Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.-Euripides, 480 - 406 BC

There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful to His
covenant. But the substance of that covenant is all pure mercy
and grace. If men presume to claim for themselves, upon the
basis of the covenant, some relationship with God other than
that of the sinner needing God's grace, the covenant has been
perverted. And where that has happened, God, in the sovereign
freedom of His grace, destroys these pretensions, calls "No
people" to be His people, breaks off natural branches and
grafts in wild slips, filling them with the life which is His
own life imparted to man. There is no law in His Kingdom save
the law of pure grace. That is why they come from east and west
to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, while the sons of the
Kingdom are cast out; for the sons of the Kingdom have no place
there unless they are willing to sit down with all whom the
Lord of the feast shall call, and to receive His mercy in
exactly the same way as the publicans and sinners.-Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998), The Household of God, London, SCM Press, 1953, New York: Friendship Press, 1954, p. 90-91