Hosea 14:4 (Edward Reynolds)

Ver. 4. itill heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned aicay from him.

In the fornser words we have considered both Israel’s petition in time of trouble, and the promise and covenant in which thereupon they bind themselves. In these and the consequent words to the end of the 8th verse, we have the gracious answer of God to both, promising both in his free love to gi’ant their petition, and by his free grace to enable them to perform the covenant which they had made.

The petition consisted of two parts: 1. That God would “take away all iniquity.” 2. That he would do them good, or “receive” them “graciously.” To both these God gives them a full and gracious answer: 1. That he ill “take away all iniquity,” “I will heal their backsliding.” 2. That he would receive them graciously, do them good, and heap all manner of blessings upon them, which are expressed by the various metaphors of fruitfulness; opposite to the contrary expressions of judgment in former parts of the prophecy.

“I will heal their backsliding.” This is one of the names by which God is pleased to make himself known to his people, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” Exod. XV. 26; and, “Keturn, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings,” Jer. iii. 22.

Now God heals sin in a fourfold manner.

1. By a gracious pardon, buning, covering, not imputing them to us. So it seems to be expounded, Psal. ciii. 3; and that which is called healing in one place, is called forgiveness in another, Matt. xiii. lo; Mark iv. 1 2.

2. By a spiritual and eflectual reformation, purging the conscience from dead works, making it strong and able to serve God in new obedience; for that which health is to the body, holiness is to the soul. Therefore “the Sun of righteousness” is said to “arise with healing in his wings,” Mai. iv. 2; whereby wo are to understand the gracious influence of the THoIv Spirit conveying the virtue of the blood of Christ to the cont David homines in angiistiis constitiitos ct opprcssns sere alieno in suam tvitclam suscipicns, typns Christi est publicaiiiif ot peccatores recipiontis. Ciloss. Pbilulog. Sacr- lib. 2. p. -IJI.

science, even as the beams of the sun do the heat and influence thereof to the earth, thereby calling out the herbs and flowers, and healing those deformities which winter had brought upon it.

3. By removing and withdrawing judgments, which the sins of a people had brought, lilce wounds or sicknesses, upon them. So healing is opposed to smiting and wounding, Deut. xxxii. 39; Job v. 18; Hos. vi. 1, 2; Jer. xxxiii. 5, 6.

4. By comforting against the anguish and distress which sin is apt to bring upon the conscience. For as in physic there are purgatives to cleanse away corrupt humours, so there are cordials likewise to strengthen and refresh weak and dejected patients. And this is one of Christ’s principal works, to bind and heal the broken in heart, to restore comforts to mourners, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to have mercy upon those whose bones are vexed, Psal. cxlvii. 3; Isa. lvii. 18, 19; Luke iv. 18; Psah vi. 2, 3. I am not willing to shut any of these out of the meaning of the text, and that for a twofold reason:

1. Because it is an answer to that prayer, “Take away all iniquity.” The “all” that is in it, the guilt, the stain, the power, the punishment, the anguish, whatever evil it is apt to bring upon the conscience, remove it all, let it not do us any hurt.

2. Because God’s works are perfect; where he forgives sin, he removes it; where he convinces of righteousness, to the pax’don of sin, he convinces also of judgment, to the casting out of the prince of this world, and brings forth that judgment to victory. Matt. xii. 20.

“Their backsliding.” Then- prayer was against “all Iniquity,” and God in his answer thereunto singles out one kind of iniquity, but one of the greatest, by name. And that, 1. To teach them and us, when we pray against sin, not to content ourselves with generalities, but to bewail our great and special sins by name, those especially which have been most comprehensive, and proved the seminaries of many others.

2. To comfort them; for if God pardon by name the greatest sin, then surely none of the rest will stand in the way of his mercy; if he pardon the talents, we need not doubt but he will pardon the pence too. Paul was guilty of many other sins, but when he will magnify the grace of Chi-ist, he makes mention of his great sins, a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious; and comforts himself in the mercy which he had obtained against them, 1 Tim. i. 13.

3. To intimate the great guilt of apostacy and rebellion against God. After we have known him, and tasted of his mercy, and given up ourselves to his service, and come out of Egjqit and Sodom, then to look back again, and to be false in his covenant, this God looks on, not as a single sin, but as a compound of all sins. When a man turns from God, he does as it were resume and take home again upon his conscience all the sins of his life.

4. To proportion his answer to their- repentance. They confess their apostacy: they had been in covenant with God, they confess he was their “first husband,” Hos. ii. 7; and they forsook him, and sought to horses, to men, to idols, to vanity and lies: this is the sin they chiefly bewail; and therefore this is the sin which God chiefly singles out to pardon and to heal them of.

This is the great goodness of God toward ^“‘- ‘^c°”p?t ‘“”• ‘• those that pray in sincerity, that he fits

his mercy ad cardinem desiderii, answers them in the main of their desires, “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

“I will love them freely.” This is set down as the

* Si vera sit gratia, id est, gratuita, nihil invenit in homine cui merito debeatur, &c. Aug. lib. ile Patient, c. 20. et alibi passim. Ex se siimit materiam et velut quoddam seminarium

fountain of that remission, sanctification, and comfort, which are here promised. It comes not from our conversion to God, but from God’s free love and grace to us. And this is added,

1. To humble them, that they should not ascribe any thing to themselves, their repentance, their prayers, their covenants and promises, as if these had been the means to procure mercy for them, or as if there were any objective grounds of loveliness in them, to stir up the love of God towards them.* It is not for their sake that he does it, but for his own: The Lord sets his love upon them because he loved them, Deut. vii. 7, S. ‘■ Xot for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you,” Ezek. xxxvi. 32. He “will have mercy on whom” he “will have mercy,” Rom. ix. 15.

