"You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all of your sins."
Yet since almost all punishment in this life is remedial, the saying admits another meaning that God would leave no sin unchastened in those whom He had made His own. Both are true meanings, fulfilled at different times. God chastens in proportion to His love, in the Day of grace. He punishes, in proportion to the grace and love despised and trampled upon without repentance in eternity. Here , “the most merciful Physician, cutting away the cancrous flesh, spareth not, that He may spare; He pitieth not, that He may the more pity. For ‘whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.’” Hence, the prayer , “Burn, cut, here; and spare forever.” Contrariwise , “we should esteem any sinner the more miserable, when we see him left in his sin, unscourged. Whence it is said, “The turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them” Proverbs 1:32. For whoso “turneth away” from God and is “prosperous,” is the nearer to perdition, the more he is removed from the severity of discipline.” : “This is the terrible, this the extreme case, when we are no longer chastened for sins, when we are no more corrected for offending. For when we have exceeded the measure of sinning, God, in displeasure, turneth away from us His displeasure.” : “When you see a sinner, affluent, powerful, enjoying heath, with wife and circle of children, and that saying is fulfilled, ‘They are not in trouble’ Psalms 73:5 as other ‘men, neither are they plagued like’ other ‘men,’ in him is the threat of the prophet fulfilled, ‘I will not visit. ‘“