win him back by the words of his mouth.
God was doing all that He could do, rising early and sending His
messenger and calling to Ephraim: 'Turn ye! Turn ye! why will ye die?'
For Hosea, in the very act of pleading with Israel on God's behalf, to
have declared that God had abandoned it, and ceased to plead, would have
been a palpable absurdity and contradiction.

But beyond considerations of the context, other reasons conclusively
negative such an interpretation of this text. I, for my part, do not
believe that there are any bounds or end to God's forbearing pleading
with men in this life. I take, as true, the great words of the old
Psalm, in their simplest sense--'His mercy endureth for ever'; and I
fall back upon the other words which a penitent had learned to be true
by reflecting on the greatness of his own sin: 'With Him are multitudes
of redemptions'; and I turn from psalmists and prophets to the Master
who showed us God's heart, and knew what He spake when He laid it down
as the law and the measure of human forgiveness which was moulded upon
the pattern of the divine, that it should be 'seventy times seven'--the
multiplication of both the perfect numbers into themselves--than which
there can be no grander expression for absolute innumerableness and
unfailing continuance.

No, no! men may say to God, 'Speak no more to us'; or they may get so
far away from Him, as that they only hear God's pleading voice, dim and
faint, like a voice in a dream. But surely the history of His
progressive revelation shows us that, rather than such abandonment of
the worst, the law of the divine dealing is that the deafer the man, the
more piercing the voice beseeching and warning. The attraction of
gravitation decreases as distance increases, but the further away we are
from Him, the stronger is the attraction which issues from Him, and
would draw us to Himself.

Clear away, then, altogether out of your minds any notion that there is
here declared what, in my judgment, is not declared anywhere in the
Bible, and never occurs in the divine dealings with men. Be sure that He
never ceases to seek to draw the most obstinate, idolatrous, and
rebellious heart to Himself. That divine charity 'suffereth long, and is
kind' ... 'hopeth all things, and beareth all things.'

Again, let me point out that the words of my text do not enjoin the
cessation of the efforts of Christian people for the recovery of the
most deeply sunken in sin. 'Let hi