to be healed? To get our fins pardoned, and our natures changed? Is there any balm or phyfician for us? 3. There is in it a diffatisfaction with all earthly comforts and enjoyments, as helpless things to us under our disease. The fick man can take no pleasure in eating and drinking, fleeping, or any worldly thing, while his disease continues; bring gold, filver, honours, pleafures, or friends to him, he anfwers, like Haman, "All these things avail me nothing," while I want Chrift's healing balm to my foul, which is every hour in hazard of the second death. 4. The fick man groans under the burden of his difeafe, he hath grief and forrow of heart for fin, like the Pfalmift, Pfal xxxviii. 6, 18. "I go mourning all the day long, I will be forry for my fin." Why? it is a a difeafe of my own bringing on, I have given the wounds to myself, and made my foul loathfome to God. O what a fool and beast have I been ! 5. The fick man is brought to despair of all healing and cure in his own doings or contrivances: All his former refuges and confidences are dafhed in pieces, and he joins with penitent Ifrael, Hof. xiv. 3. " Athur fhall not fave us, we will not ride upon horfes, neither will we fay any more to the work of our hands, ye are our gods:" We will not any more make balm of our prayers, of our tears, or refolutions, we must seek it from another quarter. 6. The fick man fees his abfolute need of a phyfician, and of one that is skilful, and hath balm of infinite virtue, even of Chrift, who is able to fave to the uttermoft, and can cure the deepest and deadlieft wounds. It is he, and he only (faith he) who hath an infinite fulness of merit and fpirit that can fuit my defperate malady. None but the eternal Son of God can be my phyfician: "O that I knew where to find him!" 7. The difeafed man is brought to a willingness to fubmit to the phyfician's method and prescriptions, and to fay with Paul, Acts ix. 6. " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Let him cut me, lance me, blood me, purge me. Let him put me to what pain he pleaseth, let him lay me never fo low, I'll fubmit. Let him prefcribed fcribe a potion never fo bitter, I'll drink it. Let Christ do with me what he will, if he cure, my difeafe, all is well. I will not haggle with him for a right eye, or a right hand, or any darling fin, or any thing dear to me in the world; no, every thing fhall be parted with at his command. Thus the finner, by the great Phyfician's power and skill, is made fick and fenfible, humble and willing, in order to prepare him for the healing balm. II. Another ftep which the Phyfician takes to cure the difeafed man: He by his Spirit works faith in his foul; that is, he powerfully perfuades and enables him. to embrace Chrift as his Saviour, and apply the balmof his blood and merits unto his wounds, for removing guilt, pardoning fin, and reconciling God to his foul. Now, when this is done, the danger of death is over, John v. 24. "He that believeth fhall not come into condemnation, but is paffed from death to life." Faith is a healing grace, for it is the inftrument which applies the healing balm of Chrift's blood to the diseased foul. Every touch of faith's hand brings healing, nay, every one of its looks are healing, Ifa. xlv. 22. "Look unto me, and be faved." Thus a look of a stung Ifrael ite brought healing to his wound. So Peter's look to Chrift healed him of apoftacy. Hence Chrift faid to feveral difeáfed perfons, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." So here, when once faith applies Chrift's blood, the guilt of fin is cured, its reigning power fubdued, and the ftrength of the difeafe is broken, it will not prove mortal. Queft. How fhall I know whether I have got this healing faith, faith which hath made me whole? Anf. See whether it hath the evidence of a healing. faith? 1. Hath thy faith brought thee to a peremptory refolution to ly at the Phyfician's door, and look to him alone for healing, faying, If I die, it fhall be at Chrift's door, for there is no other name given under heaven, nor among men, whereby I can be healed, 2. Hath thy faith made thee fall heartily in with the gofpel-method of healing, and to approve it as a beautiful contrivance, and fay, "God's covenant of grace is well ordered in all things, and fuitable to all my maladies; Chrift the Mediator of it is a noble Phyfician,and complete Saviour, and therefore I chufe him in all his offices, and accept of all his prefcriptions for my. difeafed foul: I accept of his blood to wash me, his righteoufnefs to cover me, his Spirit to fanctify me, his word to direct me, and his laws to govern me." 3. See whether thy faith hath determined thee to open frankly to thy Phyfician, and entertain him in the best rooms of thy foul. When Chrift knocked by his Spirie, did thy faith make thee willing to yield and furrender all thy powers and faculties to him? Didft thou bring the keys of all the rooms of thy foul to Chrift, and particularly of thy will, faying, "Lord, come, chufe where thou wilt lodge, where thou wilt lie, and what thou wilt have, for all I have is devoted to thee, and at thy command." Now, O man, if thou haft got fuch a faith as this, then thy faith hath made thee whole, the healing balm is applied, the cure begun, and fhall af furedly be perfected at length. III. Another ftep of the