out that person, and keeping his eye continually fixed upon him
for good'' Moreover, God will comfort him; he will not
merely view him from heaven, but will come down and dwell in
his heart on purpose to comfort and revive him' Nor is
this all; for God will surely and eternally save liim'^: and the more abased the man is in his own eyes, the higher will God exalt him on a throne of glory" ]
And the reasons of his so honouring it are plain — [It is the work of his oivn Spirit on the soul of man. No created power can effect it : we may break and bruise the body, but we can never produce in any one a broken and contrite spirit. This is God's prerogative"; and whoever has obtained this bless- ing must say, " He that hath wrought us for the self-sarne thing, is God p." — Again, It is the precise disposition that he- comes lis. If the holy angels that never sinned veil their faces and their feet in the presence of their God, what prostration of mind must becoYne such guilty creatures as we are ! Surely we must " put our hands on our mouth, and our mouth in the dust, crying, Unclean, unclean''!" yea rather, we should gird us with sackcloth, and wallow ourselves in ashes, and make mourning as for an only son, even most bitter lamentation'." — Further, It disposes us to acquiesce cordially in God's appointed method of recovery. Till we are thoroughly broken-hearted vvith a sense of sin, we never estimate aright the unspeakable blessings of Re- demption. We may profess a regard for the Gospel ; but we do not really "glory in the cross of Christ;" Christ does not truly become " all our salvation and all our desire." But to the truly contrite, O how precious is the name of Jesus, that adorable name, the foundation of all our hopes, the source of all our joys! — Lastly, It invariahly stimulates us to a cheerful unreserved oledience. No commandment is hard to a person, when once his heart is truly broken and contrite. Let us see that we were dead, and that Christ died for us; and a sense of " his love will constrain us to live to him," and to "glorify him with our body and our spirit, which are his."
Say now, whether here be not reason sufficient for the distin- guished favours which God vouchsafes to the contrite soul ? We know that there is nothing meritorious in contrition : but there is in it a suitableness for the reception of the Divine mercies, and for the reflecting back upon God the honour which he confers upon it.]
This subject may well be improved,
1. For
" Isai. Ixvi, 2. ' Isai. Ivii. 15.
"^ Ps. xxxiv. 18. Job xxxiii. 27, 28. " Luke xviii. 14.
" Job xl. 11. Ezek. xi. I9. p 2 Cor. v. 5.
1 Lam. iii. 29, with Lev. xiii. 45. ' Jer. vi. 26. with Jam. iv. 9, 10.