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CHAPTER V.

THE BROKEN HEART BOUND UP.

"He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."

"He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted-to ap point to them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

"Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee."

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THE God of wisdom and of mercy has admirably tempered together the elements of the moral and natural world. The balance of power, the balance of " good and evil," has been nicely preserved. He has set one thing also against the other" and they only have correct apprehensions either of his dealings, or of our state, who follow those dealings throughout, to their ultimate issue, and who view that state in all its stages of discipline. Sinful and depraved as we were by nature, spiritual sorrow, even to the very breaking of the heart, was necessary to our moral renovation. It was a painful and a bitter remedy, which he who knew our frame, and understood well our malady and its danger, knew to be necessary to

our recovery to spiritual health. Hard thoughts both of the providence and the grace of God, might naturally arise, did we view the act of contrition, in its painfulness and misery, without reference to its alleviations and its consequents. The Most High might be deemed a stern Father and "a hard Master," in permitting his earthly children to sorrow thus deeply, even though it were "after a godly sort," especially if he permitted us to sorrow as those without hope," and to go mourning to our graves. But this is not so. He calls and causes us spiritually to sorrow and to suffer, "not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be made partakers of his holiness." And while the ultimate benefit of the discipline is ours, all the alleviations of which it is susceptible are from him, and as soon as the effect is produced, by him it is brought to a close. For purposes of infinite mercy, for the acceptance and salvation of our souls, he causes the heart to become broken and contrite; but he leaves it not in its dismemberment and anguish. With an especial reference to its condition, he hath issued a commission to One, to "bind up this broken heart." He has provided an Almighty Physician, infinite in wisdom, consummate in skill, and unrestricted in power. Let us then, alike for the just appreciation of his character, and the encouragement of our own hopes, follow him in his works of mercy, as "he goes about doing good," and see with

how firm and yet gentle a ligature he binds up the broken in heart, and how soothingly he pours into them the oil of consolation.

It is perfectly evident, that this act of signal mercy is a divine act. Men were confessedly inadequate to its performance. They may be employed as the subordinate agents, in the minor processes of the accomplishment; but "the excellency of the power is of God," not of man; and when men are employed instrumentally, they are but as "the earthen vessels" which bear the Gospel treasure of consolation. The treasure

itself is from heaven.

Again and again has the trial been made by earthly men and earthly means, to bind up the broken in heart. The spiritual mourner has been earnestly dissuaded from going to God and the Saviour; with the assurance, that He and his Gospel, having at the first caused, would now aggravate his misery, would tear open and inflame, rather than heal the wounds of the spirit. Without reference to God and to eternal things, the balm of human sympathy has been applied, the lethean opiate of worldly unconcern has been administered. Art has exhausted its ingenuity, and pleasure has tried all its blandishments. There has been the shifting scenery of mimic life, and the dance with its giddy mazes, and "the tabret, and the viol, and the harp, and the wine, have been in their feasts." But the mourner has still

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been desolate within. "The charmer," has not been heard, or heard in vain, though he charmed' never so wisely." The soul has turned in loathing and disgust from this trifling with its misery. It has felt that the amusements of a vain and trifling world were an insult to its dignity, and a mockery of its sacred griefs. It has been ready to say with the wise man of Israel, as vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart;" or with the mourning captive by the waters of Babylon-" They required of me a song and mirth in my heaviness." Philosophy too has tried her skill. Professing to know the whole economy of mind and spirit, she has deemed herself competent to relieve all the wants, and heal all the wounds, of mind and spirit. But her trust and her boast have been vain. In the moment of agony, all the ligatures which she has bound around the ruptured spirit have been snapped as easily as fragile withs in a giants hand, and the wound has bled afresh, and no styptic known to her art, or the art of man, could staunch the flow. That however which was impossible with men, was possible with God. Where human agency has failed, his becomes conspicuous: he condescends himself to "heal those who are broken in heart, and to give medicine to heal their sickness." In this passage, it would seem as though the Fa-* ther were the agent in this work of compassion. Again, the Son, by the voice of the prophet,

speaks of it as delegated to Him; "He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted;" while it would again seem to come specially within the province of the Spirit, who is emphatically the Comforter, and to whom it appertains, not merely "to convince of sin," but to give "everlasting consolation and a good hope through grace. It may justly, therefore, be regarded as the work of the triune God, effected through the mission and death of the Son, and the special agency of the Holy Spirit, to the good pleasure of the Father.

How it is effected, is both an important and an interesting inquiry. Evidently it is not by any sudden and arbitrary act of Omnipotence. The whole analogy of divine influence asserts the contrary. It is rather in compliance with the previous prayer of the sufferer, and through the instrumentality of simple means used in faith, which had been devised and prescribed by the Almighty Physician. I cannot but consider the whole course of the Saviour's merciful and curative administration to the bodies and the souls of men, during his earthly ministry, not only as the narrative of undoubted facts, but of undoubted facts which were meant to illustrate the usual economy of his grace to all the " weary and heavy laden," all the broken hearted of the earth in all ages.

When he ministered on earth to the diseased in body or in mind, they were either brought, or came unto him in faith; and this faith it was