While a community is on trial its conduct is recorded; its acts of disobedience to the divine Sovereign are charged to the community, and when its probation ends, they are brought into the reckoning and punished upon it, unless repentance and reformation intervene and prevent it. That "the sin of the Amorites was not full," was assigned as a reason for deferring the settlement of Abram's race in the land of Canaan. God would not enter into judgment with them, till the measure of their guilt had reached a certain height; but the sins of every generation helped to swell the account, till they were ripe for ruin. The Hebrews were then ordered to destroy them utterly--"every thing that breathed." It was not the sins of only that generation which occasioned this sentence, but the sins of the nations. Many individuals who had no personal guilt were included in the sentence, and destroyed by its execution. The infants perished with the adults. The divine judgments executed on other wicked communities, have been similar. Sodom, and her daughters were each of them a petty kingdom; and when they had severally filled up the measure of their crimes, they all perished together, old and young. If more examples are desired, look to the seed of Jacob. That people had a long probation; but when they had filled up the measure of national guilt, their sins were brought to remembrance and punished upon them. The ten tribes revolted from God, when they left the house of David and set Jeroboam on the throne. For more than two centuries and an half God waited with them, and warned them of the evils which their sins would bring upon them; but they repented not. When their iniquity was full, he gave their enemies power over them; "rooted them up out of the good land which he had given their fathers, and scattered them beyond the river." The kingdom of Judah remained about an hundred and thirty years after "Ephraim was broken that he was not a people." Those, who adhered to the house of David did not revolt so early as those who seceded at the division of the kingdom. Divine worship according to the law of Moses, was kept up among them; and several pious princes reigned over them. But though the progress of impiety was less rapid than in the other kingdom, there was a departure from the living God, and idolatry and immorality prevailed, till they also filled up the measure of their sins. Then, impartial heaven "stretched over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab." * * 2 Kings xxi. 13.