PARDON PROCLAIMED TO SINNERS.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found: call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.—Isa. lv. 6, 7.

How amazingly infatuated are the children of men! They will disregard their highest interest and privilege for the pursuit of the merest trifles! The favour and mercy of God are blessings of the highest magnitude; they are they are highly interesting, and absolutely necessary for every one of us: yet how prone are the sons of men to look after that which cannot profit, and to pursue after iniquity, which certainly destroys, rather than believe in the Son of God, and engage in Jehovah's service! We can only obtain an interest in the favour of God by believing in his Son; but all who believe in him shall enjoy it forever, and shall never be left to forfeit it any more. Let sinners take warning, and remember that the time is short, and iniquity unrepented of, and unpardoned thro' the blood of the Lamb, certainly destroys the soul for ever. The matter must not be trifled with, for unbelief is big with ruin. Serious attention then to the subject, when the Lord proclaims pardon, and makes known a way of escape, is highly incumbent oa guilty sinners.

Sinners are here kindly directed to a gracious Friend, who will deliver them. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found: call ye upon him while he is near.' Seek the Lord: seek him as your Friend and Portion, your Support and your God. Seek to be reconciled to him, and to be blessed with his favour. He is offended with you because of sin; but he will have mercy upon you and welcome you, when you come to him depending on his Son. In his Son he will be found of you, and bestow upon you, for his sake, all that you need, and deliver you from all that you fear. Seck, and ye shall find.' Yes; the Lord may now be found of poor sinners. He is made known in the gospel, and manifested, in his gracious character, as a God of mercy in the sending of his Sou. God was, therefore in Christ Jesus, reconciling sinners unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses.' He is inviting you and intreating you to come to him, thus fully making known that he may now be found. Come then, sinners, unto him, while he is ready to receive you! Now is the accepted time, to-day is the day of salvation,' therefore come. Do not trifle, do not linger. To-day, therefore, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' O! remember a period approaches, when he will be found of you in mercy no more, when you shall seek him early, but shall not find him!'

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Do

not delay then, but immediately flee for your life to the God of salvation.

'Call ye upon him while he is near.' The Lord is near!what a mercy! The Lord is at hand!-within call, as it were, ready to deliver us when we apply to him. He is near in a preached gospel, in a continual providence, and in his offered mercy. It becomes us to apply to him who can help us, and to call upon him who is ready to hear our cry, and send us deliverance. He says, "Hearken unto me, ye stout-hearted, that are far from righteousness, I bring near any righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory. He is near, for he is warning you, intreating you, and striving with you. Call then upon him while he is near. A period will come when he will not be near to deliver you. If you defer till then, and he cease to strive with you, your case will be drcadful indeed. Then, when you begin to call, he will not answer. Call upon him now for the blessings of salvation, pardon, peace, and eternal life. Seek these blessings for Jesus' sake.

ou may well rely on this Saviour. Ask and you shall receive. You cannot be heard but in his name; but, pleading in that name, you will prevail for he himself says, If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.'

Perhaps these thoughts may be read by some who never call on God at all, and who, perhaps, disdain to do it. Allow me for a moment to reason with you, and lend an unprejudiced attention. You are a stranger to prayer. This shews that you are a stranger to salvation, that you do not know yourself as a ruined hell-deserving sinner,--and that you do not believe in Jesus, nor know him as a Saviour. We do not say, 'Pray, and whatever you do, your praying will save you; but we say, "Your being prayerless shews you are Christless, and therefore you are not saved." If you felt.or understood your disease, and discovered any thing of the character or skill of Jesus, the great Physician, you could not refrain from prayer, but must of necessity apply to him, and he would heal you. This has been the case with all those who have had their eyes opened to the importance of these matters. When the publican felt his disease, he cried out, God be merciful to me a sinner!' When the thief on the cross discovered the character of his fellow-sufferer, he applied to him immediately, saying, 'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom! and the Saviour answered,' Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. When Saul of Tarsus obtained a discovery of him in the way to. Damascus, he said, Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do? Were any of these rejected? No; they were all graciously heard and answered. Remember also, there are none in Heaven who went thither without prayer. Your being prayerless XVIII, 3 I

then, is a proof that you are not in the way to Heaven, but are walking in the way to Hell. Do not think of continuing as you are, or of going on your present way. Seek the Lord while he may be found: call ye upon him while he is near.' Our Lord is able and ready to deliver you; for in the Lord alone is your help.

We have here also described to us a dangerous way, which sinners must forsake; and a Refuge pointed out, to which they must turn for safety. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the Lord, even to our God.'

