We have the same weighty principle set forth in the first epistle of Peter, in its application to Christians now.--"For the time is come that _judgment must begin_ at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (Chap. iv. 17, 18.) God chastens His own just because they are His own, and that they may not be condemned with the world. (1 Cor. xi.) The children of this world are allowed to go on their way; but their day is coming--a dark and heavy day--a day of judgment and unmitigated wrath. Men may question and argue and reason, but Scripture is distinct and emphatic. "God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man whom He hath ordained." The great day of reckoning is at hand, when God will repay every man to his face. It is truly edifying to mark the way in which Moses, that beloved and honored servant of God, led assuredly by the Spirit of God, pressed the grand and solemn realities of the divine government upon the conscience of the congregation. Hear how he pleads and exhorts: "Thou shalt _therefore_ keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, _to do them_. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye _hearken_ to these judgments, and _keep_ and _do_ them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which He sware unto thy fathers. And He will _love_ thee, and _bless_ thee, and _multiply_ thee; He will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which He sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people; there shall not be male nor female barren among you or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them; neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee." (Ver. 11-16.) What a powerful appeal! how affecting! Mark the two groups of words. Israel was to "hearken," "keep," and "do." Jehovah was to "love," "bless," and "multiply." Alas! alas! Israel failed--sadly, shamefully failed, under law and under government; and hence, instead of the love and the blessing and the multiplying, there has been judgment, curse, barrenness, dispersion, desolation.