Hosea 4:3

Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth therein shall languish.

The social causes of human misery

It is a principle illustrated by the holy records, that when immorality has thoroughly infected a state, in defiance of all warning and ordinary discipline, it is given up to destruction, as was Sodom, and also many of the most renowned empires of ancient times. Nothing is more certain and calculable in action and result than are social evils and social virtues. To inquire into their nature and operation is the way to discover a remedy for a most serious evil, and to furnish the most powerful motives for its rigorous and incessant application. There is much misery in the world. A primary cause of it is to be found in man himself. We are not to blame society, or social relations in any of their forms, for all the evils that exist in, and seem to be developed by them. Man, by his very constitution, is a social creature. The depravity of man, both as the judicial result of his sin, and as aggravated by his habits both of thought and sensual indulgence, insinuates itself into all that he does, and corrupts every relation into which he enters. Each relation, therefore, however fitted to produce and increase his happiness, is found to contribute something to his misery, and presents to the observer some new form and modification of human suffering. Consider the common relations of human society.

I. The political. If justice were enthroned in every heart there would be no necessity for any political economy. The authority of God in every man’s conscience would render all human government totally unnecessary. Government as a human institution can be traced no higher than to the necessities that spring from the fall. So long as government is the administration of justice- the agency by which wrong and outrage are repressed and punished--it must contribute in a most effectual manner to the good of a community. It is not because of this relation between the governor and governed that political evils exist. When the governor ceases to be the administrator of justice at all, and when the abettors of wrong obtain power and influence, then righteousness is hurled from her throne, and law trampled in the mire under the feet of a lawless and licentious mob. The ruin of a state has generally commenced with the corruption of its government. The amount of calamity and woe inflicted on our species by corrupt and despotic governments forms too serious an item to be passed over in silence.

II. The causes of human misery operating through the medium of the relations of commerce. These we take in their most extensive sense, including the intercourse and the arrangements, agreed upon generally, for conducting the manufacturing and mercantile depart ments of trade. The morals of trade, it is to be feared, are but indefinite at the best. Gain is the object pursued; but the means of acquiring it are as various as the dispositions and amount of principle felt by the candidates will admit. There are certainly parts of the economy of trade that require attention and no slight measure of reform. There is much of suffering and unhappiness observable in the commercial relations of life; and these may be clearly traced either to causes originating in something defective in the moral principles on which the economy of trade is based, or in the dispositions of those who take a part in conducting its several departments. Illustrate from the relation of master and servant, of the employer and the employed. Late hours; time for payment of wages; speculation; getting out of temporary difficulties by giving accommodation bills, etc.

III. The causes of human misery in the relations of friendship and private society.

1. Society has its temptations, and these, if not carefully watched, may lead us into much evil. One of the first consequences of a fondness for society is the diminished fervour of the domestic affections. Another temptation is a love of display. A certain indolence too is generally induced by the kind of social intercourse to which we are now referring.

2. Society has its actual vices. What so pernicious as envy? Consider the conventional estimate formed of the character of vices, such as gambling. There never was a day in which the debauching indulgence of the appetites was so inexcusable as the present. The cure of all the evil and misery is the adoption of the principle and rule,--“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (J. Robinson.)

A terrible deprivation

A deprivation that comes upon the people in consequence of their heinous iniquities.

I. A deprivation of both material and spiritual good.

1. Of material good.

(1) Health. Sin is inimical to the bodily health and vigour of men and nations; it insidiously saps the constitution.

(2) Means of subsistence. Reference is to one of those droughts that occasionally occur in the East, and is ever one of the greatest calamities. How soon the Eternal can destroy our means of subsistence l

2. Of spiritual good. Their presumptuous guilt was as great as that of one who refused to obey the priest when giving judgment in the name of Jehovah (Deuteronomy 17:12). One of the greatest spiritual blessings of mankind is the strife and reproof of godly men. What a derivation for these to be taken away!

II. A deprivation leading to a terrible doom.

1. The destruction of both priests and people. The meaning is that no time, night or day, shall be free from the slaughter both of the priests and of the people. This was literally true of the Ten Tribes at this time.

2. The destruction of the social state. “And I will destroy thy mother.” Who was the mother? The Israelitish state. And it was destroyed. (Homilist.)

With the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven.

The sharers in Divine judgment

The Lord’s sentence or threatening for these sins is that extreme desolation shall come, not only on the people, but on the land, and on all the creatures for their sakes, even on the fishes which were in lakes and ponds in the land. Doctrine--

1. The judgments of God upon the visible Church will be very sad and grievous, when they are inflicted, and as universal as sin hath been.

2. Albeit the Lord’s judgments on sinful and impenitent people do at first utterly consume them, yet that will be only that they may live awhile to feel their own miseries, and then be consumed by them, if they repent not.

3. Sinful man is a great enemy to all the creatures, as well as to himself; he makes both himself and them to mourn and pine away, because he will not mourn indeed.

4. As the glory of all the creatures is but a flower, which God will soon make to wither and languish when He pursueth for sin, so the creatures will not help man when God is angry at him; but as these draw him from God, so God is provoked to cut him short in them, as here they are consumed with him. (George Hutcheson.)

All creatures share the calamities of sin

As beasts, birds, and fishes, and in a word, all other things, have been created for the use of men, it is no wonder that God should extend the tokens of His curse to all creatures, above and below, when His purpose is to punish men. When God curses innocent animals for our sake, we then dread the more, except, indeed, we be under the influence of extreme stupor. (John Calvin.)