God took the
matter into his own hands, and arose out of his place to punish
those Jews, and to make short work with them, by famine, and
pestilence, and earthquake, and foreign invasion, till they were all
carried away captive to Babylon: to see if that would teach them to
know that God was the Lord; to see if that would breed in them the
humble and contrite heart.
But God says to these poor Jews, Do not fancy that I have taken a
spite against you. Not so. I will not contend for ever. I will
not be always angry; for then the spirit would fail before me, and
the souls which I have made. I have made you, God says; and I love
you. I wish to save you, and not to destroy you. If God really
hated any man, do you suppose that he would endure that man for a
moment in his universe? Do you suppose that he would not sweep that
man away, as easily and as quickly as we do a buzzing gnat when it
torments us? Do you fancy that God lets you, or me, or any man, or
any creature live one single instant, except in the hope of saving
him, and of making him better than he is; of making him of some use,
somewhere, some day or other? Do you suppose, I say, that God
endures sinners one moment, save because he loves sinners, and
willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted
and live? No.
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