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14. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?
Man is born in a world of trouble, with considerable power of endurance. Natural courage and vivacity of spirits will bear us up even under the pressure of ponderous evils, poverty, pain, sickness, want. Instances of heathen fortitude abound in the records of history.† Christian principle strengthens the natural strength. David, in the most fearful extremity, “encouraged himself in the LORD his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6.) Job could bless God under accumulated external trials. (Job 1:21.) The Apostle “took pleasure in infirmities.” (2 Corinthians 12:10.) The martyrs “were more than conquerors” under the most cruel tortures. (Romans 8:37.) Outward troubles are tolerable, yea — more than tolerable, if there be peace within. The spirit of a man may sustain his infirmity. But if the spirit be wounded — if the prop itself be broken — all sinks. ‘If the strength that is in me be weakness, how great is that weakness.’† The wound of the spirit is so much the more piercing, as the spirit itself is more vital than the body. The grief gains the victory and becomes intolerable.
The most powerful minds are easily vulnerable. Even our great Newton, ‘endowed with an intellectual strength which had unbarred the strongholds of the universe,’ and distinguished also by ‘unbroken equanimity,’ in middle life was a prey to mental dejections, that, as he informs us, shook his ‘former consistency.’† Boyle describes his wounded spirit, as so overpowering for many months, that, ‘although his looks did little betray his thoughts, nothing but the forbiddenness of self-dispatch hindered his committing it.’† So long as the evil is without us, it is tolerable. Natural courage can bear up. But a wounded spirit who can bear?
In the spiritual system — the pressure is yet more sinking. When he who made the spirit wounds, or permits Satan to wound, we might challenge the whole creation — Who can bear it? The suffering of the soul is the soul of suffering. Spiritual wounds, like the balm that heals them, can never be known, till they are felt. It is sometimes as if the arrows of the Almighty were dipped in the lake of fire, and shot flaming into the very midst of the soul, more sensitive than the apple of the eye. (Job 6:4.) The best joys of earth can never soothe the envenomed sting. Mirth is madness and vexation. (Ecclesiastes 2:2.)
There is a hell for the wicked on this side eternity. Man becomes a burden to himself. Cain's “punishment was greater than he could bear.” (Genesis 4:13.) Saul was given up to the blackness of despair (1 Samuel 28:15.) Zimri in rebellious madness threw himself into the flames. (1 Kings 16:18.) Pashur was made a terror to himself. (Jeremiah 20:4.) Ahithophel and Judas “chose strangling rather than life.” (2 Samuel 17:23. Matthew 27:5.) Thus are the torments of eternity antedated. One hell is kindled within, before entering into the other. Such is the foretaste of hell — only a few drops of wrath — for a few moments. What will be the reality — the substance — for eternity!
Observe the poignancy of the wounded spirit in the children of God. Job, delivered “for a small moment” into the enemy's power, “cursed the day of his birth.” (Job 3:1.) David “roared for the disquietness of his heart.” “The arrows of the Almighty stuck in him, and his hand pressed him sore.” (Psalm 38:1-8.) The martyrs† in a moment of temporary apostasy, could not endure the anguish of the wounded spirit and chose the flames as the less bitter alternative. Such is the sharpness of the Lord's sword, and the weight of his hand, that every stroke is deadly. Conscience is the seat of guilt, and its vivid power turns, — so to speak — “the sun into darkness, and the moon into blood” (Joel 2:31) — the precious promises of free forgiveness into arguments of hopeless despondency. Many a penitent is thus held back awhile from the full apprehension of Divine acceptance, and from the settled enjoyment of the peace of the gospel. And but for the gracious restraint of the Lord's power and love, hardened despair would be the successful “advantage of Satan's devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:11.)
But let us gaze at the meek and glorious sufferer in Gethsemane. Look at the wounded spirit there — the fainting humanity of the Son of God — “his strong crying and tears,” his prostrating sorrow, his “exceeding great and bitter cry,” under the darkness of desertion. (Matthew 26:38.) Human nature, even when exalted to a personal union with the divine, is human nature still; forced to confess its native weakness in the conflict with Almighty wrath. If all the support of the indwelling Godhead was demanded for this passion of unknown weight and infinite intensity; with trembling astonishment we cry — A wounded spirit who can bear? Irresistible is the inference — “If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?” (Luke 23:31.) The flame, that could but scorch the one, must consume the other to the uttermost.
Yet is not this wounded spirit the Christian's first seal of mercy; the preparation for all future and eternal mercy? (Acts 2:37.) Bitter indeed is the anguish when the mass of sin is raised from the grave of oblivion, and “set in order before our eyes.” (Psalm 50:21.) But is not this the sight that makes Jesus and his free salvation inexpressibly precious? (Acts 16:29-33.) And does not this spirit place us within the sphere of his healing commission? (Isaiah 61:1, 2.) We ask now — not, who can bear, but who can heal? Well did Luther say (and there is no better judge on such matters), ‘It is as easy to make a world, as to ease a troubled conscience.’ Both are creation-work, requiring the Almightiness of God. (Genesis 1:1. Isaiah 57:19.) To him that “wounded must we return for healing.” (Hosea 6:1.) His remedy is the sight of himself wounded for us. (Isaiah 53:5.) And that sight — so healing — so reviving — how does it quicken the soul to a cordial and animated faith, issuing in the song of everlasting praise!†
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