Chapter 184

And behold again into whose care a broken heart and a contrite spirit hath put this poor creature; he is under the care of God, the care and cure of Christ. If a man was sure that his disease had put him under the special care of the king and the queen, yet could he not be sure of life, he might die under their sovereign hands. Ay, but here is a man in the favour of God, and under the hand of Christ to be healed; under whose hand none yet ever died for want of skill and power in him to save their life; wherefore this man must live; Christ has in commission not only to bind up his wounds, but to heal him. He has of himself so expounded it in reading his commission; wherefore he that has his heart broken, and that is of a contrite spirit, must not only be taken in hand, but healed; healed of his pain, grief, sorrow, sin, and fears of death and hell-fire; wherefore he adds, that he must give unto such ‘beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness,’ and must ‘comfort all that mourn’ (Isa 61:2,3). This, I say, he has in the commission, the broken-hearted are put into his hand, and he has said himself he will heal him. Hence he says of that same man, ‘I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him, and to his mourners;—and I will heal him’ (Isa 57:18,19). And this is a fifth demonstration.

Sixth. As God prefers such a heart, and so esteems the man that has it; as he desires his company, has provided for him his cordials, and given a charge to Christ to heal him, so he has promised in conclusion to save him. ‘He saveth such as be of a contrite spirit,’ or, as the margin has it, that be ‘contrite of spirit’ (Psa 34:18).

And this is the conclusion of all; for to save a man is the end of all special mercy. ‘He saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.’ To save, is to forgive; for without forgiveness of sins we cannot be saved. To save, is to preserve one in this miserable world, and to deliver one from all those devils, temptations, snares, and destructions that would, were we not kept, were we not preserved of God, destroy us body and soul for ever. To save, is to bring a man body and soul to glory, and to give him an eternal mansion house in heaven, that he may dwell in the presence of this good God, and the Lord Jesus, and to sing to them the songs of his redemption for ever and ever. This it is to be saved; nor can any thing less than this complete the salvation of the sinner. Now, this is to be the lot of him that is of a broken heart, and the end that God will make with him that is of a contrite spirit. ‘He saveth such as be contrite of spirit.’ He saveth such! This is excellent!

But, do the broken in spirit believe this? Can they imagine that this is to be the end that God has designed them to, and that he intended to make with them in the day in which he began to break their hearts? No, no; they, alas! think quite the contrary. They are afraid that this is but the beginning of death, and a token that they shall never see the face of God with comfort, either in this world or that which is to come. Hence they cry, ‘Cast me not away from thy presence’; or, Now I am ‘free among the dead whom God remembers no more’ (Psa 51:11, 88:4,5). For indeed there goes to the breaking of the heart a visible appearance of the wrath of God, and a home charge from heaven of the guilt of sin to the conscience. This to reason is very dreadful; for it cuts the soul down to the ground; ‘for a wounded spirit who [none] can bear?’ (Prov 18:14).

It seems also now to this man, that this is but the beginning of hell; but as it were the first step down to the pit; when, indeed, all these are but the beginnings of love, and but that which makes way for life. The Lord kills before he makes alive; he wounds before his hands make whole. Yea, he does the one in order to, or because he would do the other; he wounds, because his purpose is to heal; ‘he maketh sore, and bindeth up; he woundeth, and his hands make whole’ (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; Job 5:18). His design, I say, is the salvation of the soul. He scourgeth, he breaketh the heart of every son whom he receiveth, and woe be to him whose heart God breaketh not.

And thus have I proved what at first I asserted, namely, that a spirit rightly broken, an heart truly contrite, is to God an excellent thing. ‘A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’ For this say I, First. This is evident; for that it is better than sacrifices, than all sacrifice. Second. The man that has it is of more esteem with God than heaven or earth. Third. God coveteth such a man for his intimate and house companion. Fourth. He reserveth for them his cordials and spiritual comforts. Fifth. He has given his Son a Charge, a commandment to take care that the broken-hearted be healed; and he is resolved to heal them. Sixth. And concluded, that the broken-hearted, and they that are of a contrite spirit, shall be saved, that is, possessed of the heavens.

