+III. The purpose of Divine chastisement.+ No true parent finds any pleasure in chastising his children, and any pain inflicted without pure motives would be an evil. God corrects--1. _To restrain from Sin._ This explains much that happened to the Israelites, and also much that transpires in the history of all men. God sees the danger, the leaning to wrong, and with Him prevention is better than cure.[2] 2. _To show the consequences of sin._ Men profess to be practical, and wish to be practically dealt with; hence they say: "Words are not enough; there must be blows." The transgressor must feel as well as hear, or he will run mad. God has always taught men that His laws are more than mere word-rules; there is force in them, and he that breaks them must suffer. 3. _To bring to Himself._[3] Hence we often hear Him say, "Why will ye be stricken any more?" Remonstrance always precedes the lash to show His love and tenderness.--_Charles Jupe._ FOOTNOTES: [1] The stall-fed ox, that is grown fat, will know His careful feeder, and acknowledge too; The generous spaniel loves his master's eye, And licks his fingers though no meat be by; But man, ungrateful man, that's born and bred By Heaven's immediate power; maintained and fed By His providing hand; observed, attended, By His indulgent grace; preserved, defended, By His prevailing arm; this man, I say, Is more ungrateful, more obdure than they. Man, O most ungrateful man, can ever Enjoy Thy gift, but never mind the Giver; And like the swine, though pampered with enough, His eyes are never higher than the trough.--_Frances Quarles._ [2] The consequences of sin are meant to warn from sin. The penalty annexed to it is, in the first instance, corrective, not penal. Fire burns the child, to teach it one of the truths of this universe--the property of fire to burn. The first time it cuts its hand with a sharp knife, it has gained a lesson which it will never forget. Now, in the case of pain, this experience is seldom, if ever, in vain. There is little chance of a child forgetting that fire will burn, and that sharp steel will cut; but the moral lessons contained in the penalties annexed to wrong-doing are just as truly intended to deter men from evil, though they are by no means so unerring in enforcing their application. The fever, in the veins and the headache which succeed intoxication are meant to warn against excess. On the first occasion they are simply corrective; in every succeeding one they assume more and more a penal character, in proportion as the conscience carries with them the sense of ill-desert.--_F. W. Robertson,_ 1816-1853.