mmoimmil '2I2 FOIIGIvENESS OF SIN. Hear then once more, poor sin hardened, senseless souls, " ye stout-hearted and far from righteousness." Is it nothing to you that the great and holy God, whom you have provoked all your days, and whom you yet continue to provoke, who bath not the least need of you or your salvation, who can, when he pleases, eternally glorify himself in your destruction, should of his own accord send to let you know that he is willing to be at peace with you on the terms he hath proposed? The enmity began on your part, the danger is on your part only; and he might justly expect that the message for peace should begin on your part also : but he begins with you, and shall he be rejected? The prophet well expresses this, " Thus saith the Lord God, the holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved ; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not." Isa. 30: 15. The love and con- descension in these words, on the one hand on the part of God, and the folly and ingratitude mentioned in them on the other hand, are inexpressible. They are fearful words : "But you would not." Remember this against another day. As our Savior says in like manner to the Jews, " Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life." Whatever is pretended, it is will and stubbornness that lie at the bottom of this refusal. Wherefore, that either you may obtain advantage by it, or that the way of the Lord may be prepared for the glorifying of himself in you, I shall leave this message before all them that read or hear it, as the testimony which God requires to be given unto his grace. There are terms of peace with God provided for you, and tendered to you; it is yet called to-day, "harden not your hearts," like those of old, who could not enter into the rest of God by reason of unbelief. Heb. 3: 19. Some, it may be, are old in sin, and unacquainted with God; some, it may be, have been great and scandalous
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