with you. " You have even wearied God by your transgres- sions ; and yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him1?" But in this you only aggravate your guilt, and augment your eter- nal condemnation. For thus saith the Lord : " Thou say est, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn away from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest I have not sinned*. " Know ye this, every one of you, ere it be too late, that, " he who covereth his sins, shall not prosper ; and that he only who confesseth and forsaketh them, shall find mercy 1 " ]
2. Are any of you humbled under a sense of your guilt ?
[To you then I say, that He who " chose Israel, not for any goodness that was in them, but purely because he would choose them"1," is ready to exercise his sovereign love and mercy towards you. See how, after taking them from the most helpless and degraded state, he beautified and adorned
that people for himself"! Thus will he also cleanse
you from your iniquities, and transform you into his own most blessed image, and render you meet for an everlasting union with himself. This I am commissioned by him to declare : " Go, and proclaim these words unto them ; and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord ; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God0." Yes, in the sacred name of Him whom you have offended, I declare, that " though your iniquities have been red like crimson, they shall be as wool ; and though they have been as scarlet, they shall be white as snowp."]
1 Mai. ii. 17. k ver. 35. • Prov. xxviii. 13.
m Deut. vii. 7, 8. n Cite at length Ezek. xvi. 8 — 14. 0 Jer. iii. 12, 13. p Isai. i. 18.