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way whatever to escape. Thus will we fee the seasonableness of gofpel tidings.

To meek poor ones, in particular, I would fay, O! fenfible finners, preffed with the fense of your fpiritual wants, your finfulness, mifery, inability to help yourselves, you who fee your abfolute need of Christ, and withal your unworthinefs of his help, who are longing for fupply, and content with Christ on any terms, to you is the word of this falvation fent, particularly; come away, and joyfully embrace these good tidings. To influence you to this, confider,

That your names are particularly in Christ's commiffion. He was fent to preach good tidings to the meek. The Lord knows that the poor convinced finner will have many doubts and fears, which will be hard for him to overcome, fo as to get the tidings believed. Therefore, as in Mark, xvi. 7. the angel faid unto the women," Go your way, tell his difciples, and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee, there fhall ye fee him, as he faid unto you." So here particular notice is taken of the meek. God has a fpecial eye on the outcasts of Ifrael to bring them in to himself, Ifa. lv. 1. Again, confider,

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That the grand end for which the Lord difcovers to you your fpiritual poverty is, that you may come to Chrift for fupply: Gal. iii. 24. "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Chrift, that we might be justified by faith." God brought a famine on Jacob's household in Canaan, when there was corn in Egypt, that Jofeph's brethren might have an errand to him. Therefore reject not the counfel of God against yourselves. Confider farther,

That Chrift is able to fupply all your wants: "Open thy mouth wide, fays he, and I will fill

it,"

it," Pfal. lxxxi. 10. Were your wants as great as Paul's, as Mary Magdalene's, as Manaffeh's were, he has enough to fupply them all, a fulnefs of merit and of Spirit. If all the world were fo poor in fpirit, there is enough for them all, and to fpare; there is an infinite value in his blood, and an infinite efficacy in his Spirit. Confider,

That you cannot get the supply of your wants any where eife: Acts iv. 12. "Neither is there falvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be faved." Alas! poor finners are ready to go to wrong doors for fupply, and to seek to have their wants supplied by themselves. But all your duties, prayers, watchings, mournings, will do no good, unless you believe: John, vi. 29. "This is. the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath fent." Confider, laftly,

That our Lord makes you welcome to him and his fulness, and that freely, Ifa. lv. 1. I dare not come to Chrift, fays one. Why fo? Christ is a gift, even the gift of God, John, iv. 10.; and what is freer than a gift? Nothing is required of you but to receive it. Incline then your ear, and come unto him, hear, and your. souls fhall live.Amen.

JESUS

1

JESUS BINDS UP THE BROKEN HEARTED.

SERMON L.

ISA. Ixi. 1.—To bind up the broken hearted.

N these words, we have another piece of work

He hath fent him to bind up the broken hearted. In the words there is, 1. The work itself, to bind up; Luke hath it to heal, chapter iv. 18. He is employed by the Father as the great Physician to bind up finners, as a furgeon does a broken bone or any other wound, and to heal them. This belongs to his priestly office. We have, 2. The objects of it; the broken hearted, fuch as are fick of fin, who have their hearts broken and caft down within them, on account of fin, and its confequences. This is a fickness which Chrift is fent

to cure.

From this fubject, you may obferve the following

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DOCTRINE, Our Lord Jefus is appointed of his Father, to be the Phyfician of broken-hearted finners, to bind them up, and heal them.

FOR illuftrating this doctrine, we fhall confider,

I. What is that brokennefs of heart, which is here meant.

II. What is it in and about fin which breaks the man's heart, who is thus evangelically broken hearted.

III. What fort of a heart a broken heart is. IV. How the Lord Christ binds up, and heals the broken-hearted.

V. Make fome improvement.-We are then,

I. To inquire what is that brokennefs of heart which is here meant, and of which the Lord takes fo much notice. The broken hearted is of two kinds.

1. There is a natural one, arifing from natural and carnal caufes merely, which worketh death, 2 Cor. vii. 10. Thus many who are very whole hearted in refpect of fin, complain that their hearts and spirits are broken by their croffes, afflictions, and ill ufage which they meet with in the world. Thus Ahab, Haman, and Nabal, their hearts were broken with their respective croffes. This is nothing but the crack which a proud heart gets by God's providence, when it will not bow, and is very difpleafing in God's fight. This Chrift will not heal, till it is broken at another rate.-There is,

2. A religious broken heart, which arifes from religious caufes, namely, fin and its confequences. Sin has funk into the fouls of all Adam's posterity, like a deadly poison. But most men are

whole

whole-hearted, though they carry their death about with them, becaufe the poifon has not yet begun to work. The thorn of guilt is sticking in their confcience, but they are eafy, for it has not yet begun to fester. But when the poifon begins to work, the heart is broken with it. Every fuch breaking of heart is not the fickness unto life which Chrift is fent to heal. There is a twofold religious breaking of heart.-First, A mere legal one: Jer. xxiii. 29. "Is not my word like as a fire? faith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ?" When the heart is broken by the mere force of the law, it is broken as a rock in pieces by a hammer, each part remaining hard and rocky ftill. As it breaks the heart of a malefactor, to hear his doom pronounced, that he must be hanged for his crime; fo does the law break the heart of a finner. This breaks the heart for fin, but not from it. Thus the hearts of Cain and Judas were broken, and thus the hearts of the damned fhall be broken for ever. Men may die of these wounds, and never be healed. But there is,-Sepondly, An evangelical one. When not only the law does its part, but the gospel alfo breaks the finner's heart: Zech. xii. 10. "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerufalem, the fpirit of grace and fupplication; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they fhall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only fon, and fshall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born." This is that kindly heart-breaking for fin, which is an effect of

fpel-grace, a fickness of which never one shall die, it is the very malady which in the text Chrift is fent to cure. Sin in an ungracious foul, is like poifon in a ferpent, it is agreeable VOL. III.

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