The Pulpit Commentary — Hosea — Section 453

the returning prodigal, so our heavenly }'ather is ever anxious and ready to console e.nd to restore the wnndering sinner who repents, confesses, and deplores his trana!ITessions, and casts himself upon Divine compassion. The assurances of this verse m~st have been comforting to Israel; they have been comforting to multitudes who have sought in the Word of God some consolation for their burdened and penitent spirits. I. DIVINE ANGER IS AVERTED. 1. The displeasure of God with sin and with the sinner is a fact in the moral government of the universe which it would be folly to overlook. God is angry, i.e. with the wicked, every day. 2. Yet God delights not in wrath, but in mercy. Hence the provision in the gospel of redemption from the curse of the Law. H is not by any interposition from without; it is by the exercise of his own wisdom e.nd clemency, that the great Judge of all lays aside his anger. The penitent and bdieving sinner is the object of the compassion of a God of righteousness and love. II. HUMAN DEFECTION AND DISOBEDIENOE ABE OVERLOOKED AND FORGIVEN, "Back- sliding" is an expression which implies that privileges and blessings have in the past been enjoyed, but then misused. Such was the case with Israel ; the sin was the greater because it was sin against light and knowledge, against favour and forbearance. 'l'he grace of God is sufficient now, as in the olden times, to deal with cases of defection and apostasy. These are regarded as malignant spiritual diseases; but they a.re not beyond the healing power of the great Physician. The virtue of the Saviour's blood, the efficacy of the Spirit's purifying energy, are sufficient even for a case apparently so hard and hopeless as this supposed. None need despair who "truly repents, and unfei~nedly believes Christ's holy gospel." Ill. THE LOVE OF GOD ENlllCHES HEARTS LONG AND PAINFULLY ESTRANGED. The promise here uttered is beyond our highest expectations. Forbearance and forgiveness do not, among men, necessarily imply the bestowal of friendship, of love. But God's ways are not our ways. He is not satisfied simply to annul a sentence of condemna- tion, to remit a merited penalty. He reveals the tenderness of a fatherly heart rejoicing over the restoration of those long alienated. He completes the work of recovery by manifesting his love towards those whom he pardons and accepts. The freedom and generosity of this Divine love are specially mentioned; and may well awaken the wonder and admirntion of the ransomed and restored. APPLICATION. What gratitude, affection, and devotion are due from pardoned. and accepted sinners towards him who is not satisfied merely to heal, but who condescends to love!-T. Vers. 5-7.-National prosperity. The prospect of Israel's repentance and reforma- tion fills the mind of the prophet with a happy exultation, and suggests imagery of the most beautiful and vivacious description. The poetical allusions crowd in upon his wind and flow from his pen with a harmonious prodigality. Reading this passage, we are transported in imagination into the scenes of verdure, fragrance, and fruitfulness, which furnished Hosea with the lively emblems of that national prosperity which he was inspired to anticipate with patriotic confidence and hope. There rise before our vision the cedar-glades of Lebanon, the flowery slopes of Carmel, the yellow corn-fields of Bethlehem, the gray and unchanging olive-yards of Judma. All are too faint to depict the glorious vision-a vision which surely no material prosperity can realize, upon which no earthly day shall ever dawn. I. THE BOUROE OF LIFE AND PROSPERITY. "I will be as the dew unto Israel" As the sweetly tempered elements are the source of life and growth, of beauty and fertility, in field and garden and forest; so only Heaven's favour, "the continual dew of God's blessing," can give rise to true national greatness, to the growth of a noble patriotism, a disinterested virtue, a general prevalence of piety. A blessed promise is this of showers of blessing, of heavenly nurture, of abundant grace. II. THE SIGNS OF VITALITY AND PROSPERITY. we notice here figurative descriptions of: 1. Life. The several productions of the vegetable kingdom are laid, so to speak, under tribute, and are constrained to set forth the true and higher life of the individual man, and especially of society, of nations. The olive and the vine, the cedar tree and the luxuriant corn are all the signs of the vitality and prodigality of nature. Many und viirioJ are the forms in which life manifests its presence and its activity. When  THE BOOK OF HOSEA. [oa. XIV. 1-9.