2. To support them, above the guilt of their greatest sins. Jlen think nothing more easy while they live in sin, and are not afl’ected with its weight and heinousness, than to believe in mercy and pardon. But when the soul, in conversion to God, feels the heavy burden of some great sins, when it considers its rebellion, and apostacy, and backsliding from God, it will then be very apt to think God will not forgive nor heal such great wickedness; there is a natural Novatianism in the timorous conscience of convinced sinners, to doubt and question pardon for sins of apo.stacy, and fallingafter repentance. Therefore in this case God takes a penitent off from the consideration of himself by his own thoughts, to the height and excellency of His thoughts who knows how to pardon abundantly, Isa. Iv. 7 — 9; Jer. xxix. 1 1; Ezek. xxxvii. 3. Nothing is too hard for love, especially free love, that has no foundation or inducement from without itself.

And because we read before, Hos. viii. 5, that God’s “anger “was” kindled against them,” therefore he here adds that this also should be “turned away” from them. Anger will consist with love; we find God angry with Moses, and Aaron, *““°’iJ5,’.’t ‘*-” and Miriam, and Asa; and ho does sometimes “visit with the rotl” and “with stripes,” where he yet does “not utterly take” away his “loving-kindness” from a people, Psal. lxxxix. 32, 33. A man maybe angry with his wife, or child, or friend, whom he yet dearly loves. And God is said to be thus angry with his people, when the eff’ects of displeasure are discovered towards them. Now, on then- repentance and conversion, God promises not only to “love them freely,” but to clear up his countenance toward them, to make them by the removal of judgments to see and know the fruits of his fi-ee love and bounty toward them. When David called Absalom home from banishment, this was an efl’ect of love; but when he said, “Let him not see my face,” this was the continuation of anger; but at last, when he admitted him into his presence and kissed him, then that anger too was turned away from him, 2 Sam. xiv. 21, 24, 33.

These words then contain God’s merciful answer to the first part of Israel’s prayer, for the taking away of all iniquity, which had been the fountain of those sad judgments under which they languished and pined away. ATierein there are two parts: I. The ground of God’s answer, his free love. II. A double fruit of that love: 1. In healing their backsliding. 2. In removing his anger and heavy judgments from them. We will briefly handle them in the order of the text.

“I will heal their backsliding.” AVhen God’s people retm-n to him and pray against sin, God, out of his free love, heals them of it. He first teaches them what to ask, and then tells them what he will give. Thus we find conversion and healing joined together, Isa. vi.

miserendi. — Miserendi causam et originem sumit ex proprio: judicandi vel iilciscendi magis ex noslro, Bern. serm. 5. in Natali Dom.

10. “And they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them,” Isa. xix. 22. “lleturn, ye backsliding children, and I will heal vour backslidings,” Jer. iii. 22. Men, if they be injured and provoked by those whom they have it in their power to ruin, though they return, and cry peccavi, and are ready to ask forgiveness, yet many times, out of pride and revenge, will take theu- time and opportunity to repay the wrong.* But God does not so; his pardons, as all his other gifts, are without exprobration; as soon as ever his servants come back to him with tears and confession, he looks not on them with scorn, but with joy; his mercy makes more haste to embrace them, than their repentance to return unto him, Luke xv. 20; then out comes the wine, the oil, the balm, the cordials; then the wounds of a Saviour do, as it were, bleed afresh to drop mercy into the sores of such a penitent. Oh, though he be not a dutiful, not “a pleasant child,” yet he is a child; though “I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him,” Jer. xxxi. 20. The Lord greatly complains of the inclination of his people to backsliding, and yet he cannot find in his heart to destroy them, but expresses a kind of conflict between justice and mercy, and at last resolves, “1 urirtStoltrtlfr ani God, and not man;” I can as well heal oifc.coiittniio.i- their backsliding by my love, as revenge juitiiia miserum it by my justice; thereiore “1 will not exei’”iSSik[“ic’’a- cute the fierceness of mine anger,” but I I’.illccnS.’S! ‘“‘ill cause thera to” walk after the Lord,” lu uirn. (crm. 1. JJos. xi. 7, 9, 10. Yea, SO merciful he is, that even on a hj’])ocritical conversion, when his people did but flatter and lie unto him, and “their heart was not right with him, neither were thc)’ stedfiist in his covenant;” yet the text saith, “he, being full of compassion, forgave theu- iniquity,” (not as to the justification of their persons, for that is never without faith unfeigned, but as to the mitigation of their punishment,) “and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir u]) all his wrath” against them, Psal. lxxviii. 34 — 38. So Ezek. xx. 17, ‘’Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness.”

Now thc metaphorical word both here and so often elsewhere used in this argument, leads us to look on sinners as patients, and on God as a Physician. By which two considerations we shall find set forth fully to us the exceeding mercy of God in the pardon and purging away of sin.

Healing, then, is a relative word, and leads us, first, to the consideration of a patient who is to be healed, and that is here a grievous sinner fallen into a relapse. Healin” is of two sorts; the healing of a sickness by a physician; the healing of a wound by a surgeon. And sin is both a sickness and a wound. “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundne.ss in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores,” Isa. i. 5, 6. A sickness that wants healing, a wound that wants binding, Ezek. xxxiv. 4. A sick sinner, that wants a physician to call to repentance. Matt. ix. 12, 13; a wounded sinner, that wants a Samaritan (so the Jews called Christ, John viii. 48) to bind up and pour in wine and oil, Luke x. 34.

Diseases are of several sorts, but those are, of all other, most dangerous that are in the vital parts: as all the diseases of sin are, and from thence spread themselves

FAirfp ytip T« 6lov yt koX avTjjfjiap Karatrtl/ri, ‘AWd yi Kai /iiTuiriffOtp tx” kotov, Sipaa TtXlaati ‘Ed arnVunriu iaio-r Hum. Iliad. I.

ii’>s3 111 presoiH TibcriiiH civilitor habuit, soil in aiiimo revolvi’Dle irdj, I’tidiusi imiichis ofTvDsioub langiicrat, mcmoria

over the whole man. Ignorance, pride, carnal principles, corrupt judgment, diseases of the head- hardness, stubbornness, atheism, rebellion, diseases of the heart; lust, a dart in the liver; corrupt communication, the effect of putrid lungs; gluttony and drunkenness, thc swellings and dropsies of the belly; despair and horror, the grief of the bowels; apostacy, a recidivation or relapse into all; an ear that cannot hear God speak, Jer. vi. 10; an eye quite closed up, that cannot see him strike, Isa. xxvi. 11; Jer. xliv. 18; a palate out of taste, that can neither savour nor relish heapeiily things, Rom. viii. 5; lips poisoned, Rom. iii. 13; a tongue set on fire, James iii. 6; flesh consumed; bones sticking out, sore vexed and broken to pieces, Job xxxiii. 21; Psal. vi. 2; li. 8. Some diseases are dull, others acute; some stupifying, others tormenting. Sin is all; a stupifying palsy, that takes away feeling, Eph. iv. 19; a plague in the heart, which sets all on tire, 1 Kings viii. 38; Hos. vii. 4.

