ON HOSEA XIV. -VERSE 8. 257 off from sin, if it return to it again, will be much more fruitful than before. As lean bodies have many times the strongest appetite, so lust when it hath been kept lean, returns with greater hunger unto those objects which feed it. A stream which hath been stopped, will run more violently being once opened again. Therefore in repentance we must shake hands with sin for ever, and resolve never more to tamper with it. Now in that the Lord saith, " I have heard him and observed him ;" we learn hence, 1. That God heareth and answereth the prayers only of penitents. When a man resolves, I will have no more to do with sin, then, not till then, Both his prayer find way to God. Impenitency clogs the wing of devotion, and stops its passage unto heaven. The person must be accepted before the petition ; Christ Jesus is the priest that offereth, and the altar which sanctifieth all our services, 1 Pet. ii. 5. Isa. lvi. 7. And Christ will not be their Advocate in heaven, who refuse to have him their King on earth. The scripture is in no point more express than in this. " If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me," Psa. lxvi. 18. Prayer is a pouring out of the heart, if iniquity be harboured there, prayer is obstructed, and if it do break out, it will have the scent and savour of that iniquity upon it. " The sa- crifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord," Prov. xv. 8. both because it is impure in itself, and because it hath no altar to sanctify it. " He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination," Prov. xxviii. 9. Great reason that God should refuse to hear him who refuseth to hear God ; that he who will not let God beseech him, (as he doth in his word, 2 Cor. v. 20.) Y3
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