[2.] For the temporal punishment : while we have sin in us, and are making out our claim, and our sanctification is imperfect, God hath reserved a liberty for his corrective discipline, and to punish and chastise his children as it shall seem meet to his wisdom and justice :
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Ps. Ixxxix, 32, 33, ' Then will I visit their transgression with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.' Now the temporal punishments are of two sorts —
(1.) Such aflBlictive evils as belong to his external government. It is hard to reckon up all of them to you, but the consummate evil is death, and the intermediate evils are of different kinds. It is said in one place, Dent. xxv. 20, ' All the curses which are written in this book shall light ujion him ;' but in another, Deut. xxviii. 61, 'Every curse which is not written in this book will the Lord bring upon thee,' whether written or not written, committed to record in the word, or dispensed in his providence. God hath reserved this liberty to him- self, to correct his sinning children in what way he pleaseth. To reduce it in short ; all good is from God, and all evil is iVom sin ; and in pursuance of his eternal love, and to keep them from damnation, he will sometimes chastise them sorely : 1 Cor. xi. 32, ' For when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world ; ' and Jer. v. 25, ' Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withheld good things from you ; ' Micah i. 5, ' For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel.' So Amos iii. 2, 'You only have I known of all the families of the earth : therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.' A rod dipped in guilt may smart sorely upon the backs of God's people. God's displeasure is felt in their chastisements and judgments. Surely their author is God, their cause is sin, their end is repentance. We are in danger to despise the calamities which befall us and our families if we do not own this truth. It is true it turneth to good, but still it is a natural evil. If we were without sin, he would give us the good without the evil ; you greatly mistake if you think there is no displeasure of God in all this.
(2.) There are certain afflictions which belong to his internal govern- ment, as when God manifesteth his displeasure to the party sinning by withdrawing his Spirit, the evil which David was so much afraid of: Ps. li. 10-12, 'Create in me a clean heart, 0 God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit.' He desireth that God Avould not withdraw his grace, and the influence and comfort of his Holy Spirit, which he had so justly forfeited by his heinous sin. This is the sorest judgment on this side hell, to be deprived of inward com- jnunion with God. It is not a total separation from liis favour and ])re8ence, but yet it is a degree of it ; when God is strange to us, and suspendeth all the acts of his complacential love, leaving us dull and senseless, having no heart or life to anything that is spiritually good. And if we repent not, God may go further, and deliver us up to brutish lusts. The evils are greater or less, according to the rate of our sins or neglects of grace. These penal withdrawings of the Spirit should therefore be observed ; for God showeth much of his pleasure or displeasure by giving or withholding the Spirit. His blessing and favour is showed this way : Prov. i. 23, ' Turn at my reproof, and I will pour out my Spirit to you.' But when God is refused, or neglected,
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or highly provoked, he then departs : Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12, ' Israel would none of me ; so I gave them np to tlieir own hearts' lusts.' This is more than all the calamities in the world,
2. In a way of sanctification. So Christ taketli away sin by giving us his Spirit, whereby the stains of our nature are cleansed. We are renewed in righteousness and holiness, according to his image : Eph. iv. 24, ' And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness ; ' 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' We beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into his image and likeness.'
Now concerning this way of taking away sin, let me observe four things —
[1.] That the Spirit is given* us as the fruit of Christ's merit and sacrifice : Titus iii. 5, 6, 'Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regen- eration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour ; ' Gal. iii. 14, ' That the blessing of Abraham might come on the gentiles, through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of" the Spirit through faith.' He was the rock that was smitten by the rod of Moses : 1 Cor. x. 4, ' And they did all drink of the same spiritual drink ; for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.' If Christ were the rock, the water that flowed from the rock was the Spirit : John iv. 14, ' Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give, shall never thirst ; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life ; ' John vii. 38, 39, ' He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.' Well, then, upon the account of Christ's merit and sacrifice, God doth by the Spirit create a clean heart within us, and a right spirit, that we may live in obedience to his holy will.