is to the body, holiness is to the soul. Therefore the Sun of righteousness is said to "arise with healing in his wings ":"whereby we are to understand the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, conveying the virtue of the blood of Christ unto the conscience; even as the beams of the sun do the heat and influence thereof unto the earth, thereby calling out the herbs and flowers, and healing those deformities which winter had brought upon it.

Thirdly, By removing and withdrawing of judgements, which the sins of a people had brought, like wounds or sicknesses, upon them. So healing is opposite to smiting and wounding.

Fourthly, By comforting against the anguish and distress, which sin is apt to bring upon the conscience. For as, in physic, there are purgatives to cleanse away corrupt humours, so there are cordials likewise, to strengthen and refresh weak and dejected patients: and this is one of Christ's principal works, "To bind and heal the broken in heart, to restore comforts unto mourners, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to have mercy upon those whose bones are vexed" I am not willing to shut any of these out of the meaning of the text.

"Take

First, Because it is an answer to that prayer, away all iniquity;" the all that is in it, the guilt, the stain, the power, the punishment, the anguish, whatever evil it is apt to bring upon the conscience; let it not do us any hurt at all.

Secondly, Because God's works are perfect: where he forgives sin, he removes it; where he convinceth of righteousness, unto pardon of sin,―he convinceth also of judgement, unto the casting out of the Prince of this world, and bringeth forth that judgement unto victory.

" all

Their backsliding."] Their prayer was against iniquity;" and God, in his answer thereunto, singleth out one kind of iniquity, but one of the greatest by name: and that, First, To teach them and us, when we pray against sin, not to content ourselves with generalities, but to bewail our great and special sins by name; those especially that have

Mal. iv. 2. Psalm cxlvii. 3. xii. 20.

a Deut. xxxii. 39. Job v. 18. Hos. vi. 1, 2. Jer. xxxiit. 5, 6. Isai. Ivii. 18, 19. Luke iv. 18. Psalm vi. 2, 3. Matth.

been most comprehensive, and the seminaries of many

others.

Secondly, To comfort them; for if God pardon by name the greatest sin, then surely none of the rest will stand in the way of his mercy: if he pardon the talents, we need not doubt but he will pardon the pence too. Paul was guilty of many other sins; but when he will magnify the grace of Christ, he makes mention of his great sins: a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious; and comforts himself in the mercy which he had obtained against them ".

Thirdly, To intimate the great guilt of apostasy and rebellion against God. After we have known him, and tasted of his mercy, and given up ourselves unto his service, and come out of Egypt and Sodom,-then to look back again, and to be false in his covenant; this God looks on, not as a single sin, but as a compound of all sins. When a man turns from God, he doth, as it were, resume and take home upon his conscience all the sins of his life again.

Fourthly, To proportion his answer to their repentance. They confess their apostasy: they had been in covenant with God; they confess he was their "first husband';" and they forsook him, and sought to horses, to men, to idols, to vanity and lies: this is the sin they chiefly bewail; and therefore this is the sin, which God chiefly singles out to pardon, and to heal them of. This is the great goodness of God towards those, that pray in sincerity, that he fits his mercy "ad cardinem desiderii "," answers them in the main of their desires; lets it be unto them, even as they will.

SECT. 10. "I will love them freely."] This is set down as the fountain of that remission, sanctification, and comfort, which is here promised. It comes not from our conversion unto

d 1 Tim. i. 13. • Ut aqua, prius calefacta, dein in putcum demissa, fit frigidissima: Casaub. in Athenæum, 1. 3. c. 35.-Et Plutarch. Symposiac, 1. 6. q. 4. h Si vera fit gratia, id est, gratuita, f Hos. ii. 7. Aug. Confes. lib. 5. cap. 8. nihil invenit in homine, cui merito debeatur, &c. Aug. lib. de patient. c. 20.Vid. cont. Julian. lib. 6. cap. 19.-De peccato orig. cap. 24.—de grat, et lib. arbit. cap. 5.-De natur. et grat. cap. 4.-De corrept. et gr. c. 10.-Epist. 105 et 106, et alibi passim.-Temerè in tali negotio, vel prius aliquid tribuis tibi, vel plus et magis; amat, et ante: Bernard. Serm. 69. in Can.-Ex se sumit materiam, et velut quoddam seminarium miserandi: miserendi causam et originem sumit ex proprio; judicandi vel ulciscendi magis ex nostro. Idem. Serm, 5. in natali Dom.

And this

God, but from God's free love and grace unto us. is added, First, To humble them, that they should not ascribe any thing to themselves, their repentance, their prayers, their covenants and promises, as if these had been the means to procure mercy for them; or as if there were any objective grounds of loveliness in them, to stir up the love of God towards them. It is not for their sake that he doth it, but for his own: "The Lord sets his love upon them, because he loved them i:" "Not for your sakes do I this," saith the Lord God," be it known unto you :" " He will have mercy, "be you*:" because he will have mercy."

Secondly, To support them, above the guilt of their greatest sins. Men think nothing more easy, while they live in sin, and are not affected with the weight and heinousness of it, than to believe mercy and pardon. But when the soul, in conversion unto God, feels the heavy burden of some great sins,--when it considers its rebellion, and apostasy, and backsliding from God,—it will then be very apt to think, God will not forgive nor heal so great wickedness as this. There is a natural Novatianism in the timorous conscience of convinced sinners, to doubt and question pardon for sins of apostasy and falling, after repentance. Therefore, in this case, God takes a penitent off from the consideration of himself by his own thoughts, unto the height and excellency of his thoughts, who knows how to pardon abundantly. Nothing is too hard for love; especially free love, that hath no foundation or inducement from without itself.

