In this sermon, Christ is calling upon the listeners to arise and take possession of the good land that is promised to them. The preacher encourages the audience to view the glory of the other world as depicted in the gospel and to walk through the land of paradise. The sermon emphasizes the importance of believing in the prophets and the promises of God, as well as the need to turn away from sin and be watchful. It also highlights the role of a tender heart in not neglecting duties and being cautious of sin.

An Alarm to the Unconverted Sinner By Joseph Alain To the unconverted Set upon the constant and diligent use of serious and fervent prayer. He that neglects prayer is a profane and unsanctified sinner. He that is not constant in prayer is a hypocrite. Unless the omission be contrary to his ordinary course, under the force of some instant temptation, one of the first things conversion appears in is that it sets men a-praying, therefore set to this duty. Let not one day pass in which you have not morning and evening set apart some time for solemn prayer in secret. Also call your family together daily and duly to worship God with you. Will be unto you if you be found among the families that call not upon God's name. Jeremiah 10.25 The cold and lifeless devotions will not reach halfway to heaven. Be fervent and importunate. Importunity will carry it, but without violence the kingdom of heaven will not be taken. You must strive to enter and wrestle with tears and supplications as Jacob if he would gain the blessing. You are undone forever without grace, and therefore you must set to it and resolve to take no denial. That man who has fixed in this resolution says, Well, I must have grace, or I will never give over till I have grace. I will never cease earnestly pleading and striving with God in my own heart till he renews me by the power of his grace. Forsake your evil company and forbear the occasions of sin. You will never be turned from sin till you decline and forego the temptations of sin. I never expect your conversion from sin unless you are brought to some self-denial so as to flee the occasions. If you will be nibbling at the bait and playing on the brink and tampering with the snare, your soul will surely be taken. Where God exposes man in his providence unavoidably to temptation and the occasions of such as we cannot remove, we may expect special assistance in the use of his means. But when we tempt God by running into danger, he will not engage to support us when we are tempted. And of all temptations, one of the most fatal and pernicious is evil companions. Oh, what hopeful beginnings have these often stifled! Oh, the souls, the estates, the families, the towns have these ruined! How many poor sinners have been enlightened and convinced and been just ready to escape the snare of the devil, and have even escaped it, and yet wicked company has pulled them back at last and made them sevenfold more the children of hell! In a word, I have no hopes of you except you shake off your evil company. Your life depends upon it. Forsake this or you cannot live. Will you be worse than the ass of Balaam to run on when you see the Lord with a drawn sword in the way? Let this sentence be written in capitals upon your conscience. A companion of fools shall be destroyed. Proverbs 8.20 The Lord has spoken it, and who shall reverse it? And will you run upon destruction when God himself forewarns you? If God ever changes your heart, it will appear in the change of your company. Oh, fear and flee the gulf by which so many thousands have been swallowed up in perdition. It will be hard for you indeed to make your escape. Your companions will be mocking you out of your religion and will study to fuel you with prejudices against strictness, as ridiculous and comfortless. They will be flattering you and alluring you, but remember the warnings of the Holy Ghost. My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, cast in thy lot among us, walk thou not in the way with them, refrain thy foot from their path, avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away. For the way of the wicked is as darkness. They know not what they stumble. They lie in wait for their own blood. They lurk privily for their own lies. Proverbs 1.10-19 Proverbs 4.15-19 My soul is moved within me to see how many of my hearers and readers are likely to perish. Both they and their houses by this wretched mischief. Even the frequenting of such places in company by which they are drawn into sin. Once more I admonish you as Moses did Israel. Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men. Numbers 16.26 O flee from them as ye would those that had the plague. Sores running in their foreheads. These are the devil's panders and decoys. And if you do not make your escape, they will draw you into perdition and will prove your eternal ruin. Set apart a day to humble your soul in secret by fasting and prayer to work a sentence of your sins and miseries upon your heart. Read over a thorough exposition of the commandments and write down the duties omitted and sins committed by you against every commandment and so make a catalogue of your sins. And with shame and sorrow spread them before the Lord. And if your heart be truly willing to the terms, join yourself solemnly to the Lord in that covenant set down in Direction 10 of this chapter. And the Lord grant you mercy in His sight. Thus I have told you what you must do to be saved. Will you now obey the voice of the Lord? Will you arise and set to the work? Oh man, what answer will you make? What excuse will you have? If you should perish at last through the very willfulness when you have known the way of life. I do not fear your miscarrying. If your own idleness do not at last undo you in neglecting the use of the means that are so plainly here prescribed. Rouse up, oh sluggard, and ply your work. Be doing, and the Lord will be with you. A short soliloquy for an unregenerate sinner. Ah, wretched man that I am! What a condition hath I brought myself into by sin! Oh, I see my heart has deceived me all this while in flattering me that my condition was good. I see, I see. I am but a lost and undone man, forever undone unless the Lord help me out of this condition. My sins, my sins, Lord! What an unclean, polluted wretch I am! More loathsome and odious to Thee than the most hateful venom or noisome carcass can be to me. Oh, what a hell of sin is in this heart of mine which I have flattered myself to be a good heart. Lord, how universally am I corrupted in all my parts, powers, performances. All the imaginations of my heart are only evil continually. I am under an inability to, an aversion from, and an enmity against anything that is good. And I am prone to all that is evil. My heart is a very sink of sin, and all the innumerable hosts and swarms of sinful thoughts words and actions that have flowed from it. Oh, the load of guilt that is on my soul. My head is full and my heart is full. My mind and my members, they are all full of sin. Oh, my sins, how do they stir upon me? Woe is me, my creditors are upon me. Every commandment takes hold upon me for more than ten thousand talents. Yea, ten thousand times ten thousand. How endless then is the sum of all my debts. If this whole world were filled up from earth to heaven with paper, and all this paper written over, within and without, by arithmeticians, yet when all were added up, it would come inconceivably short of what I owe to the least of God's commandments. Woe unto me, for my debts are infinite and my sins are increased. They are wrongs to an infinite majesty. And if he that commits treason against a selcan mortal is worthy to be wracked, drawn, and tortured, what have I deserved that has so often lifted up my hand against heaven and has struck it the crown and dignity of the Almighty? Oh, my sins, my sins, behold a troop