chiefly to illustrate those cited from Jeremiah and Ezekiel, are to be found in Lev. xxvi. 40-45, and Deut. xxx. 1-10, or, indeed, I may say, throughout the chapter. These are the fundamental records of God's mind towards Israel, and through the type of Israel, towards the world; and we must bear in mind the principles declared in them, as we advance to farther revelations; for God in His farther revelations assumes that these are known and consented to. But in both of these passages, we find the most direct and unequivocal requirement on the part of God, that the people should return to Him and confess their iniquity, as a necessary preliminary condition, on which His after blessings to them depended.

As these passages are not very long, I shall put them under the reader's eye altogether, that he may see their connection more easily. Jer. xxxi. 33, "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jer. xxxii. 39, "And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the

shown to be conditional, by a comparison with others. 133

me."

good of them, and of their children after them." Jer. xxxiii. 8, "And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned, and whereby they have transgressed against Ezek. xxxvi. 25-28, " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."

And now follow the passages from Moses, which contain the key. Lev. xxvi. 40-42, "If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised

hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity; then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land." Deut. xxx. 1-6, "And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice, according to all that I command thee this day, thou, and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine

heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live."

There is a verse in this chapter of Deuteronomy which I ought to have taken notice of before, when we were considering John vi., as a striking commentary on the expressions, "No man can come unto me, except the Father draw him;" and "Every one therefore that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me." It is the 17th verse-" But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them," &c. Evidently, two rival drawings are here supposed, and the being drawn away, is evidently the yielding to the wrong drawing, in consequence of a refusal to hear the word which is described in verse 14th as "very nigh thee." The connection of this 17th verse also with the 15th, "See I have set before thee this day, life and good, death and evil," abundantly confirms the view that has been given of the passage in John vi., and the doctrine that man is indeed placed between two drawings.

The same view receives farther confirmation from the parallel passage in James i.

14, "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed." The apostle is, through the whole of his argument, manifestly seeking to clear God of all participation in the sins of men, and to lay the whole blame upon man himself. And he rests his vindication of God, first, on the fact that man falls into sin, not by following God's drawing, but by following the drawing of his own lust; and secondly, on the additional fact, that man's following of his own lust, is contrary to, and notwithstanding of, an opposite drawing of God. For "every good, and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." As He is the unchanging Father of lights, all His will toward us, is light. "Of His own will (or purpose of good) He begat us by the word of truth, in order that we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures." This will or purpose of begetting us by the word of truth, as appears from the context, does not refer to the election of any particular persons, but to the restoration of the whole race from the fall, by the entrance of the living word into our nature, that so man might be the first