the Lord.  Turn, O backsliding children, for I am married unto you.’  Jer. 3.  What, O what can I say to such grace?  Truly, thy ways are not as our ways, nor thy thoughts as our thoughts.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are thy ways higher than our ways, and thy thoughts than our thoughts.  Oh, how is my guilt aggravated by all this grace; and yet thou callest, Return; and thou thyself turnest me.  I do, O Lord God, merciful and gracious, I do acknowledge my iniquity; every time I turn back my eyes upon my past life my sins rise in magnitude, heightened by more enlarged views of thy goodness.  It is of the Lord’s mercies that I am not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

“A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplication of the children of Israel, for they have perverted their ways, and they have forgotten the Lord their God.  Yes, thou hast, my gracious God, granted repentance.  Thine eye has seen the tears I have shed; thou hast given me a contrite heart.  I have looked upon him whom I have pierced, and been in bitterness as for a first-born.  I feel it now, and must feel it while the body of sin exists.  But Oh, Lord God, merciful and gracious, the cause is in thyself, that I hear thy voice, and that I answer.  ’Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.  Behold, I come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God.  Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills and the multitude of mountains.  Truly, in the Lord God is the salvation of Israel.  We lie down in our shame, our confusion covereth us:  for we have sinned against the Lord our God; we and our fathers, even from our youth; and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord God.  Thus saith the Lord God, I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, who hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.  Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth; and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.  That thou mayest remember and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee, saith the Lord God.’  Amen, Lord God, merciful and gracious.  Be it so.  It is so now—­it must, it will be so, until death shall open mine eyes on that mystery:  The glory of God arising out of the abounding of sin, through the superabounding of grace, and grace reigning through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord!

“Till then, while sin dwelleth in me, let me enjoy the blessedness of a contrite heart; yea, even shame and confusion, since it is the sign that thou art pacified with me.  Thou hast dealt with me, thou hast chastened, and in some instances taken vengeance on my inventions.  But thou art pacified with me, and I dare look again to thy holy temple, to the temple not made with hands, to the minister of the sanctuary, and the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man; to the blessed High-priest,