ON HOSEA XIV.- VERSES 2, 3. 123 inward parts, and occasion to teach transgressors the way of God, that they may be converted, Psa. ]i. 6, 7. 10. 13, 14. See it in Zaccheus ; worldliness and de- frauding had been his sin, restitution and liberality are the evidences of his repentance especially for that sin, Luke xix. 8. So Mary Magdalen ;* her sin had been uncleanness, her eyes vessels and factors for adultery, her hair a net plaited and spread to catch sinners. She remembered her wanton kisses, her provoking perfumes ; and now in her conversion where her sin had been most prevalent, there her sor- row was most penitent, and her repentance most vigilant ; her eyes vessels of tears, her kisses humbled, or rather advanced unto the feet of Christ ; her hair a towel to wipe off those tears which she judged too unclean for so holy feet to be washed withal ; her ointment poured out upon a new lover who had anointed her with his grace, Luke vii. 37, 38. The sin of the jailer against Paul and Silas was cruelty, Acts xvi. 24. and the first fruit of his repentance was courtesy to them ; he brought them out of a dungeon into his own house ; from the stocks to his table ; became a host instead of a jailer, a surgeon instead of a tormentor, and washed their stripes, ver. 30. 33, 34. This was Daniel's method of working re- pentance in Nebuchadnezzar, persuading a proud, oppressing tyrant unto justice and mercy, Dan. iv. 27. and Paul unto Felix, preaching before a corrupt and lascivious judge of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Acts xxiv. 25. and to the learned and superstitious philosophers, in a learned discovery, and making known unto them their unknown God, Acts xvii. 23. So John, the preacher of repentance, * Many modern commentators think that there is no ground to suppose that Mary Magdalen was an immoral character. I, 2
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