x Isai. xl. 31.
god's notice of penitents.
Hos. xiv. 8. Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idoh? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir-tree : from me is thy fruit found.
THE conversion of a sinner is a work of infinite difficulty ; no efforts of the creature can accomplish
it : none but He who spake the universe into exist- ence, can renew the soul : but when his time is come, the work is done both easily and effectually. As a ship, forsaken by the ebbing tide, can never be dragged along, but is easily put in motion when borne up by the returning waters, so the sinner is immoveable in his iniquities, till the Spirit of God flows in upon him : and then " old things quickly pass away, and, behold, all things become new." This observation is verified continually before our eyes : persons who have been warned and entreated for many years, and have not only withstood all the most awful and endearing considerations, but have been more and more hardened by the means used to convert them, have at last been turned to God through a secret and invisible influence upon their souls, and have become burning and shining lights in their day and generation. Such were the effects produced on the day of Pentecost, when thousands to whom our blessed Lord had preached in vain, and on whom the most stupendous miracles had wrought no change, were constrained to renounce all their former habits and opinions, and to embrace a new, a spiritual, a despised, and persecuted religion. A similar instance we have in the passage before us. If we look to the account given us of Ephraim in chap. iv. 17, we shall find, that he was "joined to idols," yea, so glued to them, that neither warnings from man, nor judgments from God, could separate him from them ; and there- fore God said respecting him, " Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone ;" it is to no purpose to use any further means for his recovery ; he is incorrigible, and irreclaimable. But, behold the change, when once God is pleased to put forth his power ! When once he says, " I will heal their backsliding, I will be as the dew to Israel," " I will manifest my grace and mercy to his soul," the obdurate heart relents ; the abandoned sinner turns from his iniquities, and even with indignation and abhorrence renounces his most beloved lusts ; " Ephraim saith, What have I to do any more with idols?" If God therefore have such