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The text hath three parts.

1. The patients.

2. The Physician.

3. The cure.

I. THE PATIENTS ARE PROPOUNDED NEGATIVELY — "not the whole." Affirmatively — "but the sick." Is any man whole?

1. No man is whole by nature; in Adam all are deadly sick.

2. Some are whole in conceit only. And another cause of conceited soundness is the extenuation of sin. Let this therefore serve to convince these whole men, and let them see their estate, so as they may seek to the Physician, and not die senseless.The marks and spots of a deadly disease are these:

1. An ill stomach argueth bodily disease; so spiritual, if the Word be bitter, if thy mind rise against it, and the mouth of thy soul be out of taste, if thy memory keep not the doctrine of God, if by meditation thou digestest it not, and so sendest it into all parts of thy life, thou art sick indeed, though thou seemest never so whole.

2. When the body consumeth, the parts are weakened, the knees bow under a man, and with much ado he draggeth his limbs after him, there is certainly a bodily disease, though there be no complaint. So in the soul; when men are weak to deeds of piety, have no strength to conquer temptation, to suffer crosses and trials; to works of charity, mercy, or justice; but all strength of grace seems to be exhausted, here is a dangerous disease.

3. When the senses fail, the eyes grow dim, the ears dull, it is an apparent sign of a bodily or spiritual disease. A senseless is the sickest man, because he is sick though he be not sensible. Even so, when the eye-strings of the soul are broken, that they see not the light of grace, nor of God, which as the sun shines round about them; the ears hear not the voice of God, the feeling is gone, they have no sense of the great gashes and wounds of the lusts of uncleanness, drunkenness, covetousness, swearing, lying, malice against God and His servants; nay, no complaint, but rather rejoicing in these; the soul of such a man lies very weak, as a man for whom the bell is ready to toll.

4. Difficulty of breathing, or to be taken speechless, is a sign of a disease and death approaching. So in the soul, prayer being the breath of the soul, when a man can hardly fetch his breath, cannot pray, or with much ado can beg mercy, strength, and supply of grace; or when he is speechless, a man cannot hear him whisper a good and savoury word, but all is earthly, fruitless, or hurtful; here is a living corpse, a painted sepulchre, not a man of a better world. Thus negatively of the patient, or party, fit for cure. Affirmatively it is the sick man. And he is the sick man, that feels and groans under the pain and burden of his sin. The point this: Sin is the most dangerous sickness in the whole world, and fitly resembles bodily sickness.For —

1. Sickness comes by intemperance: the temperate body is never sick; while we were in innocency we were in sound health, but through distemperature in our nature we were poisoned at first, and ever since our sins and lusts conceiving, bring forth sin and death.

2. Sickness weakeneth the body, and impaireth the vigour of nature; so cloth sin in the soul: experience showeth that after some sin we very hardly and weakly attempt any good thing for a long time. Sin hath weakened the faculties, darkened the understanding, corrupted the will, disordered the affections: thence this sickness.

3. Sickness brings pain and torment into the body; so doth sin into the soul.

4. Sickness continuing and lingering on the body, threateneth death, and without timely cure bringeth it; sin also, not removed by repentance, menaceth and bringeth certain death to body and soul.

5. Sickness is generally incident to all men. So the souls of all men are diseased by nature; even the souls of the elect, till they be healed by Christ.

II. WE COME NOW TO THE PHYSICIAN. The Physician is our Lord Jesus Christ; as in the next word, "I come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." "I am the Lord, that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26). God challengeth this as a part of His own glory, by Christ to heal us. "He maketh sore, and bindeth up; He woundeth, and His hands make whole" (Job 5:18). "Who healed thee of thy infirmities?" (Psalm 103:3).

1. As a skilful Physician He knoweth every man s estate perfectly. He knoweth what is man (John 2.), so doth no other physician. He saw the woman at the well to be an harlot. And (Matthew 16:7) He saw the reasoning of their hearts, when they thought He spake because they had no bread.

