George MacDonald. An Antology (edited by C.S.Lewis) -
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will burn them clean? . . . They do not want to be clean, and they cannot
bear to be tortured.
[ 6 ] Sinai
And is not God ready to do unto them even as they fear, though with
another feeling and a different end from any which they are capable of
supposing? He is against sin: insofar as, and while, they and sin are one,
He is against them-against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their
hopes; and thus He is altogether and always for them. That thunder
and
lightning and tempest, that blackness torn with the sound of a trumpet, that
visible horror billowed with the voice of words, was all but a faint image
... of what God thinks and feels against vileness and selfishness, of the
unrest of unassuageable repulsion with which He regards such conditions.
[ 7 ] No
When we say that God is Love, do we teach men that their fear of Him is
groundless? No. As much as they fear will come upon them, possibly far more.
. . . The wrath will consume what they call themselves; so that the
selves
God made shall appear.
[ 8 ] The Law of Nature
For that which cannot be shaken shall remain. That which is immortal in
God shall remain in man. The death that is in them shall be consumed. It is
the law of Nature- that is, the law of God-that all that is destructible
shall be destroyed.
[ 9 ] Escape Is Hopeless
The man whose deeds are evil, fears the burning. But the burning will
not come the less that he fears it or denies it. Escape is hopeless. For
Love is inexorable. Our God is a consuming fire. He shall not come out till
he has paid the uttermost farthing.
[ 10 ] The Word
But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim