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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
hide
me,"
I
will
withdraw
my
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
this
in
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,
in
any 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