2. He knows the cure as perfectly as He cloth the disease. No physician knows all the virtues of all the simples and drugs he administereth; and besides, he is wholly ignorant of many. But Christ our Physician knows the infallible work of His remedies.

3. As a skilful Physician He prescribeth the fittest remedies. For in His word He appointeth physic for every disease of the soul; for pride, envy, covetousness, trouble of conscience, and other.

4. As a physician prepareth his patient for his physic, so Christ prepareth the party by faith to apply His remedies; by persuading the heart to believe, and to apply to the sore and wounded conscience the precious balms which Himself hath prepared. Else, as physic, not in the receipt, or box, or cupboard, or pocket can profit, unless it be applied and received, though it be never so sovereign; no more can this.

5. Christ goeth beyond all physicians, two ways.

(1) In the generality of His cure. Some diseases are desperate, and all the physic in the world cannot cure them. But Christ can cure all; no disease is so desperate as to foil Him.

(2) In the freedom of His cure. For first, He offereth His help and physic even daily in the preaching of His gospel. Now if Christ be the Physician, Christ must be magnified for our health. The Pope, by his pardons, masses, pilgrimages, and the like, cannot cure us. It is too great a price to pay. Nay, the angels can confer nothing to this cure. Lastly, if Christ be the Physician, here is marvellous comfort for afflicted souls pained and pined under the burden of sin.

1. He is a skilful doctor, He knows all our diseases and the remedies; thou mayst safely commit thyself into His hands, as His mother said to those servants, "Whatsoever He commands, that do" (John 2.). Simple obedience is required, without reasoning or inquiry. All His sayings must we do.

2. He is able enough to cure us, because He is God Omnipotent, able to work an infinite cure: and only such a physician can bestead us, for all created power cannot help us.

3. He is as willing to help as able; being a merciful High Priest, compassed with infirmities, to have compassion on them that are out of the way.

III. Having spoken of the patients, and of the Physician, we come now to the CURE, which is the third general; wherein consider —

1. The confection.

2. The application.In the confection are —

1. The Author.

2. The matter.

3. The virtue.The Author must be a man, and above a man. He must be a man, because man had sinned, and man's nature must satisfy; else God's justice and menace had not taken place. But withal, He must be above a man; even our Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14), God with us. All this must our Physician do, by His lowest abasement. He must satisfy God's justice, appease His anger, triumph against enemies of salvation, subdue sin, foil the devil, overcome death, discharge all debts, cancel all obligations and handwritings against us, and after all be exalted to glory. Thirdly, He must be God to procure us those infinite good things we need, viz., to restore us God's image lost, and with it righteousness and life eternal. To defend soul and body against the world, the devil, hell, and all enemies. Next, the matter of the cure, and that is, "the Physician's own blood" by which is meant His whole passion: "By His stripes we are healed (1 Peter 2:19), His sickness brings us health. Next the virtue and preciousness of this cure. Oh, it was a powerful and precious blood I and that in five respects.

1. In respect of the qualtity: it is the blood incorruptible. All other diseases are cured with corruptible things (1 Peter 1:18).

2. In respect of the person: it was the blood of God (Acts 20:28).

3. In respect of the subject of it: no other cure or remedy can reach the soul. All other drugs conduce for healthful life, and work upon the body; but this makes for an holy life, and works upon the soul, the sickness whereof the most precious thing in the world cannot cure.

4. In respect of the powerful effects of it, above all other cures in the world: for —

(1) They may frame the body to some soundness of temperature, but this makes sound souls, according to the conformity of God's law.

(2) They may preserve natural life for a while, but this brings a supernatural life for ever.

(3) They may restore strength and nature decayed, but this changeth and bringeth in a new nature, according to the second Adam.

(4) They cannot keep away death approaching, but this makes immortal.

(5) They cannot raise or recover a dead man, but this raiseth both dead in sin, dead in soul, and dead in body.