Let us consider a little the proper passions and effects of most diseases, and see how they meet in sin.

1. Pain and distemper. This, first or last, is, in all, sin, for it begets in wicked and impenitent men the pain of guilt, horror, trembling of heart, anguish of conscience, fear of wrath, expectation of judgment and fiery indignation, as in Cain, Pharaoh, Ahab, Felix, and divers others. Gen. iv. 13, 14; Exod. ix. 27. 28; 1 Kings xxi. 27; Acts xxiv. 25; Isa. xxxiii. 14; Ileb. ii. lo; Rom. viii. 15; Heb. x. 27. And in penitent men it begets the pain of shame, and sorrow, and inquietude of spirit, a wound in the spirit, a prick in the very heart, Rom. vi. 21; Ezek. x%-i. 61; 2 Cor. vii. 10; Prov. xviii. 14; Acts ii. 37. Penitency and pain are words of one derivation, and are very near of kin to one another. Never was any wound cured without pain, never any sin healed without sorrow.

2. AVeakness and indisposedness to the actions of life. Sin is like an unruly spleen, or a greedy wen in the body, that sucks all nourishment, and converts all supplies to its own growth, and so exhausts the strength and vigour of the soul, making it unfit and unable to do any good. AMienever it sets about any dutv, till sin be cured, it goes about it „ „.

like an arm out of joint, whicn, when you poXtXfutra toS would move it one way, falls back an- XriSTEth.’ 1. 1. c. other. It faints, and flags, and is not “”• able to put forth any skill, or any delight, to the performance of any good duty. Naturally men are “reprobate,” or void of judgment, “unto every good work.” Tit. i. 16. Godliness is a mystery, a spiritual skill and trade; learning, and use, and experience, and much exercise are required in its practice, 1 Tim. iii. 16: Phil. iv. 11; Heb. v. 13, 14. To be “-sinners,” and to be “without strength,” in the apostle’s phrase, is all one, Rom. v. 6, 8. And look how much flesh there is in any man, so much disability is there to perform any thing that is good, Rom. vii. 18. Therefore the hands of sinners are said to “hang down,” and their “knees” to be “feeble,” and their “feet” to be “lame,” that cannot make “straight paths” till they “he healed,” Heb. xii. 12, 13. If they at any time on natural dictates, or some sudden strong conviction, or pang of fear, or stirrings of conscience, attempt any good work, to pray, to repent, to believe, to obey, they arc quite out of their element; they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge; they presently grow weary of any attempts at well-doing, and cannot hold out or persevere in them.

3. Decay and consumption. Sin wastes and wears

valebat. Tacit Annal. 1. 4. Non enim Tibcrium qiiamvis Iriennio post cajdein Sejani, quao caiteros nioUirc solciit, leinplis, prcces, satias mitigabaut, quin incerla ct aboliia pro cravissimis ct rccenlibus puniret. Id. Annal. lib. 6. A id. et. Aristot. Ethic. lib. 4. cap. 11.

, ,.. ,. out the vigour of soul and body, feeds

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periurbiitioncs. cic. OH all oui’ tiiue and Strength, and exus»t. hausts it in the services of lust. Sickness is a chargeable thing, a consumption at once to the person and to the estate. The poor -noman in the gospel, -vvho had an issue of blood, “spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,” Luke viii. 43. So poor sinners empty all the powers of soul, of body, of time, of estate, every thing within theii’ reach, on their lusts, and are as unsatisfied at last as at the first, Eccl. i. 8. Like a silkworm, which works out its bowels into a mass wherein itself is buried, so sin wearies men out, and sucks away their radical strength in its service, and yet never gives them over; but as Pharaoh’s taskmasters exacted the brick when they had taken away the straw, so lust consumes and weakens natural strength, in the obedience of it; and yet when nature is exhausted, the strength of lust is as great, and the commands as tjTannous, as before, Isa lvii. 10; Jer. ii. 25. We are to distinguish between the vital force of the faculties, and the activity of lust which sets them on work; that decays and hastens to death, but sin retains its strength and vigour still, nothing kills that but the blood of Christ: and the decay of nature arises out of the strength of sin; * the more any man, in any lust whatsoever, makes himself a servant of sin, and the more busy and active he is in that service, the more will it eat into and consume him, as the hotter the fever is, the sooner is the body wasted and dried up by it.

4. Deformity. Sickness withers the beauty of the body, makes it of a glorious a ghastly and loathsome spectacle. Go to the comeliest person living after a long and pining sickness, and you will not find thera the same: a wan countenance, a shrivelled flesh, a lean visage, a hollow and standing eye, a trembling hand, a .stammering tongue, a bowed back, a feeble knee, a swollen belly; nothing left but the stakes of the hedge, and a few sinews to hold them together. ‘n?i’us in JitS™. Behold here the picture of a sinner, Sapientis animus swcUcd with pride, pined with envy,

