Numbers 20:12

Reader! do not fail to remark how the LORD deals in faithfulness. GOD will not allow iniquity in his people to go unrebuked. The tenor of the covenant indeed is, if the children (of the Redeemer) forsake his law, and walk not in his judgments, he will visit their transgression with the rod, etc. though the everlasting virtue of the covenant is the same: there is a blessed nevertheless which will not suffer the smallest alteration here. JESUS hath purchased the salvation of his people, and both their persons and their mercies are the price of his blood. So that when GOD corrects his people it is not for the satisfaction of his justice; for that is and hath been fully satisfied by him, who hath borne their sins and made satisfaction for them; but it is for the display of his purity, and that we might be made partakers of his holiness. See Psalms 89:33 with Hebrews 12:6. Reader! I cannot, I dare not dismiss the observations which arise out of this event, without calling upon you to remark, that if the LORD will not overlook the provocations of his own people without giving those evidences of his displeasure, what must the sins of his enemies call for? If a father thus corrects his child, surely for the same offence he will turn the servant out of door. Pray read that scripture: Psalms 2:11.