comes. Multitudes, multitudes, there is no number of their armies. Innumerable evils have compassed me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me. They have set themselves against me. Oh, it were better to have all the regiments of hell come against me than to have my sins fall upon me to the spoiling of my soul. Lord, how am I surrounded? How many are they that rise up against me? They have beset me behind and before. They swarm within me and without me. They have possessed all my powers and have fortified my unhappy soul as a garrison, which this brood of hell men and men teems against a God that made me. They are as mighty as there are many. The sands are many, but then they are not great. The mountains great, but then they are not many. But woe is me. My sins are as many as the sands and as mighty as the mountains. Their weight is greater than their number. It were better that the rocks and the mountains should fall upon me than the crushing and unsupportable load of all my sins. Lord, I am heavy laden. Let mercy help or I am gone. Unload me of this heavy guilt, this sinking load, or I am crushed without hope and must be pressed down to hell. If my grief were thoroughly weighed and my sins laid in the balance together, they would be heavier than the sand of the sea. Therefore my words are swallowed up. They would weigh down all the rocks and the hills and turn the balance against all the isles of the earth. O Lord, Thou knowest my manifold transgressions and my mighty sins. O my soul, alas, my glory, how are you humbled? Once a glory of the creation in the image of God, now a lump of filthiness, a coffin of rottenness, replenished with stench and loathsomeness. Oh, what a work this sin made with you. You shall be termed forsaken and all the rooms of your faculties desolate and the name that you shall be called by is Ichabod, or where is the glory? How will you come down mightily? My beauty is turned into deformity and my glory into shame. Lord, what a loathsome leper am I. The ulcerous bodies of Job or Lazarus were not more offensive to the eyes and nostrils of men than I must needs be to the most holy God whose eyes cannot behold iniquity. In what misery have my sins brought upon me? Lord, what estate I am in, sold under sin, cast out of God's favor, a curse from the Lord, cursed in my body, cursed in my soul, cursed in my name and my estate, my relations and all that I have. My sins are unpardoned and my soul within a step of death. Alas, what shall I do? Where shall I go? Which way shall I look? God is frowning on me from above, hell gaping for me beneath, conscience smiting me within, temptations and dangers surrounding me without. Oh, where shall I fly? What place can hide me from omniscience? What power can secure me from omnipotence? What do you mean, O my soul, to go on thus? Are you in league with hell? Have you made a covenant with death? Are you in love with your misery? Is it good for you to be here? Alas, what shall I do? Shall I go on in my sinful ways? Why, then certain damnation will be my end. And shall I be so besotted and mad as to go and sell my soul to the flames for a little ale or a little ease for a little pleasure or gain or comfort to my flesh? Shall I linger any longer in this wretched state? No, if I tarry here I shall die. What then? Is there no help? No hope? None except I turn. Why, but is there any remedy for such woeful misery? Any mercy after such provoking iniquity? Yes. As sure as God's oath is true, I shall have pardon and mercy yet if I presently, unfeignedly, and unreservedly turn by Christ to Him. Why, then I thank Thee upon the bended knees of my soul. O most merciful Jehovah, that Thy patience has waited for me hitherto. For hast Thou taken me away in this state I had perished forever. And now I adore Thy grace and accept the offers of Thy mercy. I renounce all my sins and resolve by Thy grace to set myself against them and to follow Thee in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life. Who am I, Lord, that I should make any claim to Thee or have any part or portion in Thee who are not worthy to lick up the dust of Thy feet? Yet since Thou holdest forth the golden scepter I am bold to come and touch. To despair would be to disparage Thy mercy. And to stand off when You bid me come would be at once to undo myself and rebel against You under pretense of humility. Therefore I bow my soul to Thee and with all possible thankfulness accept You as mine and give up myself to You as thine. You shall be sovereign over me, my King and my God. You shall be on the throne. Now my power shall bow to Thee. They shall come and worship before Thy feet. Thou shalt be my portion, O Lord, and I will rest in Thee. You call for my heart, O that it were in way fit for Your acceptance. I am unworthy, O Lord, everlastingly unworthy to be Thine. But since You will have it so I freely give my heart to You. Take it. It is Yours. O that it were better that, Lord, I put it into Your hands who alone can mend it, or that after Your own heart make it as You would have it, holy, humble, heavenly, soft, tender, flexible, and write Your law upon it. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Enter in triumphantly. Take me up for Thyself forever. I give myself to Thee. I come to Thee as the only way to the Father as the only mediator. It means ordain to bring me to God. I have destroyed myself, but in Thee is my help. Save, Lord, or else I perish. I come to Thee with a rope about my neck. I am worthy to die and to be damned. Never was a hire more due to the servant. Never was a penny more due to the laborer than death and hell. My just wages are due to me for my sins, but I fly to Thy merits. I trust alone to the value and virtue of Thy sacrifice in prevalence of Thy intercession. I submit to Thy teaching. I make choice of Thy government. Stand open, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may enter in. O Thou Spirit of the Most High, the Comforter and Sanctifier of Thy chosen, come in with all Thy glorious train, all Thy courtly attendants, Thy fruits and graces. Let me be Thine habitation. I can give Thee but what is Thine already, but here with the widow I give my two mites, my soul and my body, into Your treachery for the reason them up to You to be sanctified by You, to be servants to You. They shall be Your patients. Cure Thou their maladies. They shall be Your agents. Govern Thou their actions. Too long have I served the world. Too long have I hearkened to Satan, but now I renounce them all and will be ruled by Thy dictates and directions and guided by Thy counsel. O blessed Trinity, O glorious unity, I deliver myself up to You. Receive me. Write Your name, O Lord, upon me and upon all that I have as Your proper goods. Set Your mark upon me, upon every member of my body and every faculty of my soul. I have chosen Your precepts. Thy law will I lay before me. This shall be the copy which I will keep in mine eye and study to write after. According to this rule, do I resolve by Your grace to walk. After this law shall my whole man be governed. And though I cannot perfectly keep one of Thy commandments, yet I will allow myself in the breach of none. I know my flesh will hang back, but I resolve in the power of Your grace to cleave to You in Your holy ways, whatever it cost me. I am sure I cannot come off a loser by You, and therefore I will be content with reproach and difficulties and hardships here, and will deny myself and take up my cross and follow Thee. Lord Jesus, Thy work is easy. Thy cross is welcome, as it is the way to Thee. I lay aside all my hopes of a worldly happiness. I will be content to tarry till I come to Thee. Let me be poor and low, little and despised here, so I may be but admitted to live and reign with Thee hereafter. Lord, Thou hast my heart and hand to this agreement. Be it as the laws of the Medes and Persians, never to be reversed. To