nimquam turgescit,, i-i x t t i

niinquam tumet Dowed With carthlmess, wasted and eaten 3.’°’ocSn«ein’’fcms Up with lust, “filthy” and loathsome as a taifpS!““‘”” dead carcass, Psal.’xiv. 3; Ezek. xvi. 4, iHis’°iiaKB.ma’’ubi- °’ Tu thou secst an unmerciful man, dine, mails con’suiis that has no compassion left in him, think TacTt AnnaS.Te“‘’ thou beholdcst Judas or king Jehoram, W’hose “bowels fell out by reason of his sore diseases,” 2 Chron. xxi. 19. ‘When thou seest a worldly man, whose heart is glued to earthly things, think on the poor woman who was “bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself,” Luke xiii. 11. When thou seest a hypocrite, walldng crooked and unevenly in the ways of God, think upon Mephibosheth or Asa, lame, halting, diseased in their feet. When thou seest a proud, ambitious man, think upon Herod eaten up with vermin. O, if the diseases of the soul could come forth and show themselves in the body, and work such deformity there, (where it would not do the thousandth part so much hurt,) as they do within; if a man could in the glass of the word see the ugliness of the one, as plainly as in a material glass the foulness of the other; how would this make him cry out, “My head, my head;” “my bowels, my bowels;” “my leanness, my leanness;” “unclean, unclean!” No man thinks any shape ugly enough to represent a devil by; yet regard his original, and he was a most glorious creature; sin turns him into a serpent or (bagon. There is something of the monster in every sin, the belly or the feet set in the place of the head or heart; sensual and worldly lusts set up above reason, and corrupt reason above grace.

Now because the sickness here spoken of is a falling sickness, and that the worst kind of fall, not forward in our way or race, as every good man sometimes falls, where a man has the help of his knees and hands to break the blow, to prevent or lessen the hurt, and to make him to rise again; but as old Eli’s fall, a falling backward, 1 Sam. iv. 18; where a man can put forth no part to save the whole, and so breaks and bruises himself thereby more dangerously. Therefore as it is a sickness which requires curing, so it is a wound which requires healing and binding. The ancients compare it to falling into a pit full of dirt and stones, where a man not only defiles, but miserably breaks and bruises himself. There is contritio, solulio continui, suppuratio, sanies, &c.; all the evils of a dangerous and mortal wound.

Add to all this, that in this diseased and wounded condition a man has, 1. No power to heal or to help himself, but in that resjject he must cry out with them in the prophet, “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed?” Jer. XV. 18.

2. No desire, no will, no thought to inquire or send after a i)hysician who may heal him; but, .,,..

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is well contented rather to continue as medico non credit he is, than to be put to the pain and dinat.°AriS. Ethic, trouble of a cure; yea, he pleases himself ‘’’’■ ‘• in the goodness of his own condition, Rev. iii. 17; Matt. ix. 12.

3. He is in the hands of his cruel enemy, who takes no pity on him, but by flattery and tyranny, and new temptations, continually cherishes the disease, 2 Tim. ii. 26.

4. When the true Physician comes he shuts the door against him, refuses his counsel, rejects his receipts, quarrels with his medicines; they are too bitter, or too strong and purging, or too sharp and searching; he will not be healed at all except it may be in his own way, Prov. i. 24, 25; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16; Ezek. xxiv. 13; Matt, xxiii. 37; Jer. xiii. 11. Thus we have taken a view of the patient, sick, weak, pained, consumed, deformed, wounded, and sore bruised; without power or help at home, without friends abroad; no sense of danger, no desire of change; patient of his disease, impatient of his cure; but one means in the world to help Iiim, and he unable to procure it, and, being offered to him, unwilling to entertain it: who can expect after all this, but to hear the knell ring for such, and to see the grave open to receive them?

Now let us take a view of the Physician. Surely an ordinary one would be so far from visiting such a patient, that in so desperate a condition as this he would quite forsake him; as their use is to leave their patients when they lie a dying. Here then observe the singular goodness of this Physician.

1. Though other physicians judge of the disease when it is brought to them, yet the patient first feels it and complains of it himself; but this Physician gives the patient the very feeling of his disease, and is fain to take notice of that as well as to minister the cure. “He went on frowardly in the way of his heart,” saith the Lord, and pleased himself in his own ill condition; “I have seen his ways, and will heal him,” Isa. lvii. 17, 18.

2. Other patients send for the physician, and use many entreaties to be visited and their case undertaken by him. Here the Physician comes unsent for, and entreats the sick person to be healed. The world is undone by falling oft’ from God, and yet God is the first that begins the reconciliation; that which hinders it is in the world, and not in him: therefore there is a great emphasis in the apostle’s expression,” God was in

0u<rf?. Id. Polit. 1.2. Naturalia desidevia finita sunt; ex falsa opinione nascentia, ubi desinant uou habent, &c. Sea. Ep. 16.

Christ, reconciling the world unto liimself,’’ not himself unto the world; he entreats us to be reconciled, 2 Cor. V. 19, 20. He is found of them that sought him not, Isa. lxv. 1; and his office is not only to “save,” but to “seek that which was lost,” Luke xix. 10.

3. Other physicians are well used, and entertained with respect and honour; but our patient hero neglects and misuses his Physician, falls from him, betakes himself to mountebanks and physicians of no value; yet continues he his mercy, comes when he is forsaken, nay, repelled. ‘• I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people,” Isa. lxv. 2.

4. Other physicians have usually ample nirli’juiiiiB’oesar? ^^’^ honourable rewards for the attendsueton. in Julio. ancc they give; but this Physician comes Viimori)orumpre’i.i only out of love, heals freely; nay, is tlpb«specuni«in” bountiful to his patient, not only heals T«™’AnSiib.ii. him, but bestows gifts upon him, gives the visit, gives the jihysic, sends the ministers and servants who watch and tend the patient.

5. Other physicians prescribe a bitter potion for the sick person to take; this Physician cWnks of the bitterest himself. Others prescribe the sore to be lanced; this Physician is wounded and smitten himself Others order the jiatient to bleed; here the Physician bleeds himself. Yea, he is not only the Physician, but the physic, and gives himself, his ovm flesh, his own blood, to heal the soul of his patient; dies himself, that his patient may live. “With his stripes we are healed,” Isa. liii. 5.

