Psalms 89:32

This is a strong pledge of the promise of God. The sons of this David are the children of the Bridegroom; all Christians therefore are called His sons. But it is much indeed that God promises, that if Christians, that is, "If his children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments" [Psalm 89:30]; "if they profane My statutes, and keep not My commandments" [Psalm 89:31]; I will not spurn them, nor will I send them away from Me in perdition: but what will I do? "I will visit their offenses with the rod, and their sin with scourges" [Psalm 89:32]. It is not the mercy of one that calls them only; but also that chastises and scourges them. Let therefore your Father's hand be upon you, and if you are a good son, repel not chastening; for "what son is there, to whom his father gives not chastening?" [Hebrews 12:7] Let Him chasten him, so long as He takes not from him His mercy: let Him beat him when obstinate, as long as He does not disinherit him. If you have well understood the promises of your Father, fear not to be scourged, but to be disinherited: "for whom the Lord loves He chastens: and scourges every son whom He receives." [Hebrews 12:6] Does the sinful son spurn chastening, when he sees the only Son without sin scourged? "I will visit their offenses with the rod." Thus too the Apostle threatens: "What will you? Shall I come unto you with a rod?" [1 Corinthians 4:21] Let not pious sons say, if You are coming with a rod, come not at all. For it is better to be taught with the Father's rod, than to perish in the caresses of the robber.

These things we suffer by our own fault and our own deserving, even as the divine judgment has forewarned us, saying, "If they forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, if they profane my statutes and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes." It is for this reason that we feel the rods and the stripes, because we neither please God with good deeds nor atone for our sins. Let us of our inmost heart and of our entire mind ask for God's mercy, because He Himself also adds, saying, "Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not scatter away from them." Let us ask, and we shall receive; and if there be delay and tardiness in our receiving, since we have grievously offended, let us knock, because "to him that knocketh also it shall be opened," if only our prayers, our groanings, and our tears, knock at the door; and with these we must be urgent and persevering, even although prayer be offered with one mind.

The Lord certainly would not exhort to repentance unless he promised pardon to the penitent. In the Gospel the Lord says, "Just so, I tell you, there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just who have no need of repentance." Since it is written, "God is not the author of death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living," certainly he, who wishes no one to perish, desires sinners to do penance and to return to life again through penance. And there, through Joel the prophet, he cries out and says, "And now says the Lord, your God, return to me with your whole heart, at the same time with fasting, and weeping and mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and he softens the sentence inflicted against malice." In the Psalms we read also of the censure and of the clemency of God, at the same time, threatening and sparing, punishing that he may correct and saving when he has corrected. "I will visit," he says, "their crime with a rod and their guilt with stripes. Yet my kindness I will not take from them."

Not without reason was [the soul] given horns and hoofs, to bruise all the sheaves of the threshing floor, like the calf of Libanius, for, unless the sheaves are bruised and the straw winnowed, the corn within cannot appear and be separated. Let the soul that would advance in virtue first bruise and thresh out its superfluous passions that at the harvest it may have its fruits to show. How many weeds choke the good seed!

(1.) If we apply it to David, by his seed we are to understand his successors, Solomon and the following kings of Judah, who descended from the loins of David. It is supposed that they might degenerate, and not walk in the spirit and steps of their father David; in such a case they must expect to come under divine rebukes, such as the house of David was at this time under,