this will I stand. In this resolution, by Thy grace I will live and die. I have sworn and will perform it, that I will keep Thy righteous judgments. I have given my free consent. I have made my everlasting choice. Lord Jesus, confirm the contract. Amen. Before reading the last chapter of this book, I'd like to take a short digression to another book by Joseph Alain's brother. I am reading at this point chapter 12 of the book Heaven Opened The Riches of God's Covenant Grace by Richard Alain A Heart of Flesh I will take away with a stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36 26 The old heart is a stone. Cold is a stone. Dead is a stone. Hard is a stone. But I will take away the stoning of a heart of flesh. A heart of flesh is a soft and tender heart. Flesh can feel anything that is contrary to it. Puts it to pain. Sin makes it smart. It cannot kick, but it is against the pricks. By its rebellion and resistance against the Lord, it receives a wound. It cannot hit, but it hurts itself. A soft hand gets nothing by laying on, on a hedge of thorns. A soft heart, when it has been meddling with sin, is sure to smart for it. It can neither escape the pain nor yet endure it. And what it cannot bear, it will take warning to avoid. Flesh will bleed. A soft heart will mourn and melt and grieve when hard hearts are moved at nothing. Flesh will yield. It is apt to receive impressions. The power of God will awe it. His justice, alarm it. His mercy, melt it. His holiness, humble it. And leave the stamp and image of it upon it. And as he attributes, so the word and works of God will make sign upon it. Who sets a seal upon a stone? Or what print will it receive? Upon the wax, the print will abide. God speaks once and twice, but man, hardened man, will not regard it. Neither his word nor his rod, neither his speaking nor his smiting will make any sign on such hearts. It is the heart of flesh that hears and yields. And with such hearts, the Lord delights to be dealing. The heart of His people is waxed gross. Acts 28, 27 They will not hear. They will not understand. And the next word is, Away to the Gentiles. They will hear. He will no more write His laws on tables of stone. He will write in flesh. There the impression will take and go the deeper. And therefore, wherever He intends to write, He prepares His table, makes His stone flesh, and engraves upon it. Particularly, this tenderness admits of a double distinction. First, respecting the object of it. So there is a tenderness of sin, of duty, of suffering, of sin, and that is twofold. Such as discovers itself before the commission and after the commission of it. Before the commission of sin, whilst it is under a temptation or feels the first motion to sin. A tender heart startles, starts back at the side of a sin, is at the side of a devil. How shall I deal with great wickedness and sin against God? Genesis 39, 9 The manner of the speech presents Joseph as a man in a fright, startled at the ugliness of the motion. So that when he had an opportunity and a temptation to slay Saul, rejects it with, God forbid. The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lord's anointed. 1 Samuel 26, 11 And that not only the higher and greater, but it resists the little ones, the smallest of sins. Is it not a little one? Is no plea with it? Little or great, it is a sin, and that is enough. 2 After the commission If it has been brought on upon sin, yet it cannot go out with it. The skirt of Saul's garment was too heavy for David's heart to bear. His heart smote him presently. 1 Samuel 24, 5 Sin in the review looks dreadful. Its pleasant flowers quickly turn to thorn. It pricks the heart how much soever it pleased the eye. It ordinarily enters by the eye and often runs out the same way it came in. Runs out in tears. When he thought thereon he wept. At least it warns and makes more watchful after. You see what it is? Take heed. Take it for a warning and do no more. The pain of sin, if it do not force a tear, it will set a watch. 2 Of Duty A tender heart will neither slight a sin nor neglect a duty. It is loath to grieve and offend and careful to serve and please the Lord. It would not that he should suffer by it, nor so much as lose his due. It watches against sin and unto duty. It cares how to please the Lord, and its care is tender. It would not displease by its neglects or performances. All must be done that ought, and as it ought to be done. It will neither stand out with its offering, nor will it offer an unclean thing. It considers not only what, but how. Both matter and manner, substance and circumstance, all must be right, for it is not at ease. It will keep time, and as much as may be, keep touch with the Lord in every point. It is not satisfied that it prays sometimes, it would not lose a praying time. God will not, and it cannot lose a duty. It would neither lose by non-performance, nor lose what is performed. It would neither leave undone, nor do amiss any failing, not only in the matter, but in the principle, end, affection, intention, any failing pains. Number three, in point of suffering. A soft heart will not be careful what or how much, but why and upon what account he suffers. Will neither sinfully shun the cross, nor run upon it unwarrantedly. He waits for a call, and then follows. He is patient under the hand of the Lord, but not insensible. Can be touched with an affliction, though not offended at it. The hand of the Lord hath touched me. He suffers more than his own, his brethren's sufferings. His brethren's burdens all lie on his shoulders. He weeps in their sorrows, bleeds in their wounds. His heart is bound in their chains. As a care, so the trouble of all the churches comes daily upon him. Who is weak, and I am not weak. Who is offended, and I burn not. He espouses all the sufferings of Christ as his own. In all his afflictions, he is afflicted. Section 2 Tenderness may be distinguished in respect of the subject of it. And so there is a tenderness of the conscience, the will, the affections. First, tenderness of conscience stands in these three things. Number one, clearness of judgment. Number two, quickness of sight. Number three, uprightness or faithfulness. Number one, clearness of judgment. When it is well instructed and understands the role and can thus discern betwixt good and evil, Hebrews 5.14, there is a tenderness that proceeds from cloudiness, scrupulosity that fears everything, stumbles at straws, starts at shadows, makes sins, picks quarrels at duties, and so sometimes dares not please for fear of offending God. This is a sickness or soreness of conscience, not its soundness. It is the sound conscience that is truly tender. Number two, quickness of sight and watchfulness. I sleep, but my heart waketh. I can espy the least sins and smallest duties. It can see sin in the very temptation. It can discover the least sin under the fairest face and the least duty under the foulest visor. Call it singularity, nicety, cloud it with reproaches, yet conscience can discover light shining through all the clouds. Duty within, whatsoever unhandsome face it be presented in, the former stands in conscience's understanding the role. As was said, this is straight applying the role to cases and distinguishing them by it. The truly tender has his eyes on his head and his eyes open to discover and discern all that comes, be it good or evil, little or great. But if a thought comes in, what comes there, says conscience, what art thou, a friend or an enemy? Whence art thou, from God or from beneath? It will examine whatever knocks before any free admission. O what a crowd of evils do thrust into loose and careless hearts! The devil comes in in the crowd and is never discovered. If the eye be either dim or asleep, there is entrance for anything. Little do we think of times who hath been with us, what losses and mischiefs we have sustained while our