me."

Therefore, be hopeful about yourselves, and hopeful about your children
after you. If any one here feels--I am fallen very low in the world--
here all has been so much against me--my parents were the ruin of me--Let
him remember this one word of Ezekiel. "Have I any pleasure at all that
the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return
from his ways, and live?" Let him turn from his father's evil ways, and
do that which is lawful and right, and then he can say with the Prophet,
in answer to all the strokes of fortune and the miseries of circumstance,
"Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall I shall arise."
Provided he will remember that God requires of all men something, which
is, to be as good as they can be; then he may remember also that our Lord
Himself says, "Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be
required;" implying that to whom little is given, of him will little be
required. God's ways are not unequal. He has one equal, fair, and just
rule for every human being; and that is perfect understanding, perfect
sympathy, perfect good will, and therefore perfect justice and perfect
love.

And if any one of you answers in his heart--these are good words, and all
very well: but they come too late. I am too far gone. I ate the sour
grapes in my youth, and my teeth must be on edge for ever and ever. I
have been a bad man, or I have been a foolish woman too many years to
mend now. I am down, and down I must be. I have made my bed, and I must
lie on it, and die on it too. Oh my dear brother or sister in Christ,
whoever you are who says that, unsay it again for it is not true.
Ezekiel tells you that it is not true, and one greater than Ezekiel,
Jesus Christ, your Saviour, your Lord, your God, tells you it is not
true.

For what happens, by God's eternal and unchangeable laws of retribution,
to