HKB
For God there assumes the character of a Father, who repents even of his righteous severity, when he has been constrained to chastise his son with any degree of rigour.
XXXIV. It is necessary that the faithful should be provided with these reflections in the anguish of afflictions. “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God, upon which his name is called.”(1777) What would the children of God do, if they believed the severity which they feel to be the vengeance of God upon them? For he who, under the strokes of the Divine hand, considers God as an avenging Judge, cannot but conceive of Him as incensed against him, and hostile to him, and will therefore detest his scourge itself as a curse and condemnation; in a word, he who thinks that God is still determined to punish him, can never be persuaded to believe himself an object of the Divine love. The only one who receives any benefit from the Divine chastisements, is he who considers God as angry with his crimes, but propitious and benevolent towards his person. For otherwise the case must necessarily be similar to what the Psalmist complains of having experienced: “Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.”(1778) And what Moses also speaks of: “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.”(1779) On the contrary, David, speaking of his paternal chastisements, in order to show that believers are rather assisted than oppressed by them, sings: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.”(1780) It is certainly a severe temptation, when the Lord spares unbelievers, and conceals their crimes, while he appears more rigorous towards his own children. For their consolation, therefore, he adds the admonition of the law, whence they may learn, that it is for the promotion of their salvation when they are recalled into the way, but that the impious are precipitated into their errors, which end in the pit. Nor is it of any importance whether the punishment be eternal or temporal. For wars, famines, plagues, and diseases are curses from God, as well as the judgment of eternal death itself, when they are inflicted as the instruments of the Lord’s wrath and vengeance against the reprobate.