word of God; any one who can appreciate the glorious and merciful objects of a Heavenly Father in those afflictions, will view them in a widely different light. The carnal and ignorant may see in them nothing but exactions of Divine justice, penalties for sin partially forgiven. But the spiritual mind will trace in them the discipline of Love, not inflicting penalties for the past, but preparing the way for a more glorious futurity.

Such afflictions therefore are to be regarded as signs of love, not of vengeance. They are to be desired more than dreaded. They are to be endured, not expiated. If they are not endured, the Christian suffers loss. If they are removed, his reward is less. If you fast, and pray, and with many tears beseech God to remove from you these temporal calamities, you may indeed prevail, though one might almost doubt whether any prayer like this, proceeding from a heart unable to appreciate the Divine mercy, would be heard. The case of the inhabitants of Gadara however shews, that God will hear the prayers of those who intreat Him to" depart out of their coasts;" and it may be apprehended that He will also hear the prayers of those who ignorantly pray that his grace of afflictive dispensations may be removed from them-of those who regard his graces as calamities, his works of love as punishments.

You spend your lives in endeavouring to avert these temporal afflictions, which you regard as so

many exactions of God's justice. It is It is very true that you regard them as punishments for sin, and that they therefore appear to you in a most formidable light. But still you really are endeavouring to avert what is not a punishment for sin, but a mark of God's favour. The temporal afflictions of the righteous are seen by you in a false light. You think them judgments, while they are really mercies.

But you will answer, when thus pressed, that you do admit that temporal evils are frequently intended for spiritual blessings, though you hold that they are also often intended as punishments of sin remitted; and that it is not your design to avert them in the former sense, but in the latter.

I would enquire then, first, (admitting your doctrine for the sake of argument,) what means you have of determining that such temporal evils may not be, at once, punishments for sins past, and means of future improvement and reward? If they be so, you inflict an injury on yourselves by seeking to avert them, and yet you cannot deny that the case is possible.

Secondly, I ask, whether such temporal evils, if they are (as you imagine) inflicted for the punishment of sin remitted as regards its greater penalties, may not be necessary to preserve ourselves from falling again into sin, or necessary for the instruction of others? And here again is a reason why we should not earnestly labour to avert such temporal evils;

because in so doing we may be only interfering with our own salvation or that of the brethren, and counteracting the designs of God.

So much for your appeal to our "feelings," and to the supposed connection between temporal suffering and sin. If you persist in asserting that temporal afflictions have a necessary connection with sin, you accuse our Saviour himself of siu, and fall into damnable heresy.

II. I now turn to the proofs which you adduce from Scripture in support of your doctrine. And here let me be permitted to state the question more clearly.

It is not in question then, whether temporal penalties are, in the order of God's providence, (especially under the former dispensations,) due to, and inflicted on, sin; but whether they are, under the Gospel, due to sin remitted and pardoned.

Hence you will at once admit, that it would be the merest sophistry and folly to attempt to prove your doctrine from the simple fact, that temporal penalties for sin have been inflicted on sinners under the old or new dispensations, while the question is whether they have been inflicted on pardoned

sinners.

In considering the testimonies which have been advanced in support of your view, I must here turn from your scanty collection of scriptural examples, to the fuller and more systematic argument of Tournely. He collects "those places of

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Scripture which signify that God, after the pardon of sin, still requires an avenging temporal punish"ment (ultricem pœnam temporalem) from the penitent."

"The example of David (2 Kings [Samuel] xii,) "is especially remarkable. For although Nathan "had heard from the prophet (verse 13,) The "Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt "not die,' he immediately adds, Howbeit, because

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by this deed thou hast given great occasion to "the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child "also that is born unto thee shall surely die;' "and verse 10,Now therefore the sword shall

never depart from thine house; because thou "hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of "Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.' God remits "on one side the guilt and eternal punishment; "but on the other he requires temporal punishment "as well from the son as the father himself, "not merely for the discipline and amendment of "David, and the example of others, as the Inno"vators and especially Daillé commonly reply, but "also for the punishment and chastisement of par"doned sin. Because by this deed thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme..... Because thou hast despised me,' "saith the holy context, which particle' Because' "denotes that the sin of David was the real cause "of all the evils which he suffered, and not merely their occasion, as Daillé cavils for with what

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"more significant terms could Scripture have expressed the cause?" (Tournely, De Pœnit. t. ii. p. 4.)

You will admit, Sir, that this is as clear and cogent an argument as can well be deduced from this passage in favour of your view. Let us now consider it more closely. It is obvious, therefore, that God by Nathan remitted the extreme punishment which was due to David's sin, "Thou shalt "not die," and that at the same time He imposed a lesser temporal punishment for his sin, "The "child that is born unto thee shall surely die." But, Sir, I must deny that this example furnishes any necessary proof that a similar mode of proceeding characterizes the present dealings of God with us. A temporal penalty of some sort was necessary when God visibly interfered in the affairs of men. But now that his guidance is entirely spiritual and invisible, temporal penalties are no longer necessary in the same way; and had David lived under the Christian dispensation, his crime might not have involved such consequences when truly repented of. Under the former dispensation the case was widely different. Had the favoured servant of God, the chosen pastor of God's people, been permitted to commit most grievous and scandalous sins, without any visible signs of God's indignation, the most fatal results must have followed. The justice of God would have been impugned. Sin would have been encouraged.