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Updated: June 4, 2025
The first race of men, free as yet from every depraved passion, lived without guile and crimes, and therefore without chastisements or restraints; nor was there occasion for rewards, when of their own accord they pursued righteousness: and as they courted nothing contrary to justice, they were debarred from nothing by terrors.
Now all this, and much more, can God do to his as a Father by his rod and fatherly rebukes; ah, who know but those that are under them, what terrors, fears, distresses, and amazements God can bring his people into; he can put them into a furnace, a fire, and no tongue can tell what, so unsearchable and fearful are his fatherly chastisements, and yet never give them the spirit of bondage again to fear.
And then, ere ever we are aware of what we are doing, we have let the arch-flatterer of religious superiority and of spiritual pride seduce us aside out of the lowly and heavenly way of love and humility till we are again brought back to it with rebukes of conscience and with other chastisements.
'The mills of God grind slowly. Bit by bit, with gradual steps, with dismal persistence, like the slow drops on the rock, the judgments of God trickle out on the mocking heart. It takes a long time for a child to learn a pageful when he gets his lesson a sentence at a time. So slowly do His chastisements fall on men who have despised the continuous messages of His love.
We should be at least resigned, even under such chastisements, when we remember they are inflicted by a Father's hand. But setting aside occasions of this kind, is there not a demand on our whole nature, for general cheerfulness? It is not only the "sunshine of the soul," but that of the body. The truly cheerful are not only happier in their minds and spirits, but also in their very bodies.
He returned to La Rioja, with the disorganized remnant of his band, marking his path with blood and the infliction of atrocious chastisements. Even in adversity he is terrible and is obeyed.
Contenting themselves, for the most part, with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery in the mines, they left the unhappy victims of their justice some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former state.
Many times, upon remonstrating with his master about the groundlessness of his fears, he would be made to feel the heaviness of his hand, and chastisements were the reward of his devotion so frequently that his usually submissive spirit began to rebel, and Frank resolved to leave the service of so peculiar and so thankless a master upon the first favorable opportunity that presented itself.
I have made thee my father's vicegerent on earth in the things of which I have made mention before. Take thou power to teach them to Mansoul; yea, to impose them with whips and chastisements if they shall not willingly hearken to do thy commandments.... And one thing more to my beloved Mr. Recorder, and to all the town of Mansoul.
"I will not waste a large sheet of paper to express the joy which we must all feel," he wrote to Idiaquez, "at this good news. God be praised for all, who gives us small chastisements to make us better, and then, like a merciful Father, sends us infinite rewards." And in the same strain he wrote; day after day, to Moura and Idiaquez, and to Philip himself.
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