between us. What shall we say then to the insensibility which we have manifested under all these stupendous mercies? Are we not ashamed ? Have we not reason to be ashamed, yea, and to abase ourselves before God in dust and ashes ? O let us remember that ingratitude is a sin of the most crimson dyes : and that, if we will not notice as we ought the operations of God's hands, his loving-kindness will ere long be shut up in everlasting displeasure*.]
2. For our encouragement —
[To the evil and to the unthankful have all these mercies been vouchsafed : What then shall not be done for us, if we will seek after God in sincerity and truth ? Surely these present blessings shall be only as the drop before the shower; they shall be a prelude to that blessedness, " where there shall be no more death nor sorrow, nor sin, but where all tears shall be wiped away from our eyes for everu." God offers himself to every one of us, as a Covenant God : he says to each of us, as he did to Abraham of old, " I am God Almighty : walk before me, and be thou perfect x." In Christ Jesus he is already reconciled to us ; and he only requires that we come to him through Christ, embracing his proffered mercies, and yielding up ourselves to him as those that are alive from the dead. O that he may so draw us, that we may run after him ; and so subdue us to the obedience of faith, that we may become a peculiar people, zealous of good works !
s Rom. i. 21. <■ Ps. xxviii. 5. u Rev. xxi. 4. x Gen. xvii. 1.