2. Sometimes God is pleased to stir us up by terrible _threatenings_. “Behold,” says he, “I will bring evil upon this people; because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.” Jer. 6:19. Again, “And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; therefore, will I cast you out of my sight.” Jer. 7:13, 15. This dreadful proclamation of both temporal and eternal calamities, should strike fear and terror into us: for the threatening of God is not an empty voice, nor a sound that vanishes into nothing, but it is accompanied with many terrible effects, and consuming wrath, as will in its time more fully appear, and which we even feel already by sad experience; since miseries and calamities, like a flood, seem to carry all before them. Nay, they will undoubtedly multiply upon us, and exert themselves with the utmost fury and fierceness, except we betimes prevent them by a sincere repentance. Thus the wrath of God shall be poured forth in wars, famines, pestilence, fire, and inundations, till he has at length destroyed our very _foundations_, as he did once to the city of Jerusalem. Lam. 4:11. 3. But if the proclamation of wrath and judgment cannot prevail upon us, yet ought God’s abounding _goodness_, attended as it is with so many endearing marks of love, to melt our hearts, and to soften them into true and earnest repentance. For thus hath the Lord spoken by the prophet: “Return, thou backsliding Israel, and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger for ever. Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God.” Jer. 3:12, 13. In these words, God makes a free offer of his grace, entreats and adjures us to return to him again, for he is willing to accept our repentance. 4. The passages that have been quoted, are a convincing proof that God, by his grace, mercy, patience, and clemency, strongly invites us to true repentance. There are chiefly three things in those scriptures, which deserve a more particular observation: namely, the _nature_ of repentance, or what it is to repent; that is, to turn unto the Lord:—the _manner_ in which repentance is to be wrought out; that is, by fasting, weeping, and mourning:—the _motive_ to engage us in so holy an exercise, which is the paternal goodness of God; “_for I am merciful_.”