Many who do not belong to the Church, and many, alas! who profess to
belong to the Church, will tell you that God's method is, first to
terrify men by the threats of the law and the sight of their sins and the
fear of damnation, and afterwards to reveal to them the gospel and His
mercy and salvation in Christ. Now I can only answer that it is not so.
Not so in fact. These preachers themselves may do it; but that is no
proof that God does it. What God's plan is can only be known from facts,
from experience, from what actually happens; first in God's kingdom of
nature, and next in God's kingdom of grace, which is the Church. And in
the kingdom of nature how does God begin with mankind? What are a
child's first impressions of this life? Does he hear voices from heaven
telling little children that they are lost sinners? Does he see
lightning come from heaven to strike sinners dead, or earthquakes rise
and swallow them up? Nothing of the kind. A child's first impressions
of this life, what are they but pleasure? His mother's breast, warmth,
light, food, play, flowers, and all pleasant things,--by these God
educates the child, even of the heathen and the savage:--and why? If
haply he may feel after God and find Him, and find that He is a God of
love and mercy, a giver of good things, who knows men's necessities
before they ask,--a good and loving God, and not a being such as I will
not, I dare not speak of.
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