The justice of God displayed even in the awful form which it assumes in the punishment of the wife of Lot, is, in fact, only a modification of goodness, and therefore a proper reason both for angelic and human celebration. The love of order is no less essential to a holy being than the love of mercy; and therefore it is compatible with the most perfect goodness, in its association with justice, to punish transgressors either on their own account or for the sake of others--either for the purpose of individual correction or of general warning. It would be a far less display of goodness to suffer men to persevere in sin without any control, than to arrest them by some powerful stroke. In the former case, they not only plunge into ruin themselves, but draw others, by their fatal and malignant attraction, into perdition: in the latter, a salutary precaution is given to such as lie within the reach of their mischievous influence. Whatever has a tendency to prevent sin is a benevolent exercise of power; because sin is the source of individual and universal misery: if it had never entered into this world, man would still have been happy; and when, in the merciful appointments of Heaven, the guilt which now stains the moral creation shall be purified away by the efficacy of the blood of Christ, paradise will be restored, and the long-renowned tabernacle of God again descend to be with men. To this glorious consummation of human felicity, all the dispensations of Providence point; and to produce it, all his judgments are inflicted: the promises and the threatenings have each a similar design, and will ultimately promote the same general object. The tempest and the tornado have their peculiar uses, as well as the small rain that descends upon the tender herb. "Mercy and truth meet together--righteousness and peace kiss each other." In turning our eyes, then, towards the plain of Sodom, we must combine a sentiment of holy reverence with trembling horror. The destiny of the atrocious sinner was intended to produce salutary apprehensions in her surviving relatives, and in all her posterity. Upon that accursed plain Eternal Justice erected a monument of infinite displeasure; but the hand which raised the pillar of salt, at the same time inscribed upon it, in characters too large and legible to be mistaken, "FEAR GOD, AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS."