"
"And they became the children of another?"
"Yes, of Satan."
"Then God disowns his children, and when they are the children of
another, adopts them? Miss Carmichael, it is too foolish! Would that
be like a father? Because his children do not please him, he
repudiates them altogether; and then he wants them again--not as his
own, but as the children of a stranger, whom he will adopt! The
original relationship is no longer of any force--has no weight even
with their very own father! What ground could such a parent have to
complain of his children?"
"You dare not say the wicked are the children of God the same as the
good."
"That be far from me! Those who do the will of God are infinitely
more his children than those who do not; they are born of the
innermost heart of God; they are then of the nature of Jesus Christ,
whose glory is obedience. But if they were not in the first place,
and in the most profound fact, the children of God, they could never
become his children in that higher, that highest sense, by any
fiction of adoption. Do you think if the devil could create, his
children could ever become the children of God? But you and I, and
every pharisee, publican, and sinner in the world, are equally the
children of God to begin with. That is the root of all the misery
and all the hope. Because we are his children, we must become his
children in heart and soul, or be for ever wretched.
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