should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray to him? (Jer 2; Zach. 7; Job 21.)

Since then you are so ungrateful, and prove yourselves to be altogether vain and insulting against God, who manifested. so great mercy towards us, that you wholly reject his paternal admonitions, reprovings, doctrine and commands. Obedience to his holy word, the innocent blood of his saints, with all his great powers and miracles, you esteem as idle deception and heresy; you regard not the time of grace; Christ Jesus with his holy spirit, gospel, new birth, faith, sacrament, death and blood, with all his other spiritual riches and heavenly gifts,. and you trample them so unworthily under foot, and the almighty, immortal, one and eternal God, you neither fear nor seek, love, honor, praise nor serve him; still you hope to be saved with the thief.

So do I warn you in true love, while it is yet time. Your hope will fail you, for when you think to find him, he will then hide himself from you; he will turn his fierce countenance upon you as the scriptures say: Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. (Prov. 1.)

I therefore, entreat and exhort my readers in general: Hear while you have ears, and see while you have eyes; understand while you have hearts; awaken and watch, while you have time and space, lest your ears, eyes and hearts, and opportunities be taken from you, and you become deaf, blind, impenitent, hardened and perverted.

Friends, beware! now it is to-day, yesterday is past, and to-morrow. is not promised us. Short is the time; behold, the judge is at the door, therefore delay not, to turn to the Lord, and defer it not from one day to another. (1 Cor. 7; James 5.) For his wrath will soon overtake you. (Sirach 8.) Late repentance, says Ausgustine, is seldom true; but if true, it never is too late. Repent while you enjoy health, says he, that you may be certain..

Therefore, do as did the thief or murderer, for as soon as he heard, he believed. Do you also thus hear, and thus believe, for the eyes of the Lord are upon the faithful. (Jer. 5.) Those who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, shall be filled; those who seek shall find; those who desire, shall receive; those who knock, to them it shall be opened. (Matt. 5.) But if you refuse, when he seeks you, to give you his

grace, he will, then also, refuse when you seek him, and would. fain obtain his grace. Whosoever despises me, says the Lord, him will I again despise. (1 Sam. 2.)

Thererore, I say, seek while it is day, that you may find; ask that you may receive; hear that you may believe; believe that you may do; and do that you may live; for from hearing faith comes; out of faith obedience; on obedience, the fulfil nent of the promise depends. (Rom. 10; Gal. 5; Matt. 7; John 15; James 2; 1 Cor. 7.)

For this reason all things are imputed to faith in the scriptures; such as true repentance, the new birth, sanctification of the heart; the righteousness which avails before God; the blessing. (John 1; Acts 2, 15; Rom. 3, 5, 10; Gal. 3; Mark 16; John 3.) For faith is the source and cause of all good, as is fully related.

Seeing then that this is the true ground of the scriptures, as we have briefly explained, you will then have to confess, that all wilful scorners are put to shame in their doings, by the thief, and that he will be their accuser in the day of the Lord; as the Lord says of the Ninevites, and of the queen of the South. (Matt. 12; Luke 11.)

But all who hear and believe the word of Christ, and are turned by the power of faith, with all their hearts to Christ, acknowledge Christ openly by an unblamable life, before all the world, confidently seek his grace and mercy, &c, to them he is a glorious comforter, a precious balm and liniment in their troubled and wounded consciences, by which they may see and know God's unbounded favor mercy and love towards all truly penitent sinners, if they have sinned ever so long and heinously, that they, by faith, may satisfy their souls with him, and not doubt the grace of God on account of their sinful lives, in which they ever walked; for the Lord did not withhold his grace, nor did he say: No thief, your sins are too great and numerous, and you also sinned too long. But as soon as he saw his new heart, and heard him confessing, he bestowed his grace upon the poor distressed sinner, and forgave him all his sins and said: To day thou shalt be with me in Paradise; for he that believeth on me has eternal life. (John 3, 6, 7, 11.) The prophet also says: If the unrighteous turn from his unrighteousness and does righteousness I will not remember his unrighteousness which he did.

OF THE FAITH OF THE SINFUL WOMAN.

Luke says: That there was a Pharisee, who invited Christ to eat with him, and he went into his house, and sat down to meat; behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet, behind him, weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. (Luke 7.)

