610 SPIRITUAL CHASTISEMENTS. " away ;" that is, this I will use as means to restore him from the power of sin which has now gotten the upper hand. And in Heb. xii. God gives us a large account how he chasteneth his people on purpose to make them return to him. Well then, when God smites us let u mourn to think that we, by our transgressions, should provoke him to take this method for the vindication of his holiness : and let each of us say, Lord, shew me wherein I have offended, and _I.will do so no more. The Third doctrine is this that spiritual chastisements will very probably follow when temporal ones 'do not attain the end and reduce the backslider. I was wrotÏi and smote him, but that had no effect, that was not sufficient to reclaim obdurate sinners ; therefore, saith God, " I will hideme," I will withdrawmy presence from you. If ye will walk contrary imto me, I will walk contrary unto you, saith the Lord; you shall not feel the smiles of my countenance : the elect of God have a sense of this sort of corrections, which the world have not; and therefore such sort of threatenings, though they affect not the unconverted sinners much, yet they affect the saints of the Most High : they that know what it is to have the face of God discovered to them, and to see his love, they are afraid of the hiding of it, and covering it with a thick cloud that they cannot see it. How doth Job complain ; " Beheld, I go forward, b,ut he is not " there ; backward, but I cannot perceive him ; on the " left-hand where he doth work, but I cannot find him ; " and on the right-hand, but I cannot see hint." If one might paraphrase thisin a gospel sense, it might be thus.: I go forward in the paths I now go, but cannot per- ceive him; I look backward to the paths I have already been, I recollect my former experiences, but cannot find him there. On his left hand, where he works, I can see nothing of him, inany of his providences or dealings with me ; or on his right-hand, in his gospel and grace. I can see nothing any where, either in his works, his pro- vidences, his nature or his grace ; he can hold no coil- verse with him either in private or public duties, in read- ing, in prayer, in hearing when the word of God is spoken, the soul can see little of the glory of God in it. This is a heavy judgment indeed, and those souls that
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=