238 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. noon-day, and have given you darkness instead of vision. He could respite your lives for a season, and yet swear in his wrath that you should never enter into his rest. It is now otherwise : how long it may be so, neither you nor I know any thing at all. God only knows what will be your time, what your continuance. We are to warn you whilst it is called to -day. And this is that for the present which I have to offer toyou: God declares that there is forgiveness with him; that your condition is not desperate nor helpless. There are yet terms of peace proposed to you. Methinks it cannot but seem strange that poor sinners should not at the least stir up themselves to inquire after them. When a poor man had sold himself of old, and his children, tobe servants, and parted with the landof his inheritance unto another, because of hispoverty ; with what heart, do you think, did he hear the sound of the trumpet, when it began to pro- claim the year of jubilee, wherein he and all his were to go-out at liberty, and to return to his possession and in- heritance l And shall not poor servants of sin, slaves to Satan, that have forfeited all their inheritance in this world and that which is to come, attend to a proclama- tion of the year of rest, of the acceptable year of the Lord'? And this is done in the tender of terms of peace withGod. Do not put it off; this thing belongs to you; the great concern of your souls lies in it. It is a great matter ; for, consider, 5. That when the angels came to bring the news of the birth of our Lord -Jesus they say, We bring good tidings of great joy to the whole people. Luke, 2 : 10. What are these joyful tidingsl What was the matter of this report 1 Why, "This day is born a Savior, Christ the Lord." ver. 11. It is only this ; a Savior is born : a way of escape is provided; and further they do not proceed. Yet this, they say, is a matter- of great joy, as it was indeed. It is to every burdened, convinced
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