No, my friends, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, were, better men than those round them, just because they had the humble and contrite heart; because they confessed that the root of sin was in them too, as much as in their fellow-country men; because they took their share of the public blame, their share of the public burden.

And their work and wish was, to breed in their fellow-countrymen the same humble and contrite heart which they had; to make them confess that their only hope lay in turning back to God, and doing right.  But they could not succeed.  Sin was too strong for them.  So as Isaiah had warned the Jews, God did the work himself.  God took the matter into his own hands, and arose out of his place to punish those Jews, and to make short work with them, by famine, and pestilence, and earthquake, and foreign invasion, till they were all carried away captive to Babylon:  to see if that would teach them to know that God was the Lord; to see if that would breed in them the humble and contrite heart.

But God says to these poor Jews, Do not fancy that I have taken a spite against you.  Not so.  I will not contend for ever.  I will not be always angry; for then the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made.  I have made you, God says; and I love you.  I wish to save you, and not to destroy you.  If God really hated any man, do you suppose that he would endure that man for a moment in his universe?  Do you suppose that he would not sweep that man away, as easily and as quickly as we do a buzzing gnat when it torments us?  Do you fancy that God lets you, or me, or any man, or any creature live one single instant, except in the hope of saving him, and of making him better than he is; of making him of some use, somewhere, some day or other?  Do you suppose, I say, that God endures sinners one moment, save because he loves sinners, and willeth not the death of a sinner, but that he should be converted and live?  No.  ‘God our Saviour,’ says St. Paul to Timothy, ’willeth that all men should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth;’ and therefore if they are not saved it must be their own fault, and not God’s; it must be they who will not be saved, though God wills that they should be, as Isaiah goes on to show.  For he says—­God cries to men, Peace!  I create the fruit of the lips; that is, I give men cause to thank me.  I create it.  I make it without their help.  I do not sell them my mercy.  I give it them freely.  I say, Peace, peace, to them all, To him who is near, and him who is afar off; peace to all mankind; peace on earth, and goodwill to men.  God is everlastingly at peace with himself, and at peace with all his creatures, and with all his works; and he wills, in his boundless love, to bring them all into his peace, the peace which passeth understanding; that they may be at peace with him; and, therefore at peace with themselves, and at peace with each other.