And because we read it before, Hos. viii. 5, that "God's anger was kindled against them;" therefore he here adds, that this also should be "turned away" from them. Anger" will consist with love. We find God angry with Moses, and Aaron, and Miriam, and Asa; and he doth sometimes "visit with rods and scourges, where he doth not utterly take away his loving kindness from a people "." A man may be angry with his wife, or child, or friend, whom yet he dearly loveth. And God is said to be thus angry with his people, when the effects of displeasure are discovered towards them. Now

i Deut. vii. 7, 8.

k Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 23. Iv. 7, 8, 9. Jer. xxix. 11. Ezek. xxxvii. 3. • Psalm 1xxxix. 32, 33.

Rom. ix. 15.

m Isai.

n Arist. Rhet. 1. 2, c. 2.

upon their repentance and conversion, God promiseth not only to love them freely, but to clear up his countenance towards them; to make them, by the removal of judgements, to see and know the fruits of his free love and bounty unto them. When David called Absalom home from banishment, this was an effect of love; but when he said, "Let him not see my face," this was the continuation of anger: but at last, when he admitted him into his presence, and kissed him, here that anger was turned away from him too.

SECT. 11. These words then contain God's merciful answer to the first part of Israel's prayer, for the "taking away of all iniquity," which had been the fountain of those sad judgements, under which they languished and pined away: wherein there are two parts. 1. The ground of God's love. 2. A double fruit of that love. 1. In healing their backsliding,' in 'removing his anger' and heavy judgements from them. We will briefly handle them in the order of the text.

“I will heal their backsliding."] When God's people do return unto him, and pray against sin,-then God, out of his free love, doth heal them of it. First, he teacheth them what to ask; and then he tells them what he will give. Thus we find 'conversion' and healing' joined together". "They shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them" "Return, backsliding children; I will heal your backslidings "." Men, if they be injured and provoked by those whom they have in their power to undo, though they return and cry 'peccavi,' and are ready to ask forgiveness,-yet many times, out of pride and revenge, will take their time and opportunity to repay the wrong. But God doth not so; his pardons, as all his other gifts, are without his exprobration: as soon as ever his servants come back unto him with tears and confession, he looks not upon them with scorn, but with joy: his mercy makes more haste to embrace them, than their repentance to

P 2 Sam. xiv. 21, 24, 33. 9 Psalm vi. 10. r Isai. xix. 22. s Jer. iii. 22. * Είπερ γάρ τε χόλονγε καὶ αὐτῆμαρ καταπέψῃ, ̓Αλλά γε καὶ μετόπισθεν ἔχει κόταν, ὄφρα τελέσσῃ, Ἐν στήθεσσιν ἐοῖσι. Hom. Il. i. 81. Quæ in præsens Tberius civiliter habuit, sed in animo revolvente iras, etiamsi impetus offensionis languerat, memoria valebat. Tac. Annal. 1. 4. Non enim Tiberium, quamvis triennio post cædem Sejani, quæ cæteros mollire solent, tempus, preces, satis mitigabant, quin incerta et abolita pro gravissimis et recentibus puniret. Annal. 1. 6.-Vid. Aristot. Ethic. 1. 4. c. 11.

return unto him ". Then out comes the wine, the oil, the balm, the cordials; then the wounds of a Saviour do, as it were, bleed afresh, to drop in mercy into the sores of such a penitent. O though he be not a dutiful, a pleasant child,' yet he is a child: "though I spake against him, yet I remember him still, my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him." The Lord greatly complains of the inclination of his people to backsliding, and yet he cannot find in his heart to destroy them, but expresseth a kind of conflict between justice and mercy; and at last resolves, "I am God, and not man;' I can as well heal their backsliding by my love, as revenge it by my justice; therefore I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, but I will cause them to walk after the Lord "."" Yea, so merciful he is, that, even upon a hypocritical conversion, when his people did but flatter and lie unto him, and their heart was not right towards him, nor they steadfast in his covenant,-yet the text saith, he, "being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity," (not as to the justification of their persons, for that is never without faith unfeigned, but so far as to the mitigation of their punishment, that 'he destroyed them not, nor stirred up all his wrath against them :)-for so that place is to be expounded, as appeareth by the like parallel place, Ezek. xxiii. 17: "Nevertheless mine eye spared them from destroying them; neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness."

a

Now the metaphorical word, both here, and so often elsewhere used in this argument, leadeth us to look upon sinners as patients, and upon God as a physician. By which two considerations we shall find the exceeding mercy of God in the pardon and purging away of sin, set forth

unto us.

SECT. 12. Healing' then is a relative word; and leads us first to the consideration of a patient, who is to be healed; and that is here a grievous sinner fallen into a relapse. Healing is of two sorts: the healing of a sickness by a physician; the healing of a wound by a surgeon:

u Luke xv. 20. * Jer. xxxii. 20.

y Gravis quædam inter virtutes videtur orta contentio siquidem veritas et justitia miserum affligebant; pax et misericordia judicabant magis esse parcendum, &c. vid. Bern. Ser. I. in An.

a Hos.