We should from all this learn, 1. To admire the unsearchable riches of the mercy of our God, who is pleased in our misery to prevent us with goodness, and when we neither feel our disease, nor desire a remedy, is pleased to convince us of our sins; “Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity:’ to invite us to repentance;” Take with you words, and turn to the Lord:” to put words into our mouth, and to draw our petition for us.; “Say unto him, Take away all iniquity,” &c.: to furnish us with arguments; AVe are “fatherless,” “in thee” such find “mercy:” to encourage us with promises; “I will heal,” “I will love:” to give us his ministers to proclaim these mercies to us, and his Spirit to ap])ly them. If he did not convince us that “iniquity” would be our “ruin,” Ezek. xviii. 30, we should hold it fast, and be pleased with our disease, like a mad-man, n’umji’fcund“mVi- that quaiTcls with his cure, and had s’ep“‘!”“”“” rather continue mad than be healed, John iii. 19 — 21.

If, being convinced, he did not invito us to repentance, we should run away from him, as Adam did. No man loves to bo in the com])any of an enemy, much less when that enemy is a judge. “They have turned their back unto me, and not their face,” Jer. ii. 27. Adam will hide himself “from the presence of the Lord,” Gen. iii. 8; and Cain will go “out from the presence of the Lord,” chap. iv. 10. Guilt cannot look upon majesty; stubble dares not come near the fire; if ■n-e be in our sins “we cannot stand before” God, Ezra ix. 15.

If, being invited, he did not put words into our mouths, we should not know what to say to him. Wo know not wherewith to “come before the Lord,” or to “bow” ourselves “before the high God,” if he do not show us “what is good,” Micah vi. 6, 8. AVhcre God is the judge, who cannot be mocked or deceived, who knows all things, and, if our heart condemn us, i’s greater than our heart, and wherever we hide can find us out, and make our sin find us too. Gal. vi. 7; 1 John iii. 20; Numb, xxxii. 23; where, I s,ay, this God is the judge, there guilt stops the mouth, and makes the sinner speechless. Matt. xxii. 12; Kom. iii. 19. Nay, the best of us “know not what we should pray for as we ought,” except the Spirit be pleased to help “our infirmities,” Kom. viii. 26. When we are taught what to say, if God do “not withdraw his anger,” we shall never be able to reason with him. Job ix. 13, 14. “Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid. Then call thou, and I will answer: or let rac speak, and answer thou nic,” Job xiii. 21, 22. If he do not reveal mercy, if he do not promise love or healing, if he do not make it appear that he is a God that heareth prayers, flesh will not dare to come near unto him, 2 Sam. vii. 27. We can never pray till we can cry, “Abba, Father;” we can never call unto him but in “the multitude of his mercies.” As the earth is shut and bound up by frost and cold, and puts not forth her precious fruits till the warmth and heat of the summer call them out: so the heart, under the cold affections of fear and guilt, under the dai’k apprehensions of wrath and judgment, is so contracted that it knows not to draw near to God; but when mercy shines, when the love of God is shed abroad in it, then also is the heart itself shed abroad and enlarged to pour out itself unto God. Even when distressed sinners pray, their prayer proceeds from apprehensions of meity; for prayer is the child of faith, and the object of faith is mercy, Rom. x. 14; James v. 15.

2. The way to prize this mercy is to grow acquainted with our own sickness, to see our face in the glass of the law; to consider how odious it renders us to God, how desperately miserable in ourselves. The deeper the sense of misery, the higher the estimation of mercy. When the apostle looked on himself as “chief” of sinners, then he accounted it “a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” 1 Tim. i. 15. Till we be sick and weary we shall not look after a physician to heal and ease us. Matt. ix. 12; xi. 28; till we be pricked in our hearts we shall not be hasty to inquire after the means of salvation. Acts ii. 37. Though the proclamation of pardon be made to “whosoever will,” Kev. xxii. 17, yet none are willing till they be brought to extremities: as men cast not their goods into the sea, till they see they must perish themselves if they do not. Some men must be bound before they can be cured. All that God does to us in conversion, he docs most freely; but a gift is not a gift till it be received, Rom. v. 17; John i. 12; and we naturally refuse and reject Christ when he is offered, Isa. liii. 3; John i. 1 1, because he is not offered but upon these terms, that we deny ourselves, and take up a cross, and follow him. Therefore we must be wrought upon by some terror or other, 2 Cor. v. 1 1. ‘Micn we find the wrath of God abiding on us, and our souls shut under it as in a prison, John iii. 36: Gal. iii. 22, and the fire of it working and boiling lilie ])oison in our consciences, then we shall value mercy, and cry for it, as the prophet does, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art mv praise,” Jer. xvii. 14. Things necessai-y are never valued to their uttermost but in extremities. When tlicre is a great famine in Samaria, an ass’s head (which at another time is thrown out for carrion) will be more worth, than, in a plentiful season, the whole body of an ox. Nay, hunger shall in such a case ])revail over nature, and devour even the tender love of a mother, 2 Kings vi. 25, 28. As soon as a man finds a shipwreck, a famine, a hell in his soul, till Christ save, feed, de- liln it, immediately Ou-ist will be the desire of that soul, and nothing in heaven or earth valued in conijiarison of him. Then that which was esteemed “the foolishness of preaching “before, shall be counted” the jiower of God, and “the wisdom of God;” then every one of Christ’s ordinances (which arc “the waters” of the temple, for the healing of the sea, that is, of many people, Ezck. xlvii. 8; and “the leaves of the tree of life,” which are for “the healing of the nations,” Rev. xxii. 2; and the streams of that “fountain opened” in

Israel “for sin and for uncleanness,” Zech. xiii. 1; and the wings of the Sun of righteousness, whereby he conveys healing to his church, Mai. iv. 2) shall be esteemed, as indeed they are, the riches, the glory, the treasure, the feast, the physic, the salvation of such a soul, Rom. xi. 12; Eph. iii.’S; 2 Cor. iii. 8, 11; iv. 6, 7; Isa. xxv. 6; Rev. xix. 9; Luke iv. 18; Heb. ii. 3; James i. 21: John xii. 50; Acts xxviii. 28. And a man will wait on them with as much diligence and attention as ever did “the impotent folk” at the pool of Bethesda, when the angel stii’red the water; and endure the healing severity of them not only with patience, but with love and thankfulness; suffer reason to be captivated, will to be crossed, high imaginations to be cast down, every thought to ba subdued, conscience to be searched, heart to be purged, lust to be cut off and mortified; in all things will such a sick soul be contented to be dieted, restrained, and ordered by the counsel of this heavenly Physician.

