Use 2. Make we also this use, of trial. Art thou a good and a gracious governor indeed ? Then grace in thy heart is communicative. It will spread over ihj family. Thou wilt labour to make thy children and thy servants good ; to make all good that come under thy roof. Other things are not always communicative. Gold is a dead thing, and other goods thou mayest keep by thee, which do not spread. But if thou hast the best good, faith and love, with a gracious heart, this is like oil, or like fii'e, which will not be held in, but out ; and shew themselves they will, and shine in their kind. So grace is a spreading, communicative thing. All that comes therefore under the shadow of a gracious family, are said to re- turn and be the better for it. Make this therefore an use of trial, whether thou be a gracious governor or not. If thou canst say with Joshua (when he called the people together, saith he, Do what you will, I know what I will do, ' I and my house will serve the Lord,' If you will be, idolaters, or so and so; ' but I and my house will serve the Lord,' Josh. xxiv. 15). So certainly there is no man who in truth of heart fears the Lord, but he is able to say, ' I and my house wiU serve the Lord.'
Use 8. Lastly, for terror, let us behold the dangerous and cursed estate of those that dwell out of Christ's shadow, the church, and good means ; who lie open to the indignation of God and stonn of his wi'ath ; who howsoever they may bless themselves in a thing of naught, yet it is a fearful thing to lie under a curse ; and that soul must needs be barren where the dew of gi'ace falls not, for God usually derives* spiritual and heavenly things by outward means. ' They that dwell under his shadow shall retm-n.' They shall retmn to God ; and by returning to him, return as it were and revive ; as when in a swoon, a man's spirits return again, he is said to revive. But the ground * That is, ' communicates. — G.
HOSEA XrV. 7.] THE RETURNING BACKSLIDER. 357
of returning is, that they shall return to God, and come under his roof in the church. But more immediately this is true, ' they shall return,' and shall quicken and revive in returning ; which we spake of in the beginning of the chapter. Only this shall he added to that, that a wicked man, out of judgment of the danger of his estate, may make a stop ; but turning is more than so. In this case a man turns his face to God and heavenwards ; to good things formerly neglected, on which he turned his back formerly. What is tm-ning, but a change of posture, when the face is turned to- wards that the back was to before ? So it is in this spiritual turning to God. "When heavenly things ar6 in our face, when God and Jerusalem, the church, are in our ej'es, still minding heavenly things and not earthl}', then we are said to return. And therefore these converts mentioned in Jeremiah are thus described in their conversion, ' asking the way to Zion, with their faces thithei-ward,' Jer. 1. 5. Whereas before in the days of our corruption, we tm-ned our backs to God ; now when we return, ' we set the Lord always before us,' Ps. x\'i. 8, in ever^ihing. This is properly to return, to revive and flom'ish also in retm-ning. Thus we have heard how all who live under the shadow of Christ do return, and what use we should make of it.
THE NINTH SERMON.
They that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine : the scent thereof shall be as the vine of Lebanon. — Hos. XIV. 7.
Our desire of good things is not so large as God is bountiful in satisfying our desires, and going beyond them, as we see in this chapter. Their hearts were too narrow to receive all that good which God intended them. * Receive us graciously.' This was their petition : whereunto God answers, ' That he would be as the dew unto them ; that they should grow as the lily, and cast forth their root as Lebanon, and their branches shall spread :' that they should grow in all dimensions, upwards and downwards, and spread in beauty and smell. ' Their beauty shall be like the olive, and their smell Hke Lebanon.' And because he would be God-like, like him- self, that is, thoroughly and abundantly gracious and merciful, he doth not only, as we have heard, promise a blessing to Israel himself, but unto all near unto him, and belonging to him. ' Those that dwell under his shadow shall return ; they shall revive as the corn.'
We are all too shallow to conceive either the infinite vastness of God's justice to impenitent sinners, or his boundless mercy and goodness to his poor church and children. Therefore God, to help our weak conceit in this Idnd, borroweth all the excellencies of nature, and makes use of them in grace. He takes out of the book of nature, into his book, what may instruct our souls ; and therefore sets down the growing estate of a Chris- tian, by all excellent comparisons that nature will afford ; many whereof we have gone over. The last we spake of was, that mercy which God superabundantly shews unto the fxiends and servants of the church, ' Those that dwell under his shadow shall return.' Now, those that shall thus return, they revive in returning ; for they turn to the fountain of life, to the Sun of righteousness. They come under God's gi-aee. Therefore they must needs retm-n and revive in vigour, as they return to God : which