Again: It is reasonable to believe that in the future world there will be variety of service, calling for different endowment and capacity to perform it; and if such different equipment is required, we may be sure that it is provided. If that is so, equality cannot be the ideal condition.
Still more: As time is so short, and eternity so long, the least compensation in eternity would infinitely over-balance the greatest inequality in time. From that point of view we could not look for equality, even in the most distant age.
Add to these various considerations the Scriptural intimation that "one star differeth from another star in glory," with all that is intended to be illustrated by that statement; and the idea of equality seems to have no place.
On such grounds as these we believe that there will be forever a variety of endowment and capacity; and that such variety is in full agreement with God's infinite justice.
VII.
PROCESSES OF PURIFICATION.
Different Processes—The Case of Saul—Changed in a Moment—No
Violence to Human Freedom—The Case of Nebuchadnezzar—Sudden or
Slow—New Illumination—Basis of Warning—An Object Lesson—Function
of Suffering.
Here I would advert to the different processes that may be used for man's redemption. We have referred to the case of Saul. His case is a typical one. It illustrates the fact that God can use means by which the most incorrigible sinner may be entirely changed in a moment; and that, without doing any violence to his freedom.
But now, take another case. It will show just as clearly that God sometimes uses means whereby the sinner is not reclaimed in a moment, but that he requires a series of years. Take the case of Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from his throne, and excluded from the haunts of men. According to the account he "did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles' feathers, and his nails like birds' claws."
Such was the severe discipline to which the wicked king was subjected, and subjected for a long period. But in due time the discipline had its effect. The king was reformed and restored. I suppose God could have captured him in a moment, as in the case of Saul; but He chose otherwise.