“Their backsliding.” DrsiS’O This word imports a departing, or a turning away again, from God. It is quite contrary, in the formal nature of it, to faith and Venire ad Chris- repentance, and implies that which the turn, quid est aUud apostle calls a rcjienting of repentance, TO™ AugdeVS. 2 Cor. vii. 10. Ijy faith we come to Christ,

hold upon him, Heb. vi. 18; Isa. lvi. 2, 6; but by this we depart, and draw back from him, and let him go, Heb. X. 38, 39. By the one we prize Christ as infinitely precious, and his ways as holy and good, Phil. iii. 8; 2 Pet. i.4; by the other we vilify and set them at nought, stumble at them, as ways that do not profit. Matt. xxi. 42; Acts iv. 1 1; 1 Pet. ii. 7, 8; Job xxi. 14, 15. For a man, having approved of God’s ways, and entered into covenant with him, after this to go from his word, and fling up his bargain, and start aside like a deceitful bow; of all other dispositions of the soul, this is one of the worst; to deal with our sins as Israel did with theii’ servants, dismiss them and then take them again, Jer. xxxiv. 10, 11. It is the sad fruit of an evil and unbelieving heart, Heb. iii. 12. And God bM“u°plndi?°“” threatens such persons to “lead them G^m. ‘’TSSsfuWs f°i’’h ■n’ith the workers of iniquity,” Psal. ubicunque inventi cxxv. 5, as Cattle arc led to slaughter, or

fuermt quasi hostes i (i,.,. * i

interficcre Ucet, 1. 3. maleiaotors to cxccution. And yet we

lesicariisfo.”™’’’ here see God promises healing to such

sinners: “I will heal their backsliding.”

To understand this aright we are to know that there is a twofold apcstacy. 1. An apostacy arising out of impotency of affection, and prevalency of lust, chawing the heart to look toward the old pleasures thereof again: it is a recldivation or relapse into a former sinful condition out of forgetfulness and falseness of heart, for want of the fear of God to balance the conscience, and to fix and unite the heart to him. This was the frequent sin of Israel, to make many promises and covenants to God, and to break them as fast, Judg. ii. 18, 19; PsaL cvi. 7 — 13. And this falling from our first love,* growing cold and slack in duty, breaking our engagements to God, and returning again to folly, though it be like a relapse after a disease, exceedingly dangerous, yet God is sometimes pleased to forgive and to ileal it.

2. An apostacy which is proud and malicious, when, after they “have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,” men set themselves to hate, oppose, and persecute godliness, to do “despite unto the Spu-it of grace,” to fling oft’ the holy strictness

* Eorurn qui peccant antequam Deum novei-int, antequam miserationes ejus expert! sunt, antequam portaverint jugum suave, et onus leve, priusquam devotion is gvatiam et consolationes acceperint Spiritus Sancti; corum inquam copiosa ledemptio est: at eorum qui post couversionem suam peccatis implicanSur ingrati acceptae gratia;, et post missam manum acl aratrum

of Christ’s yoke, to swell against the searching power of his word, to tread “under foot the Son of God,” and to count “the blood of the covenant “” an unholy thing,” Heb. vi. 5; x. 29. ^^’hen they know the spirituality and holiness of God’s ways, the innocence and piety of his servants, yet notwithstanding set themselves against them for that reason, though under other pretences, this is not a weak, but a wilful, and (if I may so speak) a strong, and a stubborn apostacy; a sin M’hich wholly hardens the heart against repentance, and consequently is incurable. To speak against the Son of man, that is, against the doctrine, disciples, ways, servants of Christ, t f7Zi’’“‘’K^ looking on him only as a man, the leader of a sect, as master of a new way, (which was Paul’s notion of Christ and the Ckristian religion when he persecuted it, and for which cause he found mercy, for had he done that knowingly which he did ignorantly, it had been a sin not to be pardoned. Acts xxvi. 9; 1 Tim. i. 13.) thus to sin, is a blasphemy that may be pardoned: but to speak “*’ ui’ f:’°p, mI”’” against the Holy Ghost, that is, to opjiose and persecute the doctrine, worship, ways, servants of Christ, knowing them, and acknowledging in them a spu-itual holiness, and eo nomine, on that very account, to do it, so that the formal motive of malice against them is the power and lustre of that Spirit which appears in them; and its formal principle, neither ignorance, nor self-ends, but very wilfulness, and immediate malignity; woe be to that man whose natural enmity and antipathy against godliness ever swells to so great and daring a height! “It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come,” Matt. xii. 32. That is, say some, neither in llie time of life, nor in the point or moment of death, which translates them U“ol,f’l™’sMJe into the world to come. Others, not in JJl.’Xti’’’’’’’^’™’’’ this life by justification, nor in the world to come by consummate redemption, and pubKc judiciary absolution in the last day, which is therefore called “the day of redemption,” in which men are said to “find mercy of the Lord,” Eph. iv. 30; 2 Tim. i. 18. For that which is here done in the conscience by the ministry of the word and efficacy of the Spirit, shall be then publicly and judicially pronounced by Christ’s own mouth before angels and men, 2 Cor. v. 10. Others, shall not be forgiven, that is, shall be plagued and punished both in this life phyiact!’’Broi5iit’ori and in that which is to come. Give me Ji’’’’“oi’’3”J’’°°i’’ leave to add what I have conceived to be the meaning of this ]Dlace, though no way condemning the expositions of so great and learned men: I take it thus, by “this world” we may understand the church which then was of the Jews, or the present age in which our Saviour Christ then lived. It is not, I think, unusual in the Scripture, for the words age, or world, to be sometimes restrained to the church. Now, as Israel was God’s “fii-st-born,” and “the fii’st-fruits of his increase,” Exod. iv. 22; Jer. xxxi. 9; ii. 3; so the church of Israel is called the “chiu’ch of the first-born,” Heb. xii. 23, and “the first tabernacle,” and “a worldly sanctuary,” Heb. ix. 1, 8, and “Jerusalem that now is,” Gal. iv. 25. And then by “the world to come,” we are to understand the Christian church afterwards to be planted; for so frequently in Scriptiu’e is the evangelical church called “the world to come,” and “the last days,” and “the ends of the world;” and the things thereunto belonging, “things to come,” which

retro respiciunt tepidi et camales facti — Eorum utique perpaucos iuvenias, qui post hiec redeant ’ in gradum pristinum, nee tamen si qiiis hujusmodi est, despevamus de eo, tantum ut resurgere velit cito. Quanto diiitius permanebit, tanto evadet difficilius. Bernard, serm. 3. in Vigil. Vid. ser. 35. in Cant. Aug. de Civ. Dei, Ub. 16. cap. .30. Isid. Pelut. 1. 1. ep. 13.

