2. To the professors of religion —
[How apt are you to draw back from God, instead of pressing forward as you ought to do ! How do you compel him to hide his face, when he would gladly be comforting you with his presence ! Ah, Brethren, know where the fault is : " He delighteth in the prosperity of his people :" it is wholly owing to yourselves, if ye do not " rejoice in the Lord all the day long." Do not then oblige him to withdraw himself; do not bring on yourselves so heavy an affliction : search, and see, what there is that has displeased him : see if the world has drawn you aside ; see if pride has grieved his Spirit ; see if negligence in secret duties has caused him to hide his face : and, whatever it be, confess it to the Lord ; mourn over it ; renew your application to the blood of Jesus; and press for- ward with greater diligence : so shall you " walk in the light, as He is in the light ;" you shall have abiding and increasing fellowship both with the Father and the Son ; and soon you shall be admitted into his immediate presence, where you shall never have one cloud to intercept your view of him to all eternity.]
Hos. vi. 1. Come, and let us return unto the Lord : for he hath torn, and he will heal us ; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
THE spiritual dereliction which the people of God have at times experienced, has ever been considered as the most afflictive of all chastisements : but it has also been the most salutary, and most effectual. The benefits arising from it were strongly exempli- fied in the Israelites, who after having long withstood the united efforts of all the prophets, were on a sudden constrained by it to turn to God with un- feigned contrition.
The words before us are the expressions of that repentance which was excited in the Israelites by God's departure from them, and by his grace that accompanied the affliction a: and they suggest to us a proper occasion to consider,
a Hos. v. 15.