all his bones," it seems evident, that God had withdrawn from him for a season his wonted consolations, and that he was much in the state of David, who, under the pressure of a dangerous illness, cried, " Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps : thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves1." Whether there was any particular occasion for this dispensation, we are not informed. We know that Job, who was esteemed by God himself " a perfect man," was subjected to a similar trial for his good. And, if this dispensation had no other end than to counteract that propensity to pride which afterwards broke forth, and brought down upon Hezekiah the severest displeasure of the Almighty, it was justly and graciously ordained.
For deliverance from a state like this, we wonder not that Hezekiah should bless and magnify the Lord. Who can think of being delivered from the pit of corruption, and not rejoice? Who can contemplate God as having " cast all his sins behind his back," and not bless him from his inmost soulk? Consider what is implied in this expression : it imports that " God will remember our sins no more." Once " he set our iniquities before him, and our secret sins in the light of his countenance1 ;" but now he hides his face from them™," " blots them out"" from the book of his remembrance, and " casts them into the very depths of the sea0," from whence they shall never rise to appear against us in judgment. Verily, if on the receipt of such a mercy as this " he had held his peace, the very stones would have cried out against him."
We must not omit to notice the source to which Hezekiah traces this great deliverance : it is to God's sovereign love and mercy. He does not say, " From a respect to my deserts thou hast done thus;" but, " in love to my soul" thou hast clone it. And to this must all spiritual blessings be traced. Whatever mercy God has vouchsafed to us, it is the fruit of " his great love wherewith he has loved usp," even of that love which knows neither beginning nor end0*.]
The words thus explained, I shall now proceed to,
II. Improve —
There are two remarks which I will make upon them. They shew us, in a very forcible way,
1. What should be our chief desire under any afflictive dispensation —
[Our great concern usually is to get the affliction itself
■ Ps. lxxxviii. 3—7. k Ps. ciii. 1—4. • Ps. xc. 8.
m Ps. li. 9. >' Isai. xliii. 25. ° Mic. vii. 18, 19.
i' Eph. ii. 4. i Jer. xxxi. 3.