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I will betroth thee unto me for ever. Are you guilty? Come let us reason together, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; and though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Are you far from righteousness? Behold I bring ncar my righteousness. Surely shall one say, In Jehovah have I righteousness and strength; in him shall you be justified, and in him shall you glory. Let therefore the wicked forsakc his ways of iniquity and self-righteousness, and let him return to me the Lord, for I will have mercy on him; to me his God, for I will abundantly pardon. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. You whom times without number, I the Lord your Saviour have besought by love, by tears, by blood, by heavenly joys, and infernal horrors, to accept salvation; why abuse my mercies, and make me your stumbling block into deeper damnation! Why will ye die? Why continue dead in trespasses and sins? why imbitter your natural death? why run headlong into the sccond, the eternal death? why slight the gift of God, which is eternal life? why give your hearts to trifles, to devils, to lusts, rathcr than to me? Are they more excellent than I, who am God over all blessed for ever, the chief among ten thousand; or more kind than a dying Redeemer? Have they done, or can they do more for thy soul than I? Is my heaven so wretched, that you will in no ways cnter it by me as the way? Is hell so sweet, so desirable, that you will have no redemption from it through my blood? Are lusts so honourable, that you will be their evcrlasting slave and endless prey? Why such outrage against me your bleeding Saviour, as to refuse, that in you I should see the travail of my soul and be satisfied? O my son, my son, give me thine heart. Dear child, say him not nay: request him to apprehend it himself, as it is beyond thy power to give it: beg him, the blcssed of the Lord, that hath the key of David, to draw it with his promises, his cords of love; to open it and come in. Thns taste and see that the Lord is good.
May the lovely Bridegroom, the almighty Saviour, persuade you. Lord Jesus, come thyself, and fetch them out of the prison, the pit of corruption, and bring them into the bond of the covenant.
Printed for W. Whytk & Co. 12, St Andrew’s Street,
Edinburgh.
