As God inflicts judgments on his enemies, so does he administer healing to his people : and this he does,
1. In a way of gracious exemption —
[The Hebrews were exempted from the various calamities with which Egypt was overwhelmed. And this is particularly noticed in the words preceding my text : " I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians : for I am the Lord that healeth thee." In like manner, if we are exempt from many diseases under which others labour, and by which their whole lives are imbittered, we should acknowledge God as the Author of this distinction, and receive it as a special mercy at his hands. We know that even under the Christian dispensation bodily diseases are often sent by God, as the punishment of sine: and we cannot but feel that we have merited, on many occasions, such tokens of his displeasure. If therefore we, like the Hebrews, have been more highly favoured than others, we must, like them, be instructed that it is God alone who has healed us.
But in this general description of Jehovah we must not over- look that which, after all, was chiefly intended — his special favour towards his redeemed people, in reference to spiritual disorders. Thousands are given up, like Judas, to an obdurate heart and a reprobate mind ; whilst some, like David and Peter, are recovered from their falls. To whom must the recovery of these be ascribed ? — to themselves ? They had in themselves no more strength or power than the unhappy Judas had. It was to sovereign grace alone that they owed their restoration to the divine favour, and their return to the paths of holiness and peace. And have not we similar obligations to our heavenly Physician ? How often have we indulged in our hearts propensities, to which if we had been given up, we should have fallen a prey, and perished for ever ! The sins of the most abandoned of the human race were small in their beginning, and by repetition became inveterate. O ! what do we owe to God, who, whilst he has left others to follow the imagination of their own hearts, has restrained us, " hedging up our way with thorns, and building a wall, that we might not be able to prosecute the paths " which our corrupt hearts so perversely sought ! As far then as by his preventing grace he has kept us from evil, we have reason to adore him as " the healer" of our souls.]
2. In a way of effectual interposition —
[Ou many occasions did God visit his people with severe chastisements ; which he as often removed, at the intercession of Moses, or on the humiliation of their souls before him.
e 1 Cor. xi. 30. and Jam. v. 14, 15.