ve blotted out thy sins as a
cloud, and thy transgressions as a thick cloud." All thy unkindnesses
and unfaithfulnesses, thy treacherous dealings against the covenant,
shall be forgotten; they shall do thee no harm. This will mightily
strengthen the hands, and fortify the heart, and even make it
impenetrable and impregnable against all the solicitations and
importunities of old temptations: see a notable instance of this, "I
will heal their backslidings, I will love them freely; for mine anger is
turned away from him." "I will be as the dew to Israel." "His branches
shall spread." "They that dwell under His shadow shall return." What
follows these gracious promises? Why, Ephraim shall say, "What have I to
do any more with idols?" He that before was so inseparably joined to
idols, that he could not be divorced from them; "Ephraim is joined to
idols." All the blows that God gave him, tho' God should have beaten him
to pieces, as he himself afterward confessed, could not beat him off
from his idols; insomuch, that God at length gave him over, as an
hopeless child. "Ephraim is joined to idols, let him lone." Yet, no
sooner doth this Ephraim hear of a pardon, and of the love of God to
him, but the bonds between him and his idols are dissolved, and away he
thrusts them with indignation. Ephraim shall say, "What have I to do
with idols?" Or as the prophet Isaiah expresseth it, "Ye shall defile
the covering of the graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy
molten images of gold; thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth,
thou shalt say unto it, get thee hence." And thus it is with a people,
or a person, when once "God sheds abroad His Spirit in their hearts,"
and makes them "hear joy and gladness," in speaking, or sealing, a
pardon upon their souls; they that before were joined to their idols,
drunkenness, uncleanness, covetousness, pride, ways of false worship,
old superstitious customs, and ceremonies, and the like; so that there
was no parting of them; or those who had long been grappling and
conflicting with their strong corruptions and old temptations, and in
those conflicts had received many a foil, and got many a fall to the
wounding of their consciences, and cutting deep gashes upon their souls;
now they stand up with a kind of omnipotence among them, no temptation
is able to stand before them; they say to their idols, whether sinful
company, or sinful customs, "get ye hence, and what have I to do any
more wi