[III. WHAT A BROKEN HEART, AND WHAT A CONTRITE SPIRIT IS.]

I come now in order to show you what a broken heart and what a contrite spirit is. This must be done, because in the discovery of this lies both the comfort of them that have it, and the conviction of them that have it not. Now, that I may do this the better, I must propound and speak to these four things. FIRST. I must show you what an one that heart is that is not broken, that is not contrite. SECOND. I must show you how, or with what the heart is broken and made contrite. THIRD. Show you how, and what it is, when broken and made contrite. And, FOURTH. I shall, last of all, give you some signs of a broken and contrite heart.

FIRST. For the first of these, to wit, What an one that heart is, that is not a broken, that is not a contrite heart.

First. The heart, before it is broken, is hard and stubborn, and obstinate against God, and the salvation of the soul (Zech 7:12; Deut 2:30, 9:27).

Second. It is a heart full of evil imaginations and darkness (Gen 18:12; Rom 1:21).

Third. It is a heart deceitful and subject to be deceived, especially about the things of an eternal concernment (Isa 44:20; Deut 11:16).

Fourth. It is a heart that rather gathereth iniquity and vanity to itself than anything that is good for the soul (Psa 41:6, 94:11).

Fifth. It is an unbelieving heart, and one that will turn away from God to sin (Heb 3:12; Deut 17:17).

Sixth. It is a heart not prepared for God, being uncircumcised, nor for the reception of his holy word (2 Chron 12:14; Psa 78:8; Acts 7:51).

Seventh. It is a heart not single, but double; it will pretend to serve God, but will withal lean to the devil and sin (Psa 12:2; Eze 33:31).

Eighth. It is a heart proud and stout: it loves not to be controlled, though the controller be God himself (Psa 101:5; Prov 16:5; Mal 3:13).

Ninth. It is a heart that will give place to Satan, but will resist the Holy Ghost (Acts 5:3, 7:51).

Tenth. In a word, ‘It is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked’; so wicked that none can know it (Jer 17:9).

That the heart before it is broken is such, and worse than I have described it to be, is sufficiently seen by the whole course of the world. Where is the man whose heart has not been broken, and whose spirit is not contrite, that according to the Word of God deals honestly with his own soul? It is one character of a right heart, that it is sound in God’s statutes, and honest (Psa 119:18; Luke 8:15). Now, an honest heart will not put off itself, nor be put off with that which will not go for current money with the merchant; I mean, with that which will not go for saving grace at the day of judgment. But alas! alas! but few men, how honest soever they are to others, have honesty towards themselves; though he is the worst of deceivers who deceiveth his own soul, as James has it, about the things of his own soul (1:22,26). But,

SECOND. I now come to show you with what and how the heart is broken, and the spirit made contrite.

[First. With what the heart is broken, and the spirit made contrite.]

The instrument with which the heart is broken, and with which the spirit is made contrite, is the Word. ‘Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord; and like a hammer, that breaketh the rock in pieces?’ (Jer 23:29). The rock, in this text, is the heart, which in another place is compared to an adamant, which adamant is harder than flint (Zech 7:11,12; Eze 3:9). This rock, this adamant, this stony heart, is broken and made contrite by the Word. But it only is so, when the Word is as a fire, and as a hammer to break and melt it. And then, and then only, it is as a fire, and a hammer to the heart to break it, when it is managed by the arm of God. No man can break the heart with the Word; no angel can break the heart with the Word; that is, if God forbears to second it by mighty power from heaven. This made Balaam go without a heart rightly broken, and truly contrite, though he was rebuked by an angel; and the Pharisees die in their sins, though rebuked for them, and admonished to turn from them, by the Saviour of the world. Wherefore, though the Word is the instrument with which the heart is broken, yet it is not broken with the Word, till that Word is managed by the might and power of God.

