bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me."

It is not so with you who have de parted from God? Can then the things which you are pursuing deliver you from perpetual uneasiness? Nay, does not the fear of eternal wrath often break in still more severely on your pleasure, and tell you, unless you turn to God, not only will the arrows of God some day or other fix deeply on your consciences, but unless you return, eternal ruin awaits you, that awaits all that are found in the ways of guilt and sin, and opposing their God and Saviour.

God rightly governs his people by fear or love. If they love him, their love casts out fear; but if they cease to love him, and follow vain things, fear must be the principle that is brought into salutary exercise: nor can they retain their ease but must be restless and uneasy until they have found rest in the assured favour and love of a reconciled God in Christ.

The second point of instruction which the prophet addressed to these trembling backsliders was, that THEY

SHOULD HAVE A FILIAL CONFIDENCE
IN GOD, IN ORDER THAT THEY MIGHT

NOT DEPART FROM HIM. "Fear not,
ye have done all this wickedness: yet
turn not aside from following the LORD
with all your heart." When persons
are surrounded by prosperity, and are
in health and spirits and vigour, no-
thing is apt to alarm them. Perhaps,
if they are unconverted persons, they
can venture on any sin without alarm:
they can hear any menace from the
word of God without being touched
by it. The most solemn and affecting
events of divine revelation cannot move
their fears they are incapable of fear :
they say in their hearts, "We shall
never be moved." This same evil
state of mind, it is very possible, a
believer may fall into. He also may
say in his prosperity, "I never shall
be moved," forgetting, that by the fa-
vour of the Lord has his mountain
been made strong." But when a change
of things occurs, when he is laid on a
bed of sickness, when he is bereaved
of his favourite enjoyments, when any
thing fixes the arrow of conviction in
his heart, then he is exceedingly apt

to pass into a state of great dejection. He uses frequently then the language of the Psalmist. He will look back to those spiritual joys he once possessed; the memory of which is so dear when they have been once enjoyed, and which he knows not how to recover. "I remembered God, and was troubled. I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed." Then looking forward to the future while dismal apprehensions mix with that memory, he says, "Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?" To his unhappy experience it seems so: his hopes have been so often mocked, his efforts so often failed, that he again and again renews this language. "Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" Does my prayer no longer reach his heaven? Has he departed finally?

Now, my brethren, that disquietude, that desponding state of mind is not sanctifying. It has a strong tendency to turn the soul still further away from God. When there is this feeling accompanied by genuine contrition also, conjoined with faith, it does, indeed, on many accounts, prove salutary; but if it comes alone, how can such a one, discouraged, disconsolate, and dreading the Divine Being, how can he return to him? He cannot pray, because he dreads his prayer will not be answered. He cannot meditate, because he meditates on the idea of an angry God, which is too painful to be dwelt upon. He cannot delight in God, for God is not his God, and Christ is not his Saviour; and he looks upon him as a foe, and is obliged to turn away his face from him. He cannot act because he has little hope; and he thinks he must still be encumbered with those tormenting temptations, the chains of which he has rivetted on his own soul; and he is conscious he has been the cause of his own misery, temporal at least, eternal it may be. In such a state, when he is apprehending the fixed frown of his heavenly Father, how can he return to him; and when he is dreading to be vanquished, how can he assault the foe? Replant hope in his disconsolate bosom, and he is im

mediately animated to return; and, therefore, the Prophet says, "Turn not aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart; and turn ye not aside." Well was it that he urged them to have confidence in God by which they might be induced to return. Let them but confide in him." "He is waiting to be gracious."

While the prophet bids them to confide in God without apprehension, we must notice that this confidence was not in the least built on any endeavour to efface the recollection of their fault. It is never necessary that a backslider should endeavour to extenuate his transgression; on the contrary, the very spirit of Christian consolation more than any other, consists in this, that it is consistent with the full view of truth. That consolation that is built on falsehood is worth little, but that which is consistent with a full, calm, clear display of our own transgression against God, that is valuable indeed. Now this is what the prophet urged on them; he says, "ye have done all this wickedness," he would not in the least make them think, that their sin on account of rejecting the sovereignty of God, was trifling; he would have them fix their mind on its enormity; and yet in the very view of that sin, confide in him as a God that would bless you.

night? What manifestations of the divine goodness he once saw shedding their effulgence around him, and all these he has forsaken. A God so kind-a Saviour so perfect-prospects so enchanting, he has forgone them all-and why? To prey on the miserable substitute for satisfaction which a lying, cheating, miserable world will be able to afford him. Yes, the heavens may well themselves be called upon for surprize; for if that starry host we see above our heads could be animated with an immortal soul like ours, there is not a star that twinkles in them but would utter a groan at such monstrous rebellion against God; there is not one which would not refuse to shine or go out in darkness, as though this rebellious world was unworthy to be shone upon by such pure flames. My brethren, this, therefore, should be fixed deeply in the mind of the backslider, but yet in connection with filial confidence in the God to whom he is invited to return. It is a blessed thing when a backslider can believe all this, when he is penetrated with a view of his sins, and yet feels sweet consolation in the certainty that God is willing to receive and bless him.