5. In respect of time. All other physic is made of drugs created with the world, but this was "prepared before the foundation of the world" (1 Peter 1:18). Again, all work of all other physic is done in death, but the perfection and most powerful work of this is after death. By all this take we notice of our extreme misery by sin; seeing nothing else can cure us, but the blood of the Son of God. If we had such a disease as nothing but the heart-blood of our dearest friends alive (suppose our wife, husband, mother, or child) could cure us, what a hopeless and desperate case were it? It would amaze and astonish the stoutest heart. But much more may it smite our hearts, that we have such a disease as nothing else but the heart-blood of the Son of God can cure. But those never saw their sin in this glass who conceive the cure as easy as the turning of a hand, a light "Lord have mercy," or an hour of repentance at death.

2. In this cure we may observe a world of wonders —

(1) Wonder and admire this Physician, who is both the Physician and the Physic. Was ever the like heard of in all nature?

(2) Admire the confection: that the Physician must temper the remedy of His own heart-blood. He must by passion be pounded in the mortar of God's wrath; He must be beaten, smitten, spit upon, wounded, sweat water and blood, be trodden on as a worm, be forsaken of His Father; the Lamb of God must be slain; the just" suffer for the unjust. Dost thou not here stand and wonder?

(3) Admire the power of weakness, and the Omnipotent work of this cure by contraries, as in the great work of creation; there the Son of God made all things, not out of something, but out of nothing; so in this great work of our cure by redemption, He works our life, not by His life, but by His own death; He makes us infinitely happy, but by His own infinite misery; He opens the grave for us, by His own lying in the grave; He sends us to heaven by His own descending from heaven; and shuts the gates of hell by suffering hellish torments. He honours us by His own shame; He breaks away our temptations, and Satan's molestations, by being Himself tempted. Here is a skilful Physician, tempering poison to a remedy, bringing light out of darkness, life out of death, heaven out of hell. In the whole order of nature one contrary resisteth another, but it is beyond nature that one contrary should produce another. Wonder.

(4) Admire the care of the Physician, who provided us a remedy before our disease, before the world was, or we in it.

(5) Admire His matchless love, who to save our souls, made His soul an offering for sin, and healeth our wounds by His own stripes. A physician showeth great love, if he take a little care above ordinary, though he be well rewarded, and made a great gainer by it. But this Physician must be a loser by His love; He must lose His glory, His life. Wonder, and wonder for ever.

3. How may we testify our love to Christ?

(1) In profession and word we must magnify His great Work of redemption, and advance it in the perfection and virtue of it, as able of itself to purchase the whole Church.

(2) As God's love was actual, so we must settle ourselves to His service.

(3) According to His example, let us not love our lives to the death for His sake (Revelation 12:11). Now we are to consider it in the application. For, what would it avail, to have the most skilful and careful physician, and the most rare, proper, and powerful medicine under the sun prescribed by him, if either it be not for me, or not applied to the disease or sore? And so our heavenly Physician hath taken care, not only for direction and confection, but also for application. Medicines must be received; for we must not look to be cured by miracle, but by means. Where consider —

1. The persons to whom the cure is applied.

2. The means whereby.

3. The time when.For the persons, the text saith, "all that be sick"; that is, sensible and languishing under their sickness. And Psalm 147:3, "He heals those that are broken in heart, and binds up their sores." For the means whereby the cure is applied, it is faiths, we must bring faith to be healed. But when is this medicine applied? For time, there is no application but in this life; no curing after this life. Again, seeing there is a time to heal, come in season (Ecclesiastes 3:3). Again, content not thyself only to hear of this remedy, but seek to know that it is applied to thee in particular, and to feel the virtue of it in thyself. How may I know it? As physic taken into the body works often so painfully, that men are even at the gate of death in their present sense, and no other but dead men, so this physic worketh kindly, when it worketh pain in the party, through the sense and sight of sin, apprehension of God's anