her natural affections is on the side of duty, it is not so easy to execute all that our God requires : for there we stem the current of nature, instead of being carried forward by it. Hence, when the whole people of Israel were so ready to bind themselves to serve their God, Joshua warned them, that they could not do it without divine aid p. So let me say to you, that, if you will indeed give yourselves to the Lord, and take him as your portion, you must not engage in your own strength ; but must look unto your " God, who alone can work in you either to will or to do."]
2. Those who are unconscious of having given occasion to God to be jealous of them —
[Look, not merely at your acts, but at the dispositions of your mind; and then judge. He says, " Give me thy heart." Now see whether your affections have not strayed ; yea, whe- ther you have not been like the wild ass in the wilderness, whom none can overtake or keep from her mate, till the time for parturition has nearly arrived q? This is an humiliating, but a just, image of our conduct ; and if we will not acknow- ledge it, and humble ourselves under a sense of it, " God will surely plead with us" to our confusion1.]
3. Those who are ashamed of their past ways —
[Amongst men, the unfaithfulness of a wife may have been such as to preclude a possibility of her restoration to the station she once held : but no departures, however grievous, shall prevent our restoration to the divine favour, if, with sin- cerity of heart, we humble ourselves before him8. In the name of God himself, I am commanded to proclaim this, and to invite the most abandoned of you all to return to him *. " Return, then, unto him, and so your iniquity shall not be your ruinu."]
P Josh. xxiv. 18, 19. i Jer. ii. 23, 24. r Jer. ii. 35.
s Jer. iii. 1. * Jer. iii. 12 — 14. u Ezek. xviii. 30.