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unto the heavens, and he says, O my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God! for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespasses are grown up unto the heavens.—And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? for we have broken thy commandments. Ezra ix. 5-10. Thus it was foretold concerning the repenting Jews. Then thou shalt remember thy evil ways and be ashamed. Thou shalt be confounded and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame. Ezek. xvi. 61-63. There is good reason for this conscious shame, and therefore it is enjoined as a duty: Not for your sakes do I this unto you, saith the Lord God, be it known unto be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel. Ezek. xxxvi. 32.

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And what is the cause of this shame in the mourning penitent? O, says he, it is because I bear the reproach of my youth. "I carry upon me (as the original word signifies) the brand of infamy. My youth, alas! was spent in a thoughtless neglect of God and the duties I owed him; my vigorous days were wasted in sensual extravagances, and gratifying my criminal inclinations. My prime of life, which should have been sacred to the author of my existence, was spent in rebellion against him. Alas! my first thoughts, my virgin love, did not aspire to him; nor did my young desires, as soon as fledged, wing their flight to heaven. In short, the temper of my heart, and my course of my life, from the first exercises of reason to this happy hour of my conversion, were a disgrace to my rational nature; I have degraded myself beneath the beasts that perish." Behold, I am vile; I loath and abhor myself for all my filthiness and abominations. Ezek. xxxvi. 31. "And how amazing the grace of God to honor so base a wretch with a place among the children of his love!"

Thus I have delineated the heart of penitent Ephraim; and let me ask you, my brethren, is this your picture? Have you ever felt such ingenuous relentings, such just consternation, such holy shame and confusion? There can be no transition from nature to grace, without previous concern, &c. You all bear the reproach of that youth, you have all spent some unhappy days in the scandalous ways of sin, and your consciences still bear the brand of infamy. And have

you

ever been made deeply sensible of it? Has God ever heard you bemoaning vourselves thus in some mournful solitude, "Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke." Is there any such mourner here this day? then listen to the gracious voice of your heavenly Father, while,

III. I am illustrating the last, the sweetest part of the text, which expresses the tender compassion of God towards mourning penitents.

While they are bemoaning their case, and conscious that they do not deserve one look of love from God, he is represented as attentively listening to catch the first penitential groan that breaks from their hearts. Ephraim, in the depth of his despondency, probably did hardly hope that God took any notice of his secret sorrows, which he suppressed as much as possible from the public view: but God heard him, God was watching to hear the first mournful cry; and he repeats all his complaints, to let him know (after the manner of men) what particular notice he had taken of them. "I have surely heard, or hearing I have heard:" that is, "I have attentively heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus."

What strong consolation may this give to desponding mourners, who think themselves neglected by that God to whom they are pouring out their weeping supplications! He hears your secret groans, he courts your sighs, and puts your tears into his bottle. His eyes penetrate all the secrets of your heart, and he observes all their feeble struggles to turn to himself; and he beholds you not as an unconcerned spectator, but with all the tender emotions of fatherly compassion: for,

While he is listening to Ephraim's mournful complaints, he abruptly breaks in upon him, and sweetly surprises him with the warmest declarations of pity and grace. "Is this Ephraim, my dear son, whose mourning voice I hear; Is this my pleasant child, or (as it might be rendered) the child of my delights, who thus wounds my ear with his heart-rending groans?" What strange language this to an ungrateful, unyielding rebel, that continued obstinate till he was wearied out; that would not turn till dawn; that deserved to fall a victim to justice! This is the language of compassion all divine, of Grace that becomes a God.

This passage contains a most encouraging truth, that, however vile and abandoned a sinner has been, yet, upon his repentance, he becomes God's dear son, his favorite child. He will, from that moment, regard him, provide for him, protect him, and bring him to his heavenly inheritance, as his son and heir; for "Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,' &c. Rom. viii. 38, &c. "shall separate him from his father's love; but he shall inherit all things." Rev. xxi. 7. Yea, all things are his already in title, and he shall be made "greater than the kings of the earth;" he shall be made such as becomes so dignified a relation as that of a Son to the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

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And is not this magnet sufficient to attract all this assembly to their Father's house? Can you resist the almighty energy of such compassion? Return, ye perishing prodigals! Return; though you have sinned against Heaven, and before your Father, and are no more worthy to be called his sons, yet return, and you shall be made his dear sons, his pleasant children.

