fixed upon him for goocU — 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 him " : 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 —
[/(( is the work of his oion Spirit 07i the soul of man. No created power can eifect 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 P; and whoever has obtained this blessing must say, " He that hath wrought us for the self- same thing, is God*!." — Again, It is the precise dispositioti that becomes us. If the holy angels that never sinned veil their faces and their feet in the presence of their God, what pro- stration of mind must become such guilty creatures as we are ! Surely we must " put our hands on our mouth, and our moutli 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 lamenta- tion^."— Further, It disposes us to acquiesce cordially in God's appointed method of recovery. Till we are thoroughly broken- hearted with a sense of sin, we never estimate aright the un- speakable blessings of Redemption. 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 invariably stimulates us to a cheerful unreserved obedience. No command- ment 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 dis- tinguished 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,
' Isai. Ixvi. 2. ■" Isai. Ivii. 15.
n Ps. xxxiv. 18. Job xxxiii. 27, 28. ° Luke xviii. 14.
p Job xl. 11. Ezek. xi. 19. i 2 Cor. v. 5.
' Lam. iii. 29. with Lev. xiii. 45. ** Jer. vi. 2G. with Jam. iv. 9, 10.