hearts have been asleep, which, had they been wakeful and watchful, might have been prevented. Number three, uprightness and faithfulness, which discovers itself in giving charge concerning duty, number two, in giving warning of sin, number three, in giving check for sin when committed, first, in giving charge concerning duty. Look to it, soul, there is a duty before thee, which God calls thee to. Do not say, It is no great hurt to let it alone. It is no great hurt to do it. It is questionable whether it be a duty or not, many wiser than I think otherwise. Do not say, It is a nicety. It is but a punctilio. It is a mere folly in preciseness, and there will be no end of standing upon such small matters. See to it, it is your duty. Be well you neglect it not. The balking of the least duty is the neglecting of the great God of glory. Number two, in giving warning of sin, take heed to thyself. Sin lies at the door. Thou art under a temptation. The devil is entering upon thee. Do not say, It is but a little sin. As little as it is, there is death and hell in it. Look to it. It is sin. Have thou nothing to do with it. Keep thyself here, and though it run upon thee, shake it off. Number three, after commissioning it, gives check for it, reproving, judging, and lashing the soul for it. Where hast thou been, has I? Say not, thou hast been nowhere. Went not this heart with thee, and saw thee running after thy covetousness, gadding after thy pleasures, feeding thy pride, dandeling thy lusts, playing the hypocrite, playing the harlot from thy God, pampering thy flesh, pleasing thy appetite? And where hast thou been? What hast thou done so? Think not to excuse or mince the matter. It cannot be excused. Thou sinned against thy God, and now bear thy shame. This is our heart smiting us, 2 Samuel 24 10, our heart condemning us. If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things, 1 John 3 20. Number two, tenderness of the will, that stands in its flexibleness, and pliableness to the will of God. And this is that tenderness in which chiefly stands the blessing of a soft heart. A hard heart is stubborn and obstinate. Thy neck is as an iron sinew, and thy brow brass that will not be rolled. There is no bending thee or turning thee out of thy course. Thine iron is too hard for the fire, it will not be melted, and for the hammer it will not be broken. There is no dealing with thee, thou art an intractable piece that will go neither led nor driven. Thy heart is certain thee to do evil. Thy will is set upon sin, and thou art set upon thine own will. The word which thou hast spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not do, but we will do whatsoever proceeds out of our own mouth. We will do what we will do, Jeremiah 44 16 and 17. Who is Lord over us? Psalm 12 4. In Jeremiah 2 25, thou sayest, There is no hope. No, for we have loved strangers, and after them we will go. Come what will of it, say what thou wilt against it. Be silent, Scriptures, hold thy peace conscience. It is to no purpose to speak more. There is no hope of prevailing. We were at a point, we will take our own course. These are hard hearts, stubborn, obstinate hearts. When the iron sinew is broken, when the rebellion and stubbornness of the spirit is subdued and tamed and made gentle and pliable, then it becomes a tender heart. There may be some tenderness in the conscience, and yet the will be of very stone. And as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart. Conscience may be scared and frighted. Conscience may fly upon the sinner. What dost thou mean, soul? Whither are thy rebellions carrying thee? Look to thyself. Hearken, or thou wilt be lost, ere thou art aware. But however God hath gotten conscience on his side, yet the devil still rides the will, and there sin takes up its rest. There is a double resting of sin in the soul, in peace and in power. First, in peace, when it dwells and rules in the soul without disturbance or contradiction, when it carries all smoothly before it, when God lets it alone and conscience speaks not a word against it, when, notwithstanding those armies of lusts fighting against the soul, there is not so much as one weapon lifted up against them, not a prayer, not a tear, nor a wish for freedom, nor the least fear concerning the issue. This is a most dreadful hardness. Number two, in power, when though it can have no peace, yet it has still a place in the heart, though it can have no quiet, but conscience is still quarreling with it and warning it away, yet it still holds its power over the will. The master of the house is content to be its servant. Oh, how many persons are there, even amongst the professors of religion, who cannot sin in quiet. They are proud, or passionate, or intemperate, or covetous, or false in their words, in their dealings. They are formal and hypocritical and slight in their duties, but they cannot go out with it, with any quiet. Conscience smites them for it. They feel many a pain and deadly twinge in their heart, insomuch that sometimes they cry and groan and roar in their spirits. Oh, for redemption! Oh, for deliverance from this false, this proud, this covetous and wicked heart! And yet, after all this, the will remains a captive steel. Sin holds its power there, though it cannot carry it on in peace, though it cannot be proud, or play the hypocrite, or be covetous, or an oppressor, without some galls and gripes in the soul. Yet on it goes. The same trade is kept up, and some course is held on. God commands, Cast ye out! Cast ye out! Come off of all your wickedness and evil ways, and I will receive you. No, though conscience will, the will cannot come. Whatever rendings and tearings, whatever terrors and torments and worrying such souls are at any time under, whatever stings and plagues and fires, they find their sins to be their souls and bones, whatever wishings and war-beings they would bring forth, that they were well rid of these plagues. Whilst the will is still from them, there is a hard heart, desperately hard. There is none of this heart of flesh. When the will is once broken, loose from sin, when it will be content to let all go and give up itself to the dominion of the Lord, there is a broken heart. Now speak, Lord, and I will hear. Now call, Lord, and I will answer. Now command me, impose it on me, what thou wilt, I will submit. None but the Lord, none but Christ, no other Lord nor lover. I am thine, Lord, thine own. Do as thine own. Demand as thine own, whatever thou pleasest. Where God will have me be, where God will have me do, that will I do and be. No longer what I will, but the will of the Lord be done. When it has come to this, this is a tender heart. There is a blessing of a broken spirit. The stone he hath taken away, he hath given a heart of flesh. Christians, never trust a tear, never talk of terrors, trouble of conscience, of the passionate workings and meltings, which at any time you fill upon your spirits. Though there be something in these, as ye shall see more by and by, yet these are not the things you are to look at. A subdued, tractable, willing, obedient heart, that is a tender heart. