0 blessed be God that there is a balm in Gilead, and a Physician there ! that their case is not desperate, forlorn and remediless, as that the devils and damned is. There is but one case exempted from cure, and that, such as is not incident to any sensible, afflicted soul, Matth. xii. 31. and this only excepted, all manner of sins and dis- eases are capable of a cure. Though there be such a disease as is incurable, yet take this for thy comfort, never any soul was sick, i. e. sensibly burdened with it, and willing to come to Jesus Christ for healing ; for under that sin the will is so wounded, that they have no desire to Christ. O inestimable mercy ! that the sickest sinner is capable of a perfect cure ! There be thousands, and ten thousands now in heaven and earth, who said once, Never was any case like theirs ; so dangerous, so hopeless. The greatest of sinners have been perfectly recovered by Christ, 1 Tim. i. 15.
1 Cor. vi. 11. O mercy, never to be duly estimated !
Lifer. 2. What a powerful restraint from sin is the very method ordained by God for the cure of it ! Isa. liii. 5. " By his stripes we " are healed." The Physician must die, that the patient might live ; no other thing but the blood, the precious blood of Christ, is found in heaven or earth able to heal us, Heb. ix. 22, 26. This blood of Christ must be freshly applied to every new wound sin makes upon our souls, 1 John ii. 1, 2. every new sin wounds him afresh, opens the wounds of Christ anew. O think of this again and again, you that so easily yield to the solicitations of Satan. Is it so easy and so cheap to sin as you seem to make it ? Doth the cure of souls cost nothing ? True, it is free to us, but was it so to Christ ? No, it was not ; he knows the price of it, though you do not. Hath Christ healed you by his stripes, and can you put him under fresh sufferings for you so easily ? Have you forgot also your own
198 THE METHOD OF GRACE. SERM. X,
sick days and nights for sin, that you are careless in resisting and preventing it ? Sure it is not easy for saints to wound Christ, and their own souls, at one stroke. If you renew your sins, you must also renew your sorrows and repentance, Psal. li. title. 2 Sam. xii. 13. you must feel the anguish and pain of a troubled spirit again, things with which the saints are not unacquainted ; of which they may say, as the church, " Remembering my affliction, the worm- " wood and the gall, my soul hath them still in remembrance,1*' Lam. iii. 19- Yea, and if you will be remiss in your watch, and so easily incur new guilt, though a pardon in the blood of Christ may heal your souls, yet some rod or other, in the hand of a dis- pleased father, shall afflict your bodies, or smite you in your out- ward comforts, Psal. lxxxix. 23.
Inf. 3. If Christ be the only physician of sick souls, what sin and Jolly is it for men to take Chrisfs xvork out of his hands, and at- tempt to be their own physician.
Thus do those that superstitiously endeavour to heal their souls by afflicting their bodies ; not Chrisfs blood, but their own, must be the plaister : and as blind Papists, so many carnal and ignorant Protestants strive, by confession, restitution, reformation, and stricter course of life, to heal those wounds that sin hath made upon their souls, without any respect to the blood of Christ : but this course shall not profit them at all. It may, for a time divert, but can never heal them : the wounds so skinned over, will open and bleed again. God grant it be not when our souls shall be out of the reach of the true and only remedy.
Inf. 4. How sad is the case of those souls, to wlwm Christ hath not yet been been a physician ? They are mortally wounded by sin, and are like to die of their sickness ; no saving, healing applications have hitherto been made unto their souls : and this is the case of the greatest part of mankind, yea, of them that live under the discoveries of Christ in the gospel. Which appeal's by these sad symptoms.
First, In that their eyes have not yet been opened, to see their sin and misery ; in which illumination the cure of souls begin, Acts xxvi. 18. To this day he hath not given them eyes to see, Deut. xxix. 4. but that terrible stroke of God which blinds and hardens them, is too visibly upon them, mentioned in Isa. vi. 9, 10. No hope of healing, till the sinner's eyes be opened to see his sin and misery.
Secondly, In that nothing will divorce and separate them from their lusts ; a sure sign they are not under Christ's cure, nor were ever made sick of sin. O if ever Christ be a physician to thy soul, he will make thee loathe what now thou lovest, and say to thy moat pleasant and most profitable lusts, Get ye hence, Isa. xxx. 22.
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Till then, there is no ground to think that Christ is a physician to you.
Thirdly, In that they have no sensible and pressing need of Christ, nor make any earnest enquiry after him, as most certainly you would do, if you were in the way of healing and recovery. These, and many other sad symptoms, do too plainly discover the disease of sin, to be in its full strength upon your souls ; and if it so continue, how dreadful will the issue be ? See Isa. vi. 9, 10.