Man is naturally an enemy to God; and his very nature is enmity against him: his thoughts and his ways are but so many acts, or proofs, of rebellion against his Maker: he needs a change; therefore, 'Let the wicked forsake his way.' The wicked! but who is he? Every one is naturally inclined to assign the character to his neighbour, and put it past himself. Men are generally disposed to look around, if they can find any outwardly worse than themselves, the. shades of whose character wear a deeper tinge, or assume a darker aspect than their own, and at once they mark such down to be wicked; but fancy themselves to be free. Alas! this is not the way of judging aright! It is not necessary that we go out and walk the streets to hear men blaspheming God's name; that we enter the taverns, and listen to the song of the drunkard; or that we go through the lanes of the city, that we look into the gardens, or traverse the fields around on the Sabbath-day, to witness the authority of the Most High trampled under foot by multitudes following their usual employments or amusements, as it were, in derision of the ap pointments of Heaven, and in defiance of the vengeance of the Almighty, in order to discover who are the wicked. These are beyond a doubt wicked, and evidently walking in the broad way to destruction; but if we confine the character to the unblushing and avowed servants of Satan, we should certainly pass over a vast number to whom it belongs. All are wicked and unrighteous who do not believe the gospel of the grace of God, and who are not justified by the faith of Jesus;

all who are not renewed by the Spirit of God, and redeemed from iniquity by the blood of the Lamb, and made holy, as God is holy. Let all the wicked, therefore, forsake their ways. The way the wicked walks in, is that line of conduct he is disposed to pursue. This way is pleasing to his depraved mind: It is his own way, the way which he naturally chooses, which he delights in, and in which he expects happiness. The course of action he is engaged in, manifestly leads away from God, from his law, and from his grace, and leads him to pursue after iniquity, to indulge in

every evil, and to plunge into endless misery at last. This way must be forsaken; for the man that perseveres in it dies.

Not only are the ways of the wicked wrong, and necessary to be forsaken, but their hearts are wrong, and therefore these must be changed. 'Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts. The heart is so wicked, that sinful thoughts without number are produced in it. Respecting such it may be said, 'God is not in all their thoughts. The thoughts of the unrighteous dwell upon scenes of wickedness and madness; they lead them to devise schemes for the gratifying of the depraved dispositions and desires of their natures; and often lead them to ensnare and injure their fellow-men, and even to imagine themselves safe while rebelling against God. The Lord bears with sinners; and this sometimes emboldens them to go on more undauntedly in the ways of tolly. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Thus they become more and more blinded and hardened. These their ways and thoughts must be forsaken; but what shall they turn to? To the Lord our God. He will be a Refuge and a Friend. The Lord is all-sufficient to deliver every sinner who comes to him; and he is ready to do it. We must have him for a Friend, or we shall perish. He is able to save us from every enemy, and none can pluck us out of his hand; but there is no other deliverer. If sinners have him for an enemy, they are indeed in an evil case, for they cannot escape. None can deliver out of his hand; for, though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.' Turn to the Lord then, sinner; for if He be on your side, who can be against you? You are safe if Jehovah be your Hope and Stay.

We have also Jehovah's promise of pardon, for the encouragement of sinners in drawing near unto him. To him that returns to him, he says, ' He will have mercy upon him; yea, he will abundantly pardon him.' This is enough. Mercy is what he needs, and it comprehends all he needs. God's word is passed that it shall be given; and his Son has shed his blood that it might be given. God is greatly glorified then in bestowing mercy and pardon on sinners, coming to him through Christ. Mercy, therefore, shall be built up for ever. Upon our application to Christ for divine mercy, pardon and peace are freely bestowed upon us. Come to him then, sinner, and be not afraid he will abundantly pardon. When he delivers sinners at first from the reigning power and condemning influence of iniquity, and when he blots out the guilt that cleaves to them in every stage of their journey, and when he completely frees them from the whole of it at last, when they pass through the Jordan of death, where they leave it all behind them, with the garments of mortality, in the 3 L 2

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stream, he may be said abundantly to pardon. This is what he does to all who come to him through Christ, therefore they have an abundant entrance administered unto them into God's eternal kingdom. Come to him, sinner, for this bless. ing; he is as ready to bestow it on you as on any who have received it: it is free and sufficient. He will have mercy upon you; he will abundantly pardon you?

Falkland.

Sir,

ON THE HEBREW VAU.

Uriel.

The following Short Compendium of Mr.Grenville Sharpe's Rules, respecting the Conversive Power of the Hebrew Vau, appears to me to deserve a place in your Magazine.

Yours respectfully,

GENERAL RULE..

SELINE.

WHEN vau (1) is prefixed to a future or preter tense, it is conversive.

EXCEPTIONS.

1. When one or more futures or preters, having prefixed Vaus, are preceded in the same sentence by a verb of the same tense, WITHOUT a prefixed vau. Example, Genesis xxiv. 57, new and enquire. Vau is not converted.

ונשאלה

2. Should a verb in the imperative mood, or the interroga tives precede a future tense, having a prefixed vau (example in Gen. xxiv. 3, paws, and I will make thee swear) it is not converted.

3. Vau does not convert a preter following a converted fu

ture.

REMARKS,

A sincere desire of being useful to my brethren in the ministry, and other Hebrew students, is the only reason of my troubling you with the above extract; to which I take the liberty of adding some instances of the accuracy of the Rules above stated. I shall begin with the 44th chapter of the book of Genesis,

Verse 1.1

(this vau is conversive. See General Rule) and he commanded,' &c.

--2. (a future, converted to the preter. See General Rule) and he did,' &c.

4.

In this verse there are two instances of the General Rule; but these are so frequent, I pass them for the Exceptions.

GEN. xxix. 3. was (considered above. See the Second Exception) and I will make thee swear.'

51. (not eonverted, because the imperative precedes. See Second Exception) and she shall be.'

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