(2.) Now is properly the time of healing, now is the day of grace, now Christ pours out his balsams, now he sends abroad his ministers and Spirit, 2 Cor. vi. 2. " Now is the accepted time." There were certain healing days, wherein the king healed them that had the evil. The day of grace is a healing day : if we neglect the day of grace, the next day will be a day of wrath, Rom. ii. 5. O therefore hasten the cure of thy soul; rather neglect thy food than thy cure; sin will not only kill, but damn. To get a cure,
[1.] Come to the healing pool of the sanc- tuary; the Spirit of God may on a sudden stir these waters; the next Sabbath, for ought thou knowest, may be a healing day to thy soul.
[2.] Pray others to pray for you; when any disease is upon your body you desire the prayers of others ; the prayers of the saints • e precious balms and medicines to cure i.ick souls.
3. Is Jesus Christ a soul physician ? then let me speak to you who are in some mea- sure healed of your damnable disease. I have four things to say.
1. Break forth into thankfulness; though sin be not quite cured (there are still some grudgings of the disease), yet the reigning power of it is taken away ; you are so healed that you shall not die, John iii. 16. xi. 26. *' Those that were cured by the brazen ser- pent afterwards died; but such as are healed by Christ, shall never die." Sin may molest,
it shall not damn ; O then what cause fiava you to admire and love your physician ? The Lord Jesus hath taken out the core of your disease, and tlie curse ; publish your expe- riences, Psal. Lxvi. 16. "I will tell you what God hath done for my soul:" as a man that hath been cured of an old disease, how glad and thankful is he ? he ^vill tell others of the medi<;ine that cured him. So say, "I will tell you what God hath done for my soul:" he hath cured me of an old disease, a liard, unbelieving heart, a disease that hath s>3nt millions to hell. Truly we may cheerfully bear any other sickness, if this soul-sickness be cured. Lord (saith Luther) strike and wound where thou wilt, if sin be pardoned, O! "Let the high praises of God be in your mouth," Psal. cxlix. 6. God expects thank- fulness as a tribute; he wonders men bring not their thank-offering, Luke xvii. 17. "Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the nine?"
2. Are you healed? take heed of coming into infected company, lest you take the in- fection; the wicked are devils to tempt to sin. Lot was the world's wonder that lived in Sodom when it was a pest-house, yet did not catch the disease.
3. Take heed of relapses; men are afraid of a relapse after they are cured; beware of soul relapses. Hath God softened thy heart? take heed of hardening it. Hath he cured thee in some measure of deadness? do not relapse into a drowsy security. Thou mayest have such an uproar and agony in thy con- science, as may make thee go weeping to thy grave. O take heed of falling sick ajrain! "sin no more lest a worse thiniJj come unto thee," John v. 14.
4. Pity your friends that are sick unto death; show your piety in your pity. Hast thou a child that is well and lusty, but hatli a sick soul? pity him, pray for him, David wept and fasted for his sick child, 2 Sam. xii. 16. Thy child hath the plague sore of the heart, and thou hast conveyed the plague to him; weep and fast for thy child- Hast thou a wife or a husband that though they do not keep their bed, yet the Lord knows they are sick, they are under the raging power of sin? O let thy bowels yearn over them ! lift up a prayer over them; the prayer
THE BEAUTY OF GRACE.
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of fulth may save a sick soul. Prayer is the best physic caii be used in a desperate case; you that have felt the disease of sin, and the mercy of your physician, learn to pity ctliers.
4. And lastly. Is Christ a soul physician? then let us go to Christ to cure this sick, dying nation. Britain, God knows, is a sick patient, "The whole head is sick, the whole heart is faint." The body politic hath a cachexy, it is ill all over: magistracy, minis- try, commonalty are diseased ; and those who pretend to be our healers, are physicians of no value. We have spent our money upon tliese physicians, but yet our sores are not healed, Jer. xiv. 19. "Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us?" Instead of healing us, those who should have been our physicians, have increased the nation's malady, by giving a toleration; this is like giving strong water in a fever, which doth more inflame the disease. Ah, sick Britain, because sinful Britain ! sick of error, unclean- ness, drunkenness; so sick, that we may fear our funerals are approaching: and, which is the worst sjonptom, though balm hath been poured into our wounds, the precious ordi- nances of God have been applied, yet we
are not healed; a sign of bad flesh that is so ill to be cured.