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land. But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be slain with the sword. The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Isaiah 119 Number three, tenderness of the affections. I shall instance only in three, namely, love, fear, sorrow. The tenderness of love. This is seen in its benevolence and in its jealousy. First, in its benevolence. Our goodness extends not to the Lord, but our good will does. Our love can add nothing to Him. Can a man be profitable to God? Job 22, 2 If thou be righteous, what givest thou to him? Chapter 35, 7 Yet though it can add nothing, it would not that anything be detracted from him, whilst he can have no more. It would that he would have his own, all that is due, his due praise, his due honor and homage and worship and subjection from every creature. It would have no abatement, not the least spot or stain upon all its glory. What is an affront to God is an offense to love. Love beareth all things, saith the apostle, 1 Corinthians 13, 7, all things from God, all things from men. And yet there are two things the love of God cannot bear, his dishonor, his displeasure. His dishonor. Love would have God to be God, to live in the glory of his majesty in the hearts and eyes of all the world. His reproach is grievous to him that loves, for this is a cloud that takes God out of sight. He loves and honors and would that God should be loved and honored of all. He fears and would that the whole world should fear him. He would receive in his own breast every arrow that is shot against his maker. He would that his own name and soul might stand betwixt his God in all reproach and dishonor. He would be vile so the Lord may be glorious, so God may increase. He is content to decrease. He is not so tender of his own heart and bowels as of the holiness of his God. He would suffer and die and be nothing rather than that God should not be all in all. He would rather never think, nor speak, nor be, rather than not be in word and thought and life, holiness to the Lord. But oh, what or where would he be rather than his own hand should be lifted up against him? Please turn your tapes aside too. To see the Lord robbed of his holiness, wronged in his wisdom or his truth or his sovereignty, to see sin, that devil, to see the world, that idol, set up in the throne, and the God of glory made to stand aside is insignificant. To hear that blasphemy, God is not worthy this labor. And what is said, less than every sin, is a sword in his breast. The reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Love hath tasted of God. It hath fed on his fullness. It hath its nourishment from his sweetness. It hath been warmed in his bosom. All his goodness hath passed before it. Upon this it lives and feeds, and having found and felt what the Lord is, it is impatient that all his goodness should be clouded or be lied. Love kindled from heaven is keen, and the keen is a tender edge. The least touch of what offends will turn it. I am in distress. My bowels are troubled. Mine heart is turned within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Lamentations 120. My tears have been my meat continually, while they daily say unto me, Where is thy God? Psalm 42.3 Where is that care, and health, and that salvation of thy God thou trustest in? Your God is not such in one as you boast him to be. When I remember, when I hear such things, my soul is poured out within me. Love is large. He that loves hath a large heart. He can never receive or do too much. He would have all he can, and he would give all he hath to the Lord. He is tender, how anything be with hell that is due, how anything be wasted elsewhere that might be useful to the Lord. His displeasure. The displeasure of men it bears and rejoices. The wrath and rage of Satan it bears and triumphs. Though all the world and hell to boot be displeased and provoked, so God smiles, it is well enough. Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me, and my heart shall be glad. Psalm 4 Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled. Psalm 30 verse 7 Let him correct me, but O not in fury. Let him smite, but not frown. Let him kill me, so he will but love me. And though he smite, and though he kill me, yet I will love him, trust in him. O my God, let me rather die in thy love than live in thy displeasure. There is life in that death. This life is death to me. Let me not be dead whilst alive. Turn away thine anger, which kills my heart. It is impatient of divine displeasure. Thence it is grievous to it that it does displease. Thence it quarrels with sin and falls so foul with itself for it. Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Lovest thou God's soul? What, to yet provoke him thus daily? Love, and yet neglect to seek and follow thy God? Love, and yet so lame and so low and so heavy and so sparing in your services to him? Is this all your love will do? Not deny your ease or your pleasure or your liberty or your appetite or your companion for the sake of the Lord? Choose rather to pleasure your friend or your flesh than to please God? Is this your love? Is this your kindness to your friend? O false heart! O unworthy, unworthy spirit! How can you look your God in the face? How can you say, I love thee, when your heart is no more with him? Secondly, in his jealousy, he that loves the Lord is jealous, and jealousy hath a tender edge. He is jealous not of, but for the Lord, not of his God, but of himself, lest any thing should steal away his heart from God. Love would be chaste, would not bestow itself elsewhere, and yet is in great jealousy. It may be enticed and drawn away. He that loves the Lord, there is not anything, whether wife or child or friend or estate or esteem, that gets near his heart, but he is jealous of them, lest they steal it away. Get you down. Keep you lower. This heart is neither yours nor mine. O my God, it is thine. It is thine, Lord. Take it wholly to thee. Keep it to thyself. Let no other lovers be sharers with thee. There is a tenderness of fear. The tender heart is a trembling heart. The tenderness of fear is manifested in a suspicion and caution. In a suspicion, the fearful are suspicious. They look further than they see. He that is in dread will be in doubt. What may befall him, he suspects a surprisal. Every bush is a thief. Every bait he fears may have a hook under. There is a foolish and a causeless fear, and there is a prudent and a holy fear. This fear is a principle of wisdom. The prudent man foreseeth the evil, but fools go on. The snare is never nearer than to the secure. Bold, venturous sinners never want woe. The devil may spare his cunning when he hath to do with such. Nothing that looks like sin offers itself to a tender heart, but he presently suspects it. Every pleasant morsel, every pleasant cup, every pleasant companion that comes, anything that tickles and gratifies the flesh, he looks through it. There he will touch with it, lest it betray his soul from God. There may be a snare in the dish, a snare in my cup, a snare in my company. And what if there should? He feeds himself with fear, dwells, walks, converses, works, recreates himself with a trembling heart and jealous eye. In its caution, fear is wary. Some commanders have set their scout watches unarmed, that fear might make them watchful. A fearful Christian will take heed what in whom he trusts. He dares not trust himself in such company as may be a snare to him. He dares not trust his heart among temptations. He will keep the devil at a distance. He will not come near where his nets do lie. Blessed is he that thus feareth always. Oh, the unspeakable mischief. Oh, the multitudes of sins that we run upon through our secure hearts. I never thought of it. I never dreamed of any such danger. Oh, I am undermined. I am overreached. I am surprised. My foot is in the snare. The djinn hath taken me by the heel. My soul is among lions. Sin hath gotten hold on me. My heart is gone ere I was aware. The enemy hath come in and carried it away, hath given it to lust, to the world, to pleasure, to divide it amongst themselves. My faith has failed. My conscience is defiled. My love has grown cold. My grace withered. My comfort's wasted. My peace broken. And my God, oh, where has he gone? Woe is me. The evil that I feared not has come upon me. Had I feared, I had not fallen. Oh, that I'd been wise, had kept my watch, had stood upon my guard. Had I thought, had I thought, I'd escaped all this danger. Oh, Christians, be wise in season and take heed of the fools too late. Had I known it? There is a tenderness of sorrow. Sorrow is the melting