Arc none of you in need of such strong consolation as this? Do you want encouragement to return, and are you ready to spring up and run to your father's arms, upon the first assurance of acceptance? If this be what you want, you have an abundance for your supply. Are all your souls then in motion to return? Does that eye which darts through the whole creation at once, now behold your hearts moving towards God? Or am I wasting these gracious encouragements upon stupid creatures, void of sensation, that do not care for them, or that are so conceited of their own worth, as not to need them? If so, I retract these consolations, with respect to you, and shall presently tell you your doom. But let us farther pursue these melting strains of paternal pity.

"For since I spake against him, I do carnestly remember him still." Many and dreadful were the threatenings denounced against the sinner, while impenitent; and, had he continued impenitent, they would certainly have been executed upon him.-But the primary and immedi ate design of the threatenings are to make men happy, and not to make them miserable; they are designed to deter them from disobedience, which is naturally pro

ductive of misery, or to reclaim them from it, which is but to restrain them in their career to ruin. And consequently these threatenings proceed from love as well as the promises of our God, from love to the person, though from hatred to sin. So the same love which prompts a parent to promise a reward to his son for obedience, will prompt him also to threaten him, if he takes some dangerous weapon to play with: or, to choose a more pertinent illustration, for God is the moral ruler as well as the father of the rational world; the same regard to the public weal, which induces a lawgiver to annex a reward to obedience, will also prompt him to add penalties to his law to deter from disobedience; and his immediate design is not to make any of his subjects miserable, but to keep them from making themselves and others miserable by disobedience; though when the threatening is once denounced, it is necessary it should be executed, to vindicate the veracity of the lawgiver, and secure his gov ernment from insult and contempt. Thus when the primary end of the divine threatenings, namely, the deterring and reclaiming men from disobedience, is not obtained, then it becomes necessary that they should be executed upon the impenitent in all their dreadful extent; but when the sinner is brought to repentance, and to submit to the divine government, then all these threatenings are repealed, and they shall not hurt one hair of his head. And the sinner himself will acknowledge that these threatenings proved necessary mercies to him, and that the denunciation of everlasting punishment was one means of bringing him to everlasting happiness, and that divine vengeance in this sense conspired with divine grace to save him.

Consider this, ye desponding penitents, and allay your terrors. That God, who has written such bitter things against you in his word, earnestly and affectionately remembers you still, and it was with a kind intent to you that he thundered out these terrors at which you tremble. These acids, this bitter physic, were necessary for your recovery. These coals of fire were necessary to awaken you out of your lethargy. Therefore read the love of your Father, even in these solemn warnings. He affectionately remembers you still; he cannot put you out of his thoughts.

Therefore my bowels (adds the all-gracious Jehovah) are troubled for him. Astonishing beyond conception! how can we bear up under such words as these? Surely they must break our hearts, and overwhelm our spirits! Here is the great God, who has millions of superior beings to serve him, and who is absolutely independent upon them all, troubled, his very bowels troubled, for a rebellious, useless, trifling worm! Be astonished at this, ye angels of light, who are the witnesses of such amazing, such unbounded compassion; and wonder at it, O ye sons of men, who are more intimately concerned in it, stand and adore, as it were, in statues of admiration! It is true these words are not to be taken literally, as though the Deity were capable of sorrow, or any of the human passions: but he here condescends to adapt himself to the language of mortals, and to borrow such images as will convey to us the most lively ideas of his grace and tenderness to mourning penitents; and no image can answer this end better than that of a father, whose bowels are yearning over his mourning child, prostrate at his feet, and who, with eager embraces, raises him up, assuring him of pardon and acceptance. If any of you now know what it is to receive a penitent child in this manner, while all the father is tenderly working within you, you may form some affecting ideas of the readiness of our heavenly Father to receive returning sinners from this tender illustration.

The Lord concludes this moving speech with a promise that includes in it more than we can ask or think, sealed with his own sacred name. I will surely have mercy, or (according to the more emphatical original) with mercy, I will have mercy upon him, saith the Lord; this is, I will show abundant mercy to him, I will give him all the blessings that infinite mercy can bestow; and what can be needed more? This promise includes pardon, acceptance, sanctification, joy in the Holy Ghost, peace of conscience, and immortal life and glory in the future world. O sirs! what a God, what a Father is this! Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, &c. Micah vii. 18.

And can you, ye mourners in Zion, can you fear a rejection from such a tender Father? Can you dread to venture upon such abundant mercies? Is there a

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