This made the prophet Isaiah, after long preaching, cry out, that he had laboured for nought, and in vain; and this made him cry to God, ‘to rend the heavens and come down,’ that the mountains, or rocky hills, or hearts, might be broken, and melt at his presence (Isa 44:4, 64:1,2). For he found by experience, that as to this no effectual work could be done, unless the Lord put to his hand. This also is often intimated in the Scriptures, where it saith, when the preachers preached effectually to the breaking of men’s hearts, ‘the Lord wrought with them;[2] the hand of the Lord was with them,’ and the like (Mark 16:20; Acts 11:21).

Now when the hand of the Lord is with the Word, then it is mighty: it is ‘mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds’ (2 Cor 10:4). It is sharp, then, as a sword in the soul and spirit; it sticks like an arrow in the hearts of sinners, to the causing of the people to fall at his foot for mercy (Heb 4:12). Then it is, as was said afore, as a fire and as a hammer to break this rock in pieces (Psa 110:3). And hence the Word is made mention of under a double consideration. 1. As it stands by itself. 2. As attended with power from heaven.

1. As it stands by itself, and is not seconded with saving operation from heaven, it is called the Word only, the Word barely, or as if it was only the word of men (1 Thess 1:5-7; 1 Cor 4:19,20; 1 Thess 2:13). Because, then, it is only as managed by men, who are not able to make it accomplish that work. The Word of God, when in a man’s hand only, is like the father’s sword in the hand of the sucking child; which sword, though never so well pointed, and though never so sharp on the edges, is not now able to conquer a foe, and to make an enemy fall and cry out for mercy, because it is but in the hand of the child. But now, let the same sword be put into the hand of a skilful father—and God is both skilful and able to manage his Word—and then the sinner, and then the proud helpers too, are both made to stoop, and submit themselves; wherefore, I say, though the Word be the instrument, yet of itself doth do no saving good to the soul; the heart is not broken, nor the spirit made contrite thereby; it only worketh death, and leaveth men in the chains of their sins, still faster bound over to eternal condemnation (2 Cor 2:15,16).

2. But when seconded by mighty power, then the same Word is as the roaring of a lion, as the piercing of a sword, as a burning fire in the bones, as thunder and as a hammer that dashes all to pieces (Jer 25:30; Amos 1:2, 3:8; Acts 2:37; Jer 20:9; Psa 29:3-9). Wherefore, from hence it is to be concluded, that whoever has heard the Word preached, and has not heard the voice of the living God therein, has not as yet had their hearts broken, nor their spirits made contrite for their sins.

[Second. How the heart is broken, and the spirit made contrite.]

And this leads me to the second thing, to wit, To show how the heart is broken and the spirit made contrite by the Word, and verily it is when the Word comes home with power. But yet this is but general; wherefore, more particularly,

1. Then the Word works effectually to this purpose, when it findeth out the sinner and his sin, and shall convince him that it has found him out. Thus it was with our first father; when he had sinned, he sought to hide himself from God; he gets among the trees of the garden, and there he shrouds himself; but yet, not thinking himself secure, he covers himself with fig-leaves; and now he lieth quiet. Now God shall not find me, thinks he, nor know what I have done. But lo! by and by, he ‘hears the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.’ And now, Adam, what do you mean to do? Why, as yet, he skulketh, and hides his head, and seeks yet to lie undiscovered; but behold, the voice cries out, ADAM! and now he begins to tremble. ‘Adam, where art thou?’ says God; and now Adam is made to answer (Gen 3:7-11). But the voice of the Lord God doth not leave him here: no, it now begins to search, and to inquire after his doings, and to unravel what he had wrapt together and covered, until it made him bare and naked in his own sight before the face of God. Thus, therefore, doth the Word, when managed by the arm of God. It findeth out, it singleth out the sinner; the sinner finds it so; it finds out the sins of the sinner; it unravels his whole life, it strips him and lays him naked in his own sight before the face of God; neither can the sinner nor his wickedness be longer hid and covered; and now begins the sinner to see what he never saw before.

