And then he says, 'O Lord, by these things men live, and
in all these things is the life of my spirit.' God meant all along
to receive me, and make me live. He chastened me, and brought me
low, to shew me that my own faith, my own righteousness, was no
reason for his saving me: but that his own love and mercy was a
good reason for saving me. 'Behold,' he goes on to say, 'for peace
I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back.'
And, my dear friends, what Hezekiah saw but dimly, we ought to see
clearly. The blessed news of the Gospel ought to tell us it
clearly. For the blessed Gospel tells us that the same Lord who
chastened and taught, and then saved, Hezekiah, was made flesh, and
born a man of the substance of a mortal woman; that he might in his
own person bear all our sicknesses and carry our infirmities; that
he might understand all our temptations, and be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, seeing that he himself was tempted in
all points likewise, yet without sin.
Oh hear this, you who have had sorrows in past times. Hear this,
you who expect sorrows in the times to come.
He who made, he who lightens, every man who comes into the world; he
who gave you every right thought and wholesome feeling that you ever
had in your lives: he counts your tears; he knows your sorrows; he
is able and willing to save you to the uttermost.
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