foul's cure is by the renewing and fanctifying work of the Spirit. Affoon as the Physician gives faith to apply the balm, he takes the foul into his hofpital, places him among his patients, whofe difeafe is broken, and who are on the way of recovery. He takes every believing foul under his fpecial care, he kindly vifits and attends them, and carries on their cure by his Spirit's renewing and fanctifying work: And this he doth by degrees, for the wounds which fin hath given our natures are fo deep, that they take long time to heal; nay, it will take all our days before the cure be finifhed. But though the cure be flow, it is fure. Queft. By what fteps or degrees doth the Physician carry on the cure in believers? Ans. 1. By his Spirit in regeneration; he cures the mind of its blindnefs, the heart of its hardnefs, the nature of its perverfenefs, the will of its backwardness, the memory of its flipperinefs, the confcience of its benumbednefs, and the affections of their disorder; all this according to his gracious promife, Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. "I will take away the ftony heart, and give you an heart of flesh; and I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my ftatutes." It is by his Spirit within us that the cure is carried on. 2. He heals his people by intimating peace and comfort to their difquieted fouls, and affuring them that God's anger is turned away from them. As the grant of pardon cures the guilt of fin, fo the Spirit's intimation of it pacifies the troubled confcience, and brings healing to the bones which were broken by fin. The believer's fore ftill runs in the night until this doth come. Now when the Phyfician is pleafed to quiet his people's minds, comfort their drooping fpirits, and deliver them from the apprehenfions of God's wrath, he doth remarkably advance his healing work in them, according to Pfal. xxx. 2, 3. &c. Pfal. vi. 2. Hof. xiv. 4. 3. He carries on the cure of his people, by fanctify. ing their natures, infufing grace and holinefs into all the faculties of their fouls, and adding new measures and degrees thereof from time to time. Increase of grace, and progrefs in fanctification, is a continual heal ing of the difeafe of fin, according to Mal. iv. 2. " The Sun of righteoufnefs thall arife with healing in his wings, and ye fhall grow up as calves in the ftall." Healing and growing are there joined together. The more we grow in fanctification, the more our cure doth advance. This growth indeed is often infenfible in believers, yea, fometimes they will be feized with new dif tempers, and be getting new wounds, fo that the work will feem to go back; yet, notwithstanding, the virtue of Gilead's balm will infallibly prevail in order to the perfecting of the foul's cure. 4. He carries on his healing work by cherishing weak grace in his people, and blefling the means of grace, for ftrengthening and increafing it; and fo he makes good his gracious promife and character, Matth. xii. 20. "A bruifed reed fhall he not break, and smoking flax fhall he not quench." We have an inftance of this in the cafe of Thomas: How tenderly did he blow on his smoking flax, and cherith his weak faith! John xx 27. "Then faith he to Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands: and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my fide, and be not faithless but believing." 5. He advances the cure by weakening indwelling fin and corruption, and removing thofe diftempers which hinder the growth of grace; he loofes their bonds, and frees them from their fetters and ftraitnings in duty, and fets them at liberty to "walk before the Lord in the land of the living," and even to “ the ways of the Lord,' Pfal. cxxxviii. 5. fing in 6. He caufes his "north and fouth wind," with their healing influences, to "blow upon their gardens and fpices," and fo puts life in their graces, and draws them forth to exercife in performing of duty. Thus he quickens faith to embrace and reft on a crucified Jefus, and kindles love to entertain him; and he sharpens the foul's appetite after its food. 7. He carries on the cure in his people, by giving them new discoveries of Christ, and of his fulness and fuitablenefs to their needs, to draw out their faith and love to him. This was one great defign in fending the Spirit into the world, John xvi. 14. "He fhall glorify me, for he fhall receive of mine and fhew it unto you." Now, how doth he glorify Chrift, but by fhewing them his fulness and excellency, and making them willing to part with all things for Chrift and his righteoufnefs, and content to borrow all they want out of Christ's fulness, and to make Chrift their All, in justification, and in fanctification, and in glorification. The more the foul makes use of Chrift, and lives near him, it is still fo much the nearer to perfect health. 8. The Spirit carries on the cure in his people by caufing them to breathe after a full conformity to Chrift and his image, that their fanctification may be completed, and they freed of all complaints of indwelling-fin and imperfect fervices. Hence they are made to cry with David, Pfal. cxix. 5. "O that my ways were directed to keep thy flatutes!" And with Paul, Rom. vii. 251 "O wretched man that I am, who thall deliver me from the body of this death?" The ftronger the foul's VOL. III. breathings H |