2. Another instance for this is David, the man of our text. He sins, he sins grossly, he sins and hides it; yea, and seeks to hide it from the face of God and man. Well, Nathan is sent to preach a preaching to him, and that in common, and that in special: in common, by a parable; in special, by a particular application of it to him. While Nathan only preached in common, or in general, David was fish-whole,[3] and stood as right in his own eyes as if he had been as innocent and as harmless as any man alive. But God had a love for David; and therefore commands his servant Nathan to go home, not only to David’s ears, but to David’s conscience. Well, David now must fall. Says Nathan, ‘Thou art the man’; says David, ‘I have sinned,’ and then his heart was broken, and his spirit made contrite; as this psalm and our text doth show (2 Sam 12:1-13).

3. A third instance is that of Saul; he had heard many a sermon, and was become a great professor, yea, he was more zealous than were many of his equals; but his heart was never broken, nor his spirit ever made contrite, till he heard one preach from heaven, till he heard God, in the Word of God, making inquiry after his sins: ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ says Jesus; and then he can stand no longer: for then his heart brake, then he falls to the ground, then he trembles, then he cries out, ‘Who art thou, Lord?’ and, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ (Acts 9). Wherefore, as I said, Then the word works effectually to this purpose, when it findeth out the sinner and his sin, and also when it shall convince him that it has found him out. Only I must join here a caution, for every operation of the Word upon the conscience is not saving; nor doth all conviction end in the saving conversion of the sinner. It is then only such an operation of the Word that is intended, namely, that shows the sinner not only the evil of his ways, but brings the heart unfeignedly over to God by Christ. And this brings me to the third thing.

THIRD. I am therefore come to show you how and what the heart is when broken and made contrite. And this I must do, by opening unto you the two chief expressions in the text. First. What is meant by this word broken. Second. What is meant by this word contrite.

First. For this word broken, Tindal renders it a troubled heart;[4] but I think there is more in it. I take it, therefore, to be a heart disabled, as to former actions, even as a man whose bones are broken is disabled, as to his way of running, leaping, wrestling, or ought else, which vainly he was wont to do; wherefore, that which was called a broken heart in the text, he calls his broken bones, in verse the eighth: ‘Cause me,’ saith he, ‘to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice’ (Psa 51:8). And why is the breaking of the heart compared to the breaking of the bones? but because as when the bones are broken, the outward man is disabled as to what it was wont to do; so when the spirit is broken, the inward man is disabled as to what vanity and folly it before delighted in; hence, feebleness is joined with this brokenness of heart. ‘I am feeble,’ saith he, ‘and sore broken’ (Psa 38:8). I have lost my strength and former vigour, as to vain and sinful courses.

This, then, it is to have the heart broken; namely, to have it lamed, disabled, and taken off by sense of God’s wrath due to sin, from that course of life it formerly was conversant in; and to show that this work is no fancy, nor done but with great trouble to the soul, it is compared to the putting the bones out of joint, the breaking of the bones, the burning of the bones with fire, or as the taking the natural moisture from the bones, the vexing of the bones, &c. (Psa 23:14; Jer 20:9; Lam 1:13; Psa 6:2; Prov 17:22). All which are expressions adorned with such similitudes, as do undeniably declare that to sense and feeling a broken heart is a grievous thing.

Second. What is meant by the word contrite. A contrite spirit is a penitent one; one sorely grieved, and deeply sorrowful, for the sins it has committed against God, and to the damage of the soul; and so it is to be taken in all those places where a contrite spirit is made mention of; as in Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 57:15, 66:2.

As a man that has by his folly procured a broken leg or arm, is heartily sorry that ever he was so foolish as to be engaged in such foolish ways of idleness and vanity; so he whose heart is broken with a sense of God’s wrath due to his sin, hath deep sorrow in his soul, and is greatly repentant that ever he should be such a fool, as by rebellious doings to bring himself and his soul to so much sharp affliction. Hence, while others are sporting themselves in vanity, such a one doth call his sin his greatest folly. ‘My wounds stink, and are corrupt,’ saith David, ‘because of my foolishness.’ And again, ‘O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee’ (Psa 38:5, 69:5).