Chap. XfV.

had been hidden from “the beginning of the world,” “from ages and from generations,” and were by the ministry of the apostles made known unto the church in their time, which the “prophets and righteous men “of the former ages did not” see “nor attain unto. Thus it is said, •’ in these last days” God “hath spoken unto us by his Son,” Heb. i. 2; and, “unto angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come,” Heb. ii. 5: and. Christ was made “an High Priest of good things to come,” Heb. i.. 1 1; and, “the law having a shadow of good things to come,” Heb. x. 1: and the times of the gospel are called “the ages to come,” Eph. ii. 7, and “the ends of the world,” 1 Cor. x. 11. Thus legal and evangelical dispensations are usually distinguished, the former as “time past,” the latter as “last days” or “ages to come,” Heb. i. 1, 2; Eph. ii. 7; Col. i. 25, 26; the one an earthly and temporary, the other a heavenly and abiding administration; and so the Septuagint render the original word ly-’SK Isa. ix. 6, “everlasting Father,” which is one of the names of Christ, by HaTi’if) Tov fiiWov-os aiijvog, the Father of the world to come.

The meaning then of the place seems to be this: that sins of high and desperate presumption, committed maliciously against known light, and against the evidence of God’s S])irit, as thty had no sacrifice or expiation allowed for them in the former world, or state of the Jewish church, but they who in that manner despised Moses and his law, though delivered but by angels, died without mercy, Numb. xv. 27, 30, 31; Heb. ii. 2; so in the world to come, or in the evangelical church, though grace should therein be more abundantly discovered and administered unto men, yet the same law should continue still, as we find it did, Heb. ii. 2 — 5; vi. 4 — 6; x. 26 — 28; neither the open enemies of Christ in the one, nor the false professors of Christ in the other, committing this sin,’ should be capable of pardon.

This doctrine of apostacy, or backsliding, is worthy of a more large explication; but having h,indled it formerly on Heb. iii. 12, 1 shall but briefly

Obs. 1. AVe should beware of backsliding above all other sins, of falling in soul, as old Eli did in body, backward, and so liazarding our salvation. If once we have shaken hands with sin, never take acquaintance with it any more, but say as Israel here, “AA’hat have I to do any more with idols?” The chui-ch should be like “Mount Zion, that cannot be moved.” It is a sad and sick temper of a church to toss from one side to another, and then cs])ecially when she should be healed, to be carried about with every wind.

Obs. 2. We should not be so tcmficd by any sin, which our soul mourns and labours under, and our heart turns from, as thereby to be withheld from going to the Physician for pardon and healing. Had he not gi-eat power and mercy, did he not “love freely,” without respect of persons, and pardon freely, without respect of sins, we might then be afraid of going to him: but when he extendeth forgiveness to all kinds, “iniquity,” “transgi’cssion,” “sin,” Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7, and has actually pardoned the greatest sinners, Manasses, Mary Magdalene, Paul, publicans, harlots, backsliders, though we should not presume hereupon to turn God’s mercy into poison, and his grace into wantonness, (for mercy itself will not save those sinners that hold fast and will not forsake sin.) yet should we take heed of desjjairing, or entertaining low thoughts of the love and mercy of God; for such examples as these are set forth for the encouragement of all that shall “hereafter believe on” Christ “to life everlasting,” 1 Tim. i. 16. And the thoughts and ways which God has to pardon sin are above our thoughts and ways, whereby we look on them in their guilt and greatness, many times, as unpardonable; and therefore art fit matter for our

faith to believe and rely on, even against sense, Isa. Iv. 6 — 9.

Now follows the fountain of this mercy.

“I will love them freely.” God’s love is a most free and bountiful love, having ^!MlmZ’J“T’’.’ no motive or foundation but within itself, ^,i;?,f[7’”’’ ‘’’“”’ “’ and his free love and grace is the ground niacmiLmi r»..r-’ of all his other mercies to his people; he dorutio’ippXi’”.. shows mercy on whom and because he ioiX’uk.’i!’’“’ will. From the beginning to the end of our salvation, nothing is primarily active but free grace. Freely loved, Ueut. vii. 7, 8. Freely chosen, Eph. i. 4 — 8. Christ the gift of fi-ee love, John iii. 16. His obedience freely accepted for us, and bestowed upon us, Rom. V. 15, 18. Justification free, Rom. iii. 24. Adoption free, Eph. i. 5. Faith and repentance free, Phil. i. 29; 2 Tim. ii. 25. Good works free, Eph. ii. 10. Salvation free. Tit., iii. 5; Acts xv. 11. Thus the foundation of all mercies is free love. We do not first give to God, that he may render to us again. AVe turn, we pray, we covenant, we repent, we are holy, we are healed, only because he loves us: and he loves us, not because he sees any thing lovely or amiable in us, but because he will show the absoluteness of his own will, and the unsearchableness of his own counsel towards us. Wo are not originally denominated good by any thing which flows from us, or is done by us; but by that which is bestowed on us. Our goodness is not the motive of his love, but his love the fountain of our goodness. None indeed are healed and saved, but those that repent and return; but repentance is only a condition, and that freely given by God, disposing the subject for salvation; not a cause, moving or procuring God to save us. It is necessary as the means to the end, not as the cause to the eft’ect. That which looks least free’^ of any other act of God, his rewarding of obedience, is all, and only, mercy. When we “sow in righteousness,” we must “reap in mercy,” Hos. x. 12. “ATicn he renders “to ever)’ man according to his work,” it is because unto mm “belongeth mercy,” Psal. lxii. 12.

