ON HOSEA XIV.- VERSES 2, 3. 113 as the phrase is, 1 Kings viii. 47. (for we do never de- part from God, but we do withal forsake and lose our- selves, and are transported with a spiritual madness from our right minds,) immediately grew to a reso- lution of arising out of that base and brutish condition, and of going home to his father, and by that means to his senses again. So when by John's preaching of repentance, men were turned to the wisdom of the just, (for all unrighteousness is folly and madness,) and were prepared for the Lord, we immediately find what a special care they had to be informed in the ways of duty, earnestly inquiring after that new course of obedience which they were now to walk in, Luke iii. 10. 12. All true penitents are of the mind of these in the text, " We will not say any more," and " What have I to do any more with idols ?" ver. 8. as Ezra in his penitent prayer, " Should we now again break thy commandments," ch. ix. 14. When Christ rose from the dead, he died no more : and when we repent of sin, it must be with a repentance that must never any more be repented of, Rom. vi. 9.12.2 Cor.vii. 10. The time past of our life must suffice us to have wrought the . will of the Gentiles, 1 Pet. iv. 3. This care ariseth from the nature of true repentance, which has two names usually given it ; 1. A change of the mind ; the heart is framed to have other and truer notions of sin, of grace, of heaven, of hell, of conscience, of salvation than it had before ; for the mind of wicked men being defiled, they can frame to themselves none but impure apprehensions of spiritual things, as a yellow eye sees every thing yellow, and a bitter palate tastes every thing bitter. 2. A change of the cares and endeavours of life. That whereas be- fore a man made provision for the flesh, and his study and care was how to satisfy the lusts of his own heart, x3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=