Men, whatever they say with their lips, cannot conclude, if yet their hearts want breaking, that sin is a foolish thing. Hence it says, ‘The foolishness of fools is folly’ (Prov 14:24). That is, the foolishness of some men, is that they take pleasure in their sins; for their sins are their foolishness, and the folly of their soul lies in their countenancing of this foolishness. But the man whose heart is broken, he is none of these, he cannot be one of these, no more than he that has his bones broken can rejoice that he is desired to play a match at football. Hence, to hear others talk foolishly, is to the grief of those whom God has wounded: or, as it is in another place, their words are ‘like the piercings of a sword’ (Psa 69:26; Prov 12:18). This, therefore, I take to be the meaning of these two words, a broken and a contrite spirit.

FOURTH. Lastly, As to this, I now come more particularly to give you some signs of a broken heart, of a broken and a contrite spirit.

First. A broken-hearted man, such as is intended in the text, is a sensible man; he is brought to the exercise of all the senses of his soul. All others are dead, senseless, and without true feeling of what the broken-hearted man is sensible of.

1. He sees himself to be what others are ignorant of; that is, he sees himself to be not only a sinful man, but a man by nature in the gall and bond of sin. In the gall of sin: it is Peter’s expression to Simon, and it is a saying common to all men: for every man in a state of nature is in the gall of sin; he was shapen in it, conceived in it; it has also possession of, and by that possession infected the whole of his soul and body (Psa 51:5; Acts 8:23). This he sees, this he understands; every professor sees not this, because the blessing of a broken heart is not bestowed on every one. David says, ‘There is no soundness in my flesh’; and Solomon suggests that a plague or running sore is in the very heart. But every one perceives not this (Psa 38:3; 1 Kings 8:38). He saith again, that his ‘wounds stank, and were corrupted’: that his ‘sore ran, and ceased not’ (Psa 38:5, 77:2). But these things the brutish man, the man whose heart was never broken, has no understanding of. But the broken-hearted, the man that has a broken spirit, he sees, as the prophet has it, he sees his sickness, he sees his wound: ‘When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound’; he sees it to his grief, he sees it to his sorrow (Hosea 5:13).

2. He feels what others have no sense of; he feels the arrows of the Almighty, and that they stick fast in him (Psa 38:2). He feels how sore and sick, by the smiting of God’s hammer upon his heart to break it, his poor soul is made. He feels a burden intolerably lying upon his spirit (Hosea 5:13). ‘Mine iniquities,’ saith he, ‘are gone over mine head; as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me’ (Psa 38:4). He feels also the heavy hand of God upon his soul, a thing unknown to carnal men. He feels pain, being wounded, even such pain as others cannot understand, because they are not broken. ‘My heart,’ saith David, ‘is sore pained within me.’ Why so? Why! ‘The terrors of death are fallen upon me’ (Psa 55:4). The terrors of death cause pain, yea, pain of the highest nature; hence that which is here called pains, is in another place called pangs (Isa 21:3).

You know broken bones occasion pain, strong pain, yea, pain that will make a man or woman groan ‘with the groanings of a deadly wounded man’ (Eze 30:24). Soul pain is the sorest pain, in comparison to which the pain of the body is a very tolerable thing (Prov 18:14). Now here is soul pain, here is heart pain; here we are discoursing of a wounded, of a broken spirit; wherefore this is pain to be felt to the sinking of the whole man, neither can any support this but God. Here is death in this pain, death for ever, without God’s special mercy. This pain will bring the soul to, and this the broken-hearted man doth feel. ‘The sorrows of death,’ saith David, ‘compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me, I found trouble and sorrow’ (Psa 116:3). Ay, I’ll warrant thee, poor man, thou foundest trouble and sorrow indeed; for the pains of hell and sorrows of death are pains and sorrow the most intolerable. But this the man is acquainted with that has his heart broken.[5]