I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: For I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of you; And I will not come in wrath.
One says, "I do not see what the consequences may be if a man is to behave so badly to me as this one has done, and I am to overlook it, and say nothing about it. After that, I shall have every dog barking at my heels. I really think, sir, that you must not preach up there, and tell us absolutely to forgive, because you know that, if you tread on a worm, it will turn, and really there is something due to society. I cannot suffer such wrong as this, and pass it by, for everybody will be doing me a similar injury, and saying, 'He is such a flat, and so soft, that he will never resent it.'" My good sir, I am not going to argue with you. You are a man, so go your way among other men; but he of whom I speak is "God, and not man." He knows precisely what the consequences of forgiving sinners will be, and yet he does it. When we preach free pardon to the chief of sinners, what do you think they say in certain newspapers? Why, that we are encouraging immorality! The wise men who write for them say that our doctrine does not tend to public morality. Ah, pretty dears, a deal many of them know about morality! We do not care much about their opinion on that point, for we see well enough where true morals are. They run side by side with "free grace and dying love," and we intend still to preach those truths, albeit that there are some, and we must admit it, who will turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. If a man means to hang himself, he is sure to find a piece of rope somewhere; and when a man means to live in sin, he can find an argument for it even in the infinite mercy of God; but we must not stop our preaching because of that. God is willing to forgive crimes of the greatest horror, sins of an intense blackness, known in their full blackness alone to him; and as for the consequences, he is well aware of what they will be.  XI. I am going another step further. MEN WOULD NOT LOVE, ADOPT, HONOR, AND ASSOCIATE WITH THE OFFENDING. 