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| Chapter LXXII
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Chapter
LXXII.
We speak, indeed, of the “wrath” of
God. We do not, however, assert that it indicates any
“passion” on His part, but that it is something which is
assumed in order to discipline by stern means those sinners who have
committed many and grievous sins. For that which is called
God’s “wrath,” and “anger,” is a means of
discipline; and that such a view is agreeable to Scripture, is evident
from what is said in the sixth Psalm, “O Lord, rebuke me not in Thine anger, neither chasten me in
Thy hot displeasure;”3985
and also in
Jeremiah. “O Lord, correct me, but with
judgment: not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring me to
nothing.”3986
Any one,
moreover, who reads in the second book of Kings of the
“wrath” of God, inducing David to number the people, and
finds from the first book of Chronicles that it was the devil who
suggested this measure, will, on comparing together the two statements,
easily see for what purpose the “wrath” is mentioned, of
which “wrath,” as the Apostle Paul declares, all men are
children: “We were by nature children of wrath, even as
others.”3987
Moreover,
that “wrath” is no passion on the part of God, but that
each one brings it upon himself by his sins, will be clear from the
further statement of Paul: “Or despisest thou the riches of
His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy
hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of
God.” How, then, can any one treasure up for himself
“wrath” against a “day of wrath,” if
“wrath” be understood in the sense of
“passion?” or how can the “passion of wrath” be
a help to discipline? Besides, the Scripture, which tells us not
to be angry at all, and which says in the thirty-seventh
Psalm, “Cease
from anger, and forsake wrath,”3988
and which commands us by the mouth of Paul to “put off all these,
anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication,”3989
would not involve God in the same passion
from which it would have us to be altogether free. It is
manifest, further, that the language used regarding the wrath of God is
to be understood figuratively from what is related of His
“sleep,” from which, as if awaking Him, the prophet
says: “Awake, why sleepest Thou, Lord?”3990
and again: “Then the Lord awaked
as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of
wine.”3991
If, then,
“sleep” must mean something else, and not what the first
acceptation of the word conveys, why should not “wrath”
also be understood in a similar way? The
“threatenings,” again, are intimations of the (punishments)
which are to befall the wicked: for it is as if one were to call
the words of a physician “threats,” when he tells his
patients, “I will have to use the knife, and apply cauteries, if
you do not obey my prescriptions, and regulate your diet and mode of
life in such a way as I direct you.” It is no human
passions, then, which we ascribe to God, nor impious opinions which we
entertain of Him; nor do we err when we present the various narratives
concerning Him, drawn from the Scriptures themselves, after careful comparison one with
another. For those who are wise ambassadors of the
“word” have no other object in view than to free as far as
they can their hearers from weak opinions, and to endue them with
intelligence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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