Lastly, we have heard who can make right use of these things delivered. Only ' the wise and prudent ; ' such only can understand heavenly things to purpose. ' His secret is with them that fear him,' Psa. xsv. 14 ; and 'wisdom is only justified of her chikfren,' Mat. xi. 19. When others have no heart given them to perceive God's ways aright, as Moses speaketh, 'transgressors' fall in God's 'right ways,' whilst the just walk comfort- ably in them. 0 then let us hate sin every day more and more, and be in love mth religion and the ways of God ; for that is the true good, which is the everlasting good, that better Mary's part, which shall never be taken away, Luke x. 42. ' Whosoever drinks of this hving water shall never tliirst again,' John iv. 14, The best things of this world have but a shadow, not the substance of goodness. Let us then be wise for ourselves, and pity ourselves in time, ' whilst it is called to-day,' because, as our Sa- viour speaks, ' the night approacheth, wherein no man can work,' John ix. 4, 0 then let us often examine our hearts and covenant with them, let us see our sins as they are, and God's goodness as it is ; that our ' scarlet sins' may be done away as a mist from before him, Isa. i. 18. 0 banish away our atheism, which, by our sinful conversation, proclaimeth us to be of the number of those fools, who have said in their heart that there is no God, Psa. xiv. 1. This serious consideration always makes fiurst a stop, aud then a returning ; to believe indeed that there is a God who made the
HOSEA XIV. 9.] THE RETUENING BACKSLIDEB. 483
world, and a judgment to come. This, God by Moses, calleth true wisdom indeed, ' To remember our latter end.' ' Oh,' saith he, ' that they were wise, that they would think of these things,' Deut. xxxii. 29. Of which things ? The miseries which attend sin here and hereafter ; and the blessings and comforts which follow a godly Life both here and hereafter, ' That they would remember their latter end,' the neglect whereof, Jeremiah sheweth, was the cause ' that they came down wonderfully, and had no comforter, because they remembered not their latter end.'*
Therefore, let us study this point well, that there is a God, and a judg- ment to come ; and this will compel us, even out of self-love, to return from our sinfal courses, and make a stop. By this means, we shall not need a Philip's boy (z) to cry to us every day, we are mortal and must die ; if our meditations once a day be both in heaven and hell. These strong consi- derations (aided with strong rational reflectings on ourselves) will keep us within compass, overawe us, and make us quake and tremble to go on in sin ; which is worse than the devil in this, that thereby he became a devil. This will drive us to fly unto God, that he may ' heal our backslidings,* who is described ' with healing under his wings,' Mai. iv. 2 ; who, in the days of his flesh, healed all miserable and ' returning backsliders,' who ever came unto him. Therefore, let us lay to heart these things, that so we may be kept in soul and body, pure and unspotted, holy and without blame in his sight, until the day of redemption, ' When our mortality shall put on immortality, and our corruptible incorruption, to reign with God for ever and ever,' 1 Cor. xv. 54, seq.
* Qu. Isaiah ? and the reference, xlvii. 7. — G.
NOTES.
(a) P. 256. — ' Eeturn,' &c. It is very emphatical and significant in the original.
Cf. Ackerman {Prophetcs Minores Vienna, 1830) ; and Henderson (8vo, 1845),
the latter especially, confirmatory of Sibbes.
(6) P. 286. — ' It was weU done by Luther, who, in a Catechism,' &c. See his ' Catechesis' in Opera, in loc.
(c) P. 287. — 'We have some bitter spirits (Lutherans they call them .... there- fore to be in the sacrament).' The reference is to the well-known dogma of consub- ttantiation as contrasted with, and even opposed to, the papists' transubstantiation. Both are explained in the following sentence from Barrow (Serm. 31, Vol. II.) : ' It may serve to guard us from divers errours, such as are that of the Lutheran consub- stantialists, and of the Roman transubstantialors, who affirm that the body of our Lord is here upon earth at once present in many places (namely), in every place where the host is kept, or the eucharist is celebrated.' Cf. Eichardson, sub voce.
{d) P. 296. — ' It was well spoken by Lactantius,' &c. The thought is found seve- ral times in his De Divino Frccmio and De Opificio Dei and De Falsa Religione. Cf. Edition by Aldus, 1515, pp.240, 304, and 1, seq.
(e) P. 297. — ' As the Jews call them, he hath hedges of the commandments.' Consult Kalisch (' Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament . . . Exodus [8vo, 1855]) ; on Exodus xxiii. 19 ; and Maurer there ; and on Deuteronomy ixii. 6.' For Eabbinical and other lore on the subject, Works of John Gregory, 4to, 1665, pp. 90-98.