This is the solid foundation of all Christian comforts, that God loves freely. Were his love to us to be measured by our fruitfulness or conduct towards him, each hour and moment might stagger our hope; but he is therefore pleased to have it all of grace, “to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed,” Rom. iv, 16. This comforts us against the guilt of the greatest sins, for love and free grace can pardon what it will. This comforts us against the accusations of Satan dran n from our own unworthiness. True, I am unworthy, and Satan cannot show me to myself more vile than, without his accusations, I will acknowledge myself to be; but that love which gave Christ freely, gives in him more worthiness than there is or can be unworthiness in me. This comforts us in the assured hope of glory, because when he loves he loves to the end, and nothing can se])arate from his love. This comforts us in all alffictions, that the free love of God, who has predestinated us thereto, will wisely order all thmgs for the good of his servants, Rom. viii. 29 — 39; Heb. xii. 6.

Our duty therefore is, 1. To labour for the assuranci of this free love. It will assist us in all duties; it will arm us against all temptations; it will answer all objections that can be made against the soid’s peace; it will sustain us in all conditions, into which the saddest of times may brin” us, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” ‘Though thousands be against us to hate us, yet none shall be against us to hurt us,

2. If God love us freely, we should love him thankfully, 1 John iv. 19, and let love be the salt to season all our sacrifices. For as no benefit is saving lo us which docs not proceed from love in him, so no duty is

THE PROPHECY OF IIOSEA.

pleasing to him which does not proceed from love in us, 1 John V. 3.

3. Plead this free love and grace in prayer. When we heg pardon, nothing is too great for love to forgive: when we beg grace and holiness, nothing is too good for love to grant. There is not any one thing which faith can manage to more spiritual advantages, than the free grace and love of God in C’lu’ist.

4. We must yet so magnify the love of God, as that we turn not free grace into wantonness. There is a corrupt generation of men, who, under pretence of exalting grace, do put disgrace upon the law of God, by taking away the mandatory power thereof from those that are under grace, a doctrine most extremely contrary to the nature of this love. For God’s love to us works love in us to him; and our love to him is this, that we keep his commandments; and to keep a commandment is to confirm and to subject my conscience with willingness and delight to the rule and prece))tive power of that commandment. Take away the obligation of the law upon conscience as a rule of life, and you take away from our love to God the very matter about which the obedience thereof should be conversant. It is no diminution to love that a man is bound to obedience, (nay, it cannot be called obedience if I be not bound to it,) but herein the excellency of our love to God is commended, that whereas other men are so bound by the law that they fret at it. and swell against it, and would be glad to be exempted from it, they * who love God, and know his love to them, delight to be thus bound, and find infinitely more sweetness in the strict rule of God’s holy law, than any wicked man can do in that presumptuous liberty wherein he allows himself to shake off and break its cords.

“For mine anger is turned away from him.” Allien we return with sound repentance to God, then God is pleased to give more than ordinary tastes of the sweetness of his love, by removing judgments, which are the fruits of his anger, fi-om us. This point falls in with what was handled before, on ver. 2. Therefore I shall briefly conclude with these two notes:

06*. 3. God will have us look on all judgments as fruits of his anger, and take more notice in them of his displeasure than of our own sufi’erings. When wrath is gone out, the sword drawn, thousands and ten thousands slain in our coasts; Israel given to the spoil, and Jacob unto robbers: a land set on fire with civil flames, and none able to quench them; a kingdom divided within itself; a church which sometime was the asylum for other exiled and afflicted Christians to flee for shelter to, miserably torn by the foolish and unnatural divisions of brethi’en, and dangerously threatened by the poUcy and power of the common enemy, who studies how to improve these divisions to the ruin of those that foment them; our work is to make this conclusion: Our God is angry; a God that loves freely, that is infinite in mercy and pity, who does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the childi’en of men: this should be our greatest affliction, and the removal of this anger, by a universal reformation and conversion to him, our greatest business. And I do verily believe that England must never think of outliving or breaking through this anger of God, this critical judgment that is upon it, so as to return to that cold and formal complexion, that Laodicean temper, that she was in before, till she have so publicly and generally repented of all those civil disorders which removed the bounds, and brought dissipation upon public justice; and of all those ecclesi-

* Sub lege est qui timore supplicii quod lex minatur, non amore justitiae se seutit abstinere ab opere peccati; nondum liber nee alienus a voluntate peccandi. In ipsa enim vohmtate reus est, qua mallet si fieri posset non esse quod time at, ut libere I’aciat quod occulte desiderat. August, de Nat. et Grat. cap. 57. Et infra, Omnia fiimt facilia cnaritati, cap. 69.

astical disorders which let in corruptions in doctrine, superstitions in worship, abuses in government, discountenancing of the power of godliness in the most zealous professors of it; so that oiu- reformation may be as conspicuous as our disorders have been, and it may appear to all the world that God has washed away the filth and purged the blood of England from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

Obs. 4. God’s love is the true ground for the removal of judgments in mercy from a people. Let all human counsels be never so deep, and armies never so active, and cares never so vigilant, and instruments never so unanimous, if God’s love come not in, nothing of all these can in any wise benefit a nation. Those that are most interested in God’s love, shall certainly be most secured against his judgments. Hither our eyes, our prayers, our thoughts must be du-ected. Lord, love us, delight in us, choose us for thyself; and then, though counsels, and ti-easures, and armies, and men, and horses, and all second causes fail us; though Satan rage, and hell threaten, and the foundations of the earth be shaken; though neither “the vines,” nor “the olive,” nor “the fig-tree,” nor “the fields,” nor “the herd in the stalls” yield any supplies; yet we “will rejoice in the Lord,” we “will glory in the God of” our “salvation,” Hab. iii. 17 — 19; sin shaO be healed, anger shall be removed, nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Rom. viii. 39.