This leads us to the Third point of instruction addressed by the Prophet to the people, namely, THE GROUND

UPON WHICH THEIR CONFIDENCE WAS

So assuredly is it with the back- TO REST. "Turn ye not aside: for then slider. Oh, let him discover how should ye go after vain things, which great his sins have been; let him re- cannot profit nor deliver, for they are member that the Lord himself, by his vain. For the Lord will not forsake prophet Jeremiah, speaking of his par- his people." It is a blessed truth, ticular sin, calls on heaven to be deso- with which we are all familiar, that late at the cry, "Be ye astonished, there is no extent of sin which can O ye heavens at this, and be horribly hinder a free and full pardon to the afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the returning penitent. The least sin is LORD. For my people have com- damning while the soul remains immitted two evils: they have forsaken penitent; but if brought by the grace me the fountain of living waters, and of God sincerely to mourn over it, to hewed them out cisterns, broken cis- confess it truly, to cast it at the foot terns, that can hold no water." Here of the cross, there is no more anger was their sin, that when they knew against the soul. The Lord will not what God had done for them, and forsake his son: he is ready to be what God was himself to them, they gracious to every backslider who recould prefer the miserable sources of turns: he is waiting to be gracious. joy which the ungodly world can fur- There is not to be found in the history nish. Let this base ingratitude be of human forbearance and forgiveness fixed deeply in the heart of every back- any thing at all comparable to that slider. How much has he once known which is shown continually by a graof God? What sweet and blessed joyscious God to his offending servants. once visited him morning, noon, and "Who is a God," saith the Prophet

Micah, "

like them have obtained the pardon of the Lord. What a marvellous list of sinners is spoken of in the sixth chapter of the First epistle to the Corinthians, "Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunk

"like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage." What being can be found like him to pardon? Who has ever been so insulted, so rebelled against; and yet so freely, so fully, so willingly forgiveth-and why? "He retaineth not his anger for ever, because he de-ards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, lighteth in mercy?"

The Lord delights to pardon all those whom he can pardon justly. But as the merits of our Saviour's cross are fully adequate to atone for the worst transgression, in the same way, and to the same extent, that they atone for the smallest; therefore, the Lord can as easily pardon with justice, the worst offence, as he can the smallest, the pardon being on the same grounds, and in the same way. The least sin any one commits cannot be forgiven except in this mode; and the greatest sin any one commits may be pardoned as easily by the free for giveness of this gracious God. He delights in mercy; therefore let every penitent backslider take this consolation to his heart to-night, that if he returns to God, that if he only submits and humbles himself, the Lord delights in forgiving him. He delights in forgiving me, may any backslider here say, all my past offences I have wandered far-I have sinned strangely-I am an abomination to myself-could my brethren see what is within me, they would abhor me as I abhor myself-the Lord sees it all, and he delights to pardon. "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth | iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." Thus, my brethren, there is no sin however great which the backslider may not bring to God with perfect confidence that he will pardon and forgive. Were it not so, how could he have visited with mercy that faithless disciple Peter: how could he have pardoned Solomon endowed so marvellously in early youth, so blessed with heavenly wisdom, and yet he turned unto idolatry, and built in the very neighbourhood of the temple of Jehovah altars to the different idols which were around him? Yet they were forgiven freely; aye, and many offenders

shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified." Is there any one here who has committed these detestable offences, committed some of them, committed all of them, he is not worse than those pardoned Corinthians of whom the Apostle speaks. "Such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified." And if in heaven there are some of these transgressors whose robes were washed white on earth by the blood of the Lamb, whose spirits were washed clean by the influence of God's grace, then, why should not he who is most harassed by temptation, most beset by the vilest habits feel sure, that there is for him a place among the sons of God, that there is for him the blessing of the covenant if he will but return to his offended God?

And if this seem hard to believe, we have then to bring forward the Fourth point of instruction, which is, THE REASON WHY THE LORD THUS DELIGHTS TO BE GRACIOUS. "For the Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake: because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people." He had chosen them from the tribes of the earth most freely when there was no other cause than his sovereign pleasure, had brought them into the relation of a favoured people towards himself; had made them his own, as distinguished from the other nations of the earth-then will he not be faithful to the people he hath chosen? His glory was in a manner involved in their preservation, and this is an argument continually used by the Prophet Moses, when he urged on the Lord not to destroy wholly his people, because he had made them his. But his by a much higher relation, his by a far richer purchase has he made believers in Christ, and though they backslide from him, yet will he never leave nor forsake them