of the heart. The stone dissolved. Sorrow is a wound of the heart. A wound is tender. Love is tender. And therefore, God, the sorrow, which is the sorrow of love, you may call it a love sickness. Love is both the pain and pleasure of a mourning heart. It is love that wounds and love that heals. It is both the weapon and the oil. This sorrow hath its joy. Demelted is the most joyful heart. It is love that makes it sad. It therefore weeps because it loves. And it is love that makes it glad too. It therefore joys because in its sorrows it sees it loves. It is love that makes a wound. The matter of this sorrow being love abused. What hast thou done, soul? Whom hast thou despised? Against whom hast thou lifted up thyself? Thou hast sinned. Thou hast sinned and hast thereby smitten and grieved thy God that loves thee and whom thou lovest. Thou hast but one friend in heaven and earth and him thou hast abused. To pleasure thy lust thou hast pierced thy Lord. Thou hast transgressed his commandments and trampled upon his compassions, hast broken his bonds and kicked at his compassion, his greatness and his goodness. His law and his very love hath been despised by thee. Him who loved thee hast thou smitten. Is this your kindness to your friend? O vile and gracious and kind, unthankful, unnatural heart, what have you done? Put all this now together and you have the heart of flesh which the covenant promises. A tender heart. A heart that is tender of sin and duty, that carefully shuns sin or is sure to smart for it, that neither slights sin nor duty, that says not of the one or the other, but it is but a little one that can feel sufferings but not fret at them. A tender conscience that will neither wink at sin nor excuse a sinner, that will not hold the sinner guiltless nor say unto the wicked, Thou art righteous, that will not be smitten but it will smite again, that will give due warning and due correction, a flexible, tractable heart that will not resist and rebel, that says unto the Lord, What wilt thou have me to do? and will not say of anything he will have, anything but this, a willing, ductile heart, stiff against nothing but sin, that a word from heaven will lead to anything, a heart of love that bears goodwill to the Lord in all that he does or requires, in which goodwill lies, radically, every good work, that says not of any duties or sufferings, this is too great, or of any sins, this is nothing, there would be anything or nothing, so God may be all, that would rather be displeased than displeased, that is not displeased when God is pleased, a trembling heart that fears more than it sees, and flies from what it fears, whom fear makes to beware, a melting heart, a mourning heart that wounds itself in the wounds it has given to the Lord in his name, that can grieve and love and can love and grieve, where it cannot weep, and some, it is a heart that can feel, that can bleed, that can weep, or at least it can yield and stoop, or it cannot weep, nor feel but little, that will easily be commanded where it is not sensibly melted, this is a soft heart, this is a heart of flesh, what a blessing is such a heart, what a plague is a hard heart, what prisoners are the men of this world, in prison under Satan, in prison under sin, bound under a curse, shut up under unbelief and impenitence, the hard heart is the iron gate that shuts them in, that they cannot get out, Romans 2 5, O what a hospital does this world become of blind and lame and sick and cripples and wounded creatures, whence are all the calamities and distresses that befall them, but from their hardness of hearts, the stone in their hearts breathes all their diseases, brings all their calamities, hath blinded their eyes and broken their bones, and wasted their estates, there is not one misery that befalls them, but they may ride up over it, this is the hardness of my heart, O what a Sodom does this world become for wickedness as well as for wrath, what drunkenness, what adulteries, what oaths, what blasphemies, and all sorts of monstrous sins do everywhere abound, whence is all this, but from the hardness of men's hearts, if you say it is from other causes, it is from unbelief, from ignorance, from impotence, from temptations, let it be granted, but still it is from hardness of heart, they are willfully ignorant, willfully weak, willfully run into temptations, they shut their eyes and stop their ears, they will not see, they will not believe, O what losses do they sustain, how many Sabbaths are lost, how many sermons are lost, how many reproofs, counsels, corrections are lost, a gospel lost, and souls thereby like to be lost forever, O what prodigies are they become under all this sin and misery, and yet merry, jolly, laughing, and singing, and sporting, and feasting, and braving it out as if nothing ailed them, feeling nothing of all that has come upon them, and feeling nothing of all that is coming, warn them, reprove them, besiege them, it is all but preaching to a stone, and maybe you sometimes wonder to see a company of thieves in prison to be drinking, and carousing, and making merry, when they know that in a few days they must be brought out and hanged, when thou wonderest, these wonder thyself, what bitter complaints do we sometimes hear even from the best of saints, O this hard heart, O this stubborn spirit, I cannot mourn, I cannot stoop, I cannot submit, why hast thou hardened our heart from thy fear, Isaiah 63 17, O why hast thou left us, and given us up to a hard heart, why hast thou not softened, and humbled, and broken us, thou hast humbled us, and we are not humbled, broken us, and we are not broken, thou hast broken our land, broken our peace, broken our backs, but the stone is not yet broken, O for one breach more, Lord, our hearts, our hearts, let this be once broken, our streets mourn, the cities of our solemnities mourn, the ways of Zion mourn, O when wilt thou give us a mourning spirit, O what sorrow-bitten souls are the saints for want of sorrow, I mourn, Lord, I lament, I weep, but it is because I cannot mourn, or lament as I should, if I could mourn as I ought, I could be comforted, if I could weep, I could rejoice, if I could sigh, I could sing, if I could lament, I could live, I die, I die, my heart dies within me because I cannot cry, I cry, Lord, but not for sin, but for tears for sin, I cry, Lord, my calamities cry, my bowels cry, my bones cry, my soul cries, my sins cry, Lord, for a broken heart, and behold, yet I am not broken, the rocks rinse, the earth quakes, the heavens drop, the clouds weep, the sun will blush, the moon be ashamed, the foundations of the earth will tremble at the presence of the Lord, but this heart will neither break nor tremble, O for a broken heart, if this were once done, might my soul have this wish, thenceforth my God might have His will, what would be hard if my heart were tender, labor would be easy, pains would be a pleasure, burdens would be light, neither the command nor the cross would be any longer grievous, nothing would be hard but sin, fear, where art thou, come and plow up this rock, love, where art thou, come and thaw this ice, come and warm this dead lump, come and enlarge this straightened spirit, then shall I run the way of His commandments, O brethren, how little, how very little of this tenderness is there to be found amongst the most of Christians, the sacrifice of God is a broken heart, O how far must the Lord go to find Himself such a sacrifice, we do but cast stones up to heaven when we lift up our hearts, it is a wonder that such hearts as we carry do not break themselves, that our marble weaves not, that if nothing else will do it, our hardness doth not make us relent, that we should so labor under, and complain of, and yet not be sick of the stone, broken hearts yielding and relenting spirits, tender consciences, O where are they, afraid of sin, tender of