your burden from which you groan and long to be delivered? If it be so, we may pronounce your case a hopeful one. Yet rest not in present attainments; but press forward to the mark. Examine yourselves. Adopt the prayer of the holy psalmist, "Search me, O God, and know my heart : try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 3

Ps. cxxxix. 23, 24.

SERMON VII.

ON REPENTANCE.

HOSEA xiv. 1.

"O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God: for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity."

THE history of the children of Israel affords us a useful lesson. In it we see the perverseness and ingratitude of man, and the forbearance and goodness of God. Israel's sins were peculiarly aggravated by their having been committed after repeated and wonderful deliverances, after signal chastisements and mercies. God is slow in his movements to finally overthrow a guilty nation, family, or an individual.

At the period of Hosea's prophecy, Israel's continued rebellion against God had nearly exhausted his patience toward that people. The divine patience has an end. Their kingdom was near its

termination; for the measure of their iniquity was nearly full. God was about to bring upon them the desolating sword, to cut them off as a nation. When nations or individuals are repeatedly warned of their danger, and exhorted to turn from their iniquities, yet obstinately continue to rebel against God, it is an awful indication of impending judgments. This was exemplified in the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, i. e. the ten tribes: for soon after the prophet had predicted what is contained in the last verse of the preceding chapter, the Assyrians invaded the land; destroyed or carried away captive its inhabitants, and put an end to that rebellious and incorrigible people.

The prophet having reproved the people for their iniquities, having reminded them of God's former mercies, and declared that God was still ready to receive them on their repentance; and having denounced the awful judgment of God against them if they persisted in their wickedness, he concluded his message to them with an exhortation and encouragement to repentance: "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God: for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity."

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Though these words were primarily addressed to Israel, we shall consider them,

I. AS CONVEYING A GRACIOUS EXHORTATION

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I. THE TEXT CONVEYS A GRACIOUS EXHORTATION TO ALL SINNERS TO LORD."

RETURN UNTO THE

The encouragement held out to sinners to return unto the Lord is great, is abundant. The Lord is full of mercy and tender compassion towards every penitent. He willeth not the death of a sinner. He looks, he longs for his return. He is like a kind, forgiving father, who watches with pain every wayward step of his perverse and foolish child. He allures the wanderer to return, by invitations and expostulations: he draws by his love; he drives with his chastising rod. Though the poor wanderer still continues to walk frowardly, the Lord's pitying eye follows him: and, unwilling to abandon him to deserved ruin, thus expostulates: "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim ?" i. e. how shall I destroy thee as I destroyed those two wicked places, and set them up as monuments of my wrath?

1. We must "return unto the Lord" with con

1 Hosea xi. 8.

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sideration. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider your ways." We should seriously consider how ungratefully we are acting towards our Creator, Benefactor, and Redeemer, by neglecting his salvation, by abusing his manifold mercies, and by despising his authority. Hath he given us life, does he daily sustain that life, hath he endued us with mental capacities, and hath he provided means for the enlargement of those capacities, that we may devote them all to dishonour his holy name? Surely not. Has a rich and free salvation been wrought out for us, that we may go on securely in sin? O no. Let us consider what will be the end of

continuing, year after year, in a course of sin, of ingratitude, of rebellion. What an accumulated weight of guilt will rest upon our souls, and press them down in the bottomless pit, if we continue to despise the long-suffering and patience of God! Dear brethren, lay these matters to heart, and may God the Holy Spirit fix them indelibly in your

minds !

2. We should "return unto the Lord” “with weeping and with supplications." A proper review and a due consideration of our past follies and perverse wanderings on the one hand, and of God's mercies and patience towards us on the other hand, will produce sorrow of heart, will cause tears of Haggai i. 5.

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