ON HOSEA XIV.- VERSES 3, 4. 147 1. And that to teach them and us when we pray against sin, not to content ourselves with gene- ralities, but to bewail our great and special sins by name, those specially that have been most comprehen- sive and the seminaries of many others. 2. To comfort them ; for if God pardon by name the greatest sin, then surely none of the rest will stand in the way of his mercy ; if he forgive the talents, we need not doubt but he will forgive the pence too. Paul was guilty of many other sins, but when he will magnify the grace of Christ, he makes mention of his great sins : a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious ; and comforts himself in the mercy which he had obtained against them, 1 Tim. i. 13. 3. To intimate the great guilt of apostacy and re- bellion against God. After we have known him and tasted of his mercy, and given up ourselves unto his service, and come out of Egypt and Sodom, then to look back again and to be false to his covenant, this God looks on, not as a single sin, but as a compound of all sins. When aman turns from God, he doth as it were resume and take home upon his conscience all the sins of his life again. 4. To proportion his answer to their repentance. They confess their apostacy, they had been in cove- nant with God, they confess he was their first hus. band, Hos. ii. 7. and they forsook him, and sought to horses, to men, to idols, to vanity and lies : this is the sin they chiefly bewail; and therefore this is the sin which God chiefly singles out to pardon and to heal them of. This is the great goodness of God towards those who pray in sincerity, that he fits his mercy to answer them in the main of their desires, let it be unto them even as they will. I will love them freely." This is set down as the N 2
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