Longsuffering of God, Marvel of – Charles Spurgeon

AH! my brethren, can you think for a minute what you and I would do if some cruel wretches should take our children and torture them, and burn them alive; how would our wrath be up, and how would we strike in their defense! But remember that from the days of Christ until now the dear children of God, dearer to him than our children are to us, have been shut up in prison to rot, have been sawn asunder, have wandered about in sheep skins and goat skins, have been burned at Smithfield and a thousand other places, and have crimsoned the snows of the Alps with their blood; and yet God, in the great deeps of his forbearance, has been still. There has been, it is true, a vengeance in providence in the long run: the reader of history knows how God has avenged every persecution; still the recompense was slow. There were no fiery arrows to pierce Bishop Bonner, when he condemned Anne Askew; there were no immediate lightning flashes to wither Domitian or Nero when they insultingly put the people of God to death. No, the Lord bears long with them, and his longsuffering is a deep, a great deep.