transgressing, or mourning under it, when shall it once be, our lusts no more broken, our pride, our passion, our envy, our earthliness, no more broken, so venturous on temptation, so bold on sin, such liberty taken to transgress, such mincing, and palliating, and excusing of sin as we find, is this our brokenness, we are tender it is true, but of what, of dishonoring God, of abusing grace, of neglecting duty, of defiling conscience, of wounding our souls, no it is of our flesh that we are so tender, tender of labor, tender of trouble, tender of carcasses, of our credit, of our names and reputation, a tender shoulder, a tender hand, a tender foot, they can bear nothing and do nothing, nothing can touch our flesh, nothing can touch our idols, our ease, or our estates, but we shrink and smarten, or put to pain, God may be smitten and we feel it not, the gospel may be smitten, the church may be smitten, conscience may be smitten, and it moves us not, we can fear an affliction, fear a reproach, or did we so much fear a temptation, or a sin, we cannot want bread, but we feel it, we cannot want clothes, or a house, or a friend, but we feel it, we cannot want our sleep, our quiet, our pleasure, our respects from men, but we feel it, anything that pinches our flesh, pierces our heart, we cannot pine, or languish in our bodies, but we feel it, a fever, or an ague, or a consumption, or dropsy, or a bodily sickness, oh it makes us sick at heart, a forward yoke fellow, an unthrifty servant, an ill neighbor, a scoff, a slight cannot be born, but oh how much sin can be born, while our flesh will bear nothing, oh how can conscience bear, and never complain, Christians consider, when our flesh must be thus tendered, whatever come of it, must be tenderly fed, must have soft raiment, soft lodging, soft usage, be dealt gently with, though to maintain it, conscience must be racked, and racked, and wasted, when our views cannot be crossed, our appetites cannot be denied, but a tumult follows, the soul is in an uproar, and conscience, meanwhile, must be denied, raided, and must go away in silence, when the word works no more, when the prints of it are not received, the power of it is resisted, when the rod works no more, when our stripes make no sign, when the lashes on our backs fall all beside our hearts, when we remain so vain, and so wanton, so willful, and so carnal, and so earthly, after the Lord has been preaching, and whipping us into a better frame, when we stand upon our terms, keep our distances, our animosities, our heats and heights of spirit, our censorings, our quarrelings, one with another, Christian with Christian, professor with professor, after the Lord has been beating us together to make us friends, in order to teach us more humility and charity, is this our brokenness? is this our tenderness? when upon any, the Lord's rougher dealing with us, smiting our faces, throwing us on our backs, trampling us in the dirt, we are yet no more brought on our knees, is this our brokenness? when the Lord has been awakening us out of sleep, putting his spurs and goads in our sides, to quicken us on our way, calling to us, arise sleepers, put on sluggards, stir up your spirits, minge your pace, I will not be put off as I have been, no more such loitering and idling and trifling and halting as hath been, I must have other manner of service, other manner of praying and hearing and walking and working than hath been, you zealous and amend, more labor, more care, more watchfulness, more activity, more the spirit and soul of what you profess, when the Lord has been thus goading and spurring us on, and though our flesh feels, yet our hearts will not feel, nor answer the goader's spur, is this an argument of tenderness? when great duties are little and lesser are none, when great sins are infirmities and little ones are nothing, when lying and defrauding, when false weights, false wares, and false dealings, when defaming, backbiting, tailbearing, railing, reviling, do stand for little more than ciphers, when fellowship and familiarity with evil men in their sins, when compliance with or connivance at their wickedness, when sinful courtings and complimentings as such to the fleshing them and hardening them in their ways do pass for virtues and civilities, when frothy wanton discourse and communication, when scoffing and making a sport of the sins or infirmities of others, when sinful vaingesting, wherein rather conscience than wit must be denied, when all these pass for our ornaments rather than our evils, where is our tenderness? When upon the auditing of our accounts, the examining our books, and reckoning up our scores, where a talent is owing, we did conscience take thy bill and write down a shackle, where twenty or a hundred sins are to be reckoned for, take thy bill and write down ten, or but one, and that a little one. When we are so free in multiplying, and so false in numbering our iniquities, where is our tenderness? Well, Christians, the Lord has promised a tender heart to make these stones flesh, and something possibly is done already upon you towards it. Oh, let this sad sight now laid before you, this view of what is wanting, have some influence upon the making it up. Let the sense of no more done work what is yet undone. As is said before, let your unbrokenness break your hearts. Let the stone that yet remains make your flesh to bleed. If you yet feel no more, may you at least feel this, that you feel not. We will return to this book, Heaven Open, by Richard Alain, after the last chapter of Alain's Alarm to the Unconverted. The Mortis to Conversion by Joseph Alain. For what has already been said of the necessity of conversion and the miseries of the unconverted might be sufficient to induce any considerate mind to resolve upon a present turning to God, yet knowing what a piece of desperate obstinacy and untractableness the heart of man naturally is, I have thought it necessary to add some mortis to persuade you to be reconciled to God. O Lord, do not let me fail now at my last attempts. If any soul has read hitherto and is yet untouched, Lord, fasten on him now and do thy work. Take him by the heart. Overcome him. Persuade him, until he say, Thou hast prevailed, for Thou art stronger than I. Lord, didst not Thou make a fisher of men, and have I toiled all this while and caught nothing? Alas, that I should have spent my strength for naught, and now I am casting my last. Lord Jesus, stand Thou upon the shore and direct how and where I shall spread my net, and let me sow and close with arguments the souls I seek, that they may not be able to get out. Now, Lord, for a multitude of souls, now for a full draft. O Lord God, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me this once, O God. Men and brethren, heaven and earth call upon you, yea, hell itself preaches a doctrine of repentance unto you. The ministers of the church labor for you, the angels of heaven wait for you, for you are repenting and turning unto God. O sinner, why should devils laugh at your destruction and deride your misery and sport themselves with your folly? This will be your case except you turn. And were it not better, you should be a joy to angels and a laughingstock and sport for devils. Verily, if you would but come in, the heavenly hosts would take up their anthems and sing, Glory to God in the highest. The morning stars would sing together, and all the sons of God shout for joy and celebrate this new creation as they did the first. Your repentance would, as it were, make a holiday in heaven, and the glorious spirits would rejoice in that there is a new brother added to their society, another heir born to the Lord and a lost son received, safe and sound. The true penitent's tears are indeed the wine that maketh glad both God and man. If it be little that men and angels would rejoice at your conversion, know also that God himself would