629 / 652
GOD'S
METHOD OF
HEALING.
624
case into its hand, and saith, I
will
heal
hire.
I
might
bid
my
sword
of
vengeance awake
;
awake, O
my
sword,
against the backslider
!
but
I
will
let
my
sword alone,
saith
God,
and
lay
aside
my
rod too.
Justice
would
cut
him
asunder,
but
mercy desires
a
little delay.
The
vengeance
of
God
is
ready
to say,
Why
is
he
not
slain
?
I
will
destroy
all mine
enemies: but
sovereign
grace
in-
terposes,
and
the Lord saith,
I
pity him
and
hism
adness,
and
I
will
recover
him
to
his
right
mind
;
I
will
have
mercy,
and
heal
him
;
I
will
not
suffer
him
to
destroy
himself utterly.
Such
great
grace
as
this
is,
is
not mani-
fested
in every page
of
scripture
;
to
me
it
seems
a pecu-
liar
text,
filled with
mercy
above,most
of
its fellows
in
scripture.
Let
us
then
see
what
this kind word means,
I
will
heal.
I. I
will
enlighten
his
darkened understanding.
I
have
done
it once already,
saith God,
but
he has
shut
his eyes
again
;
he
is
not
sensible
of
his
departure
from
me,
but
I
will
opén
his eyes to
let
him
see
at
what a dreadful dis-
tance
he
is
run
from
me,
and
he shall
return
to
his
father
again
:
he has forsaken
the path
of
holiness,
but
I
will
shew him
the path
of
holiness and display
its
beautiful
character
to him
;
he
shall
return
to
it once
wore.
I
,
might
have
cast
judicial
blindness upon
hirn,
but
I
will
enlighten
his
eyes
lest
he sleep the
sleep
of
death.
Let
every
soul
of
us now say,
hast
thou ever been thus
reco-
vered? O
!
adore that
grace
that
plucked
you,
though
unwillingly, from
the
mouth
of
eternal
torments.
II.
I
will
heal
hirn
;
that
is,
I
will
soften his
heart.
It
was
once hard
as
the
neither
millstone,
and
I
softened
it;
or rather,
I.
took it
away
and
gave
hint
another soft
one
;
but
now
he has suffered
hard
scales to grow over
it,
and
I
might,
indeed,
pronounce sentence against
him,
and
say,
thou hast thus
long
hardened
thyself againt
ma,
and
be
thou for ever
hardened.
But,
saith God,
I
will
have
mercy,
my
bowels
yearn
within
me,
and
my
repen-
tingsare
kindled
together,
and
I
will
return
him
to his
fa-
ther's
love
again.
He
is
fallen
into
a
spiritual
lethargy;
cuttings
and burnings
I
have tried,
but
he took
no
notice
:
well,
I
will
-now
look
upon
him with
an
eye
of
love,
atd
apply
mollifying medicines,
and
make him
relent
in
tears
;
he
shall
feel
the power
of
my
sovereign
grace
the
threatnings of
my
rod
havenq
force upon
him,
but
I.