THE AGGRAVATIONS OF RÂCKSLIDING. 619 sins. Well, I have seen these follies, saith God, but I will restore the fools and give them wisdom again. II. There is also great ingratitude; not only they sinned against much light, but against much love, when they departed fromGod after he has once manifested himself to them. " Have I, saith God, been a wilderness to thee, or a land of darkness that thou hast served me thus ? fer. ii. 31. Have I been backward in shewing mercies, and yet how hast thou requited me ? For one that has known God to turn away from him, for him to seek blessedness in the creature ; for one that has fre- quently, and for a long lime experienced my goodness, in a thousand instances, to forget and depart from me and seek the creature : yet I can look over this, I have more love, and I will manifest more instances of it; I will recover him from all this ingratitude, I will not cease to do him good, though he has been as it were trying to weary me out by his rebellions ; but I will not be wearied out, I still will shew mercyand recover him. III. Stubbornness is another aggravation of this sin : an unwillingness to return after many methods used to reclaim him. This was the case in our text, that after God had used many ways to recover Israel, yet " he went on forwardly in the way of his own heart : this is expressed in Jer. v. 3. " Thou hast stricken them, O Lord, but they have not grieved ; thou hast consumed them, but they refused to receive correction : they have made their faces harder than a rock, they have refused to return, &c." God might be ready to say, and he does often say, " How shall I pardon thee for this, shall I not visit for these things, and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this ? Go ye up upon her walls and destroy, but make not a full end." I have a mind to make them return, therefore do not utterly destroy them, saith the Lord. A child sometimes manifests stubborn- ness long and in many instances, and yet the parent will not wholly turn him out of doors ; thus it is with God and sinners, we repeat our provocations, and God re- peats his long sufferings. 1V. Amultiplication of sins of many kinds will at- tend a departure from God. Though you have played the harlot with many lovers, yet, saith the Lord, return, &c.
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