rejoice over you, even with singing. Luke 15, 9. Isaiah 62, 5. Never did Jacob with such joy weep over the neck of his Joseph, as your heavenly Father would rejoice over you upon your coming to him. Look over the story of the prodigal son. I think I see how the aged father lays aside his state and forgets his years. Behold how he runs. Oh, the haste that mercy makes! The sinner makes not half that speed. I think I see how his heart moves, how his compassions yearn. How quick-sighted is love! Mercy spies him a great way off, forgets his riotous course, unnatural rebellion, horrid unthankfulness, not a word of these, and receives him with fatted calf, the best robe, the ring, the shoes, the best cheer in heaven's store, the best attire in heaven's wardrobe. Yea, the joy cannot be held in his own breast. Others must be called to participate. The friend sympathize. But none know the joy the father has in his newborn son, whom he has received from the dead. I think I hear the music at a distance. Oh, the melody of the heavenly choristers. I cannot learn the song, Revelations 14.3, but I think I overhear the theme at which all the harmonies choir with one consent strike sweetly in. For as my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found. I need not explain the parable further. God is a father. Christ is a provision. His righteousness, the robe, His grace, the ornaments, ministers, saints and angels, the friends and servants, and you that read a few but in faintly repentant turn, the welcome prodigal, the happy instance of this grace, the blessed subject of this joy and love. Oh, rock! Oh, adamant! What? Not moved yet? Not yet resolved to turn forthwith and to close with mercy? I will try yet once again. If one were sent to you from the dead, would you be persuaded? Why, hear the voice from the dead, from the damned, crying to you that you should repent. I pray thee that thou wouldst send him to my father's house, for I have five brethren, that he may testify to them, lest they also come into this place of torment. If one went to them from the dead, they will repent. Luke 16, 27 and 28. Your old man, your predecessors and impenitents preach to you from the infernal flames that you should repent. Oh, look down into the bottomless pit. Do you see how the smoke of their torment ascendeth forever and ever? What do you think of those chains of darkness? Can you be content to burn? Do you see how the worm gnaws, how the fire rages? What do you say to that gulf of perdition? Will you take up your habitation there, or lay your ear to the door of hell? Do you hear the curses and blasphemies, the weepings and wailings? How they lament their follies and curse their day! How do they roar and gnash their teeth? How deep their groans! How inconceivable their miseries! If the freaks of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram were so terrible when the earth clove asunder and opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and all that appertained to them, that all Israel fled at the cry of them, number sixteen, thirty-three, and thirty-four, oh, how fearful would the cry be of God should take off the covering from the mouth of hell and let the cry of the damned ascend, and all its terror among the children of men and of their moans and miseries! This is the piercing, killing emphasis and burden forever, forever! Is God limithate made your soul? You are but a few hours distant from all this except that you be converted. Oh, I am even lost and swallowed up in the abundance of those arguments that I might suggest. If there be any point of wisdom in all the world, it is to repent and come in. If there be anything righteous, anything reasonable, this is it. If there be anything that may be called madness and folly, and anything that may be counted sottish, absurd, brutish, and unreasonable, it is this, to go on in your unconverted state. Let me beg of you, as you would not willingly destroy yourself, sit down and weigh, besides what has been said, these following motives, and let conscience say, if it be not most reasonable, that you should repent and turn. First, the God that made you most graciously invites you. His most sweet and merciful nature invites you. Oh, the kindness of God, His boundless compassion, His tender mercies, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. He is full of compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy. This is a great argument to persuade sinners to come. Turn unto the Lord, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness, and repent as Him of the evil. If God would not repent of the evil, it would be some discouragement to our repenting. If there were no hope of mercy, it would be no wonder that rebels should stand out, but never had subjects such a gracious prince, such pity, patience, and clemency to deal with as you have. Who is a god like unto these that pardon their mercies, but in that they overlook His justice, or they promise themselves mercy out of God's way? His mercies are beyond all imagination. Great mercies, manifold mercies, Nehemiah 9.19, tender mercies, sure mercies, everlasting mercies, and all is yours if you will but turn. Are you willing to come in? The Lord has laid aside His terror and erected a throne of grace. He holds forth a golden scepter. Touch and live! When a merciful man slay his enemy, when prostrate at his feet, acknowledging his wrong, begging pardon, and offering to enter with him into a covenant of peace, much less will the merciful God study His name. Exodus 34.7, Keeping mercy for a thousand, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, God's soul encouraging calls and promises, invite you. Ah, what an earnest suitor is mercy to you! How lovingly, how instantly it calls after you, how earnestly it rules you! Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord, and I will not cause my anger to fall upon you. For I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity. Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord. Return, thou reveal thy backslidings. Thou hast plagued the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto me, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 3. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Ezekiel 33.11. If the wicked will turn from all the sins that he has committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All the transgressions that he has committed, they shall not be mentioned to him. In his righteousness that he hath done, he shall live. Repent, and turn you from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will you die, O Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore, turn yourselves and live ye. O melting gracious words, the voice of God and not of man! This is not the manner of man for the offended sovereign to sue to the offending traitorous rebel. O how does mercy follow you and plead with you? Is not your heart broken yet, O that today you would hear his voice? 2. The doors of heaven are thrown open to you. The everlasting gates are set wide open for you, and an abundant entrance into the kingdom of heaven is administered to you. Christ now addresses you and calls upon you to arise and take possession of this good land. View the glory of the other world as set forth in the map of the gospel. Get up into the Pisgah of the mountains and lift up your eyes northward and southward and eastward and westward, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan and that goodly mountain. Behold the paradise of God watered with the streams of glory. Arise and walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it. For the land which you see, the city of God, and all that all this is here tendered in the name of God to you. As early as God is true, it shall be forever yours, if you are but thoroughly turned. For the conclusion of this book, please go to cassette number five at this time.