9. He will not always chide. He will
sometimes, for he cannot endure that his people should harbor sin in their
hearts, but not forever will he chasten them; as soon as they turn to him and
forsake their evil ways he will end the quarrel. He might find constant cause
for striving with us, for we have always something in us which is contrary to
his holy mind, but he refrains himself lest our spirits should fail before him.
It will be profitable for any one of us who may be at this time out of
conscious fellowship with the Lord, to inquire at his hands the reason for his
anger. When his children turn from their sins he soon turns from his wrath. Neither will he keep his anger forever. He bears no grudges. The Lord would not
have his people harbor resentments, and in his own course of action he sets
them a grand example. When the Lord has chastened his child he has done with
his anger: he is not punishing as a judge, but acting as a father, and
therefore after a few blows he ends the matter, and presses his beloved one to
his bosom as if nothing had happened; or if the offense lies too deep in the
offender’s nature to be thus overcome, he continues to correct, but he never
ceases to love, and he does not let his anger with his people pass into the
next world, but receives his erring child into his glory.
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