To promote an increase of such repentance amongst us, we shall proceed to state,
II. The grounds on which a penitent may take en- couragement to return to God —
Whatever grounds of despondency we may feel within ourselves, we may take encouragement;
1. From a general view of God's readiness to heal
us —
[God has not left himself without witness even among the heathen world ; but has shewn, by his goodness to the evil and unthankful, that he is ever ready to exercise mercy. But to us who have his revealed will, he has left no possibility of doubt : for " if he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? " The invitations and promises with which his word is filled, are a further evidence to us, that he is willing to receive every returning prodigal, and that he will in no wise cast out any who come unto him. On this ground the whole world may adopt the words of the text, and say, " Come, let us return unto the Lord."]
2. From that particular discovery of it which we have in the wounds he has inflicted on us —
[The Israelites seemed to lay a peculiar stress on this, and to infer, from the very strokes of his rod, his willingness to " heal and bind them up." They even felt an assurance that his return to them would be both speedy and effectual11. Thus as soon as any person is brought to acknowledge the hand of God in his afflictions, he will improve them in this very way. Whether his troubles be of a temporal or spiritual nature, he will adore God for not leaving him in a secure and thoughtless state, and for awakening him by any means to a sense of his guilt and danger. He will begin immediately to argue as Manoah's wife; "Would the Lord have shewn me this mercy, if he had intended to destroy me ! ? " Does a father correct his child because he has no love to him ? Are not the very ex- pressions of his anger to be viewed as tokens of his lovek, and as an earnest of his returning favour to me as soon as I shall have implored his forgiveness ?
Let those then who feel the burthen of their sins, remember, that it is God who has given them to see their iniquities ; and that the heavier their burthen is, the more abundant encou- ragement they have to cast it on the Lord1.]
h The text, with ver. 2.
1 Judg. xiii. 23
k Heb. xii. 6.
1 Matt. xi. 28.
e2