Here we again learn to know, in the case of this sinner, what kind of a heart and disposition, fruit and life, a sincere, true christian faith produces. She was possessed of seven devils (if she was the woman called Mary Magdalene whom⚫ the evangelists mention), for she is called a sinner in the scriptures, (Matt. 26; Mark 14; Luke 8, 10.) so long as the Lord had not called her out of darkness into light, from lies unto truth. (John 12.) But as soon as she heard his word, she with eagerness received in a sincere and renewed heart, by which she (who was a great sinner) became a penitent and pious" woman. Her unrighteous, sensual heart was so warmed and touched, that her eyes streamed with tears, that she wet the Lord's feet therewith. Her hair, she used as a towel to wipe his feet; her avarice was quelled, she anointed his head and feet with precious ointment, which might have been sold for three hundred pence; her proud heart was humbled, she did not seek the highest seat at the table, but she sat mournfully at the feet of the Lord and heard his blessed word.

When the Pharisee saw this, he murmured; Christ said to him: Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman has anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but he to whom little is forgiven loveth little. And he said unto the woman:

Thy sins are forgiven; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace. (Luke 7.)

Behold reader, take notice; all the haughty, proud, avaricious, and sensual, who boast themselves christian and are not (for they show by their whole conduct that they hate Christ) are in their actions, reproved and made ashamed by this sinner. For when she believed, her proud and haughty heart was humbled, made contrite, and was changed. And they say, they believe, although they practice all manner of wantonness-in their accursed pride and gorgeous trappings, and soft, flippant dresses and tinsel gewgaws, they strut about, without bounds or reason; not regarding what the enlightened apostles, Paul and Peter, say, who forbade christian women to dress with outward adornings; how much less should men dress so foolishly, who are examples to, and the head of women-nevertheless, they want still to be called the community of Christ.

Every one makes an ostentatious display; yea, sometimes goes beyond his ability to pay. One is desirous to excel another in foppery, or at least to equal him. And does not reflect that it is written: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world; and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. (1 John 2.)

Again, I say, this sinful woman believed, and from that moment she was freed from disgraceful sins. For the unclean devil was cast out, as it is heard. But what abominable, disgraceful, unchastity, adultery and fornication obtain among many men and women, (who boast that they believe) in many cities and countries, is best known to him before whose eyes all things are open; and, alas, not wholly concealed before men.. For it is manifest that the world is full of lasciviousness, adulterers, and fornicators, sodomites and buggerers, bastards and illegitimate children. And, alas, it has come so far, that they live at peace and liberty, and not thinking, that God commanded through Moses, that both the adulterer and adulteress should be stoned to death, (Lev. 20; Deut. 22) that there should be neither whores nor whoremongers in Israel, and that the illegitimate children even to the tenth generation

Y

were not to be admitted into the congregation of the Lord. (Lev. 23.) And further: It was the express command and law that if any one in Israel had sexual intercourse with a virgin, who was not betrothed or engaged, he had to marry her, if her father consented, and was not to put her away all his days, because he humbled her. (Exod. 22; Lev. 22.)

Ah! reader, reflect upon these things, what the last command contains. They all boast, however lascivious, that they are spiritual Israelites, that they have the truth, and are baptized in the name of Christ, still they are not ashamed to make their weak sisters, who are in connexion with them, and are of one faith, one baptism, of one supper and attend the same religious services, to be poor, helpless and disgraceful strumpets. contrary to all scripture and christian love, although God's word commanded, if they have lain with them, that they should marry them and never forsake them. If they would think more profoundly upon these things, many of the females would not be disgraced, whereas so many a child has been unmercifully disgraced, and so many young girls have been defloured, and deprived of their virgin honor.

I write you the truth in Christ, if you are, or would be a christian, and have seduced but one poor child with your subtle attempts and pretences, (and if you would not lose your soul) you will have to marry her and not forsake her, nor cast her from you; for you have humbled her, as heard. Behold, this is the Lord's own word and law. All, therefore, who knowingly despise this law of God, and reject the disgraced and marry another, will have to confess before God that the first one is his wife, and not the last one. O, you violators of female cliastity, reflect upon these things and learn wis

dom.

Would you say that this command has reference only to Israel and not to the christian, I would then ask you in the first place: Whether you consider yourself to be a christian or not? If you say no, do then all you can, and look for the judgment threatened to all out of Christ. But if you say yes, then the matter is already decided, that she must be your wife. For a christian must not live with a sister, in such a manner as to make her a prostitute. O no! the scriptures teach, that christians are members of Christ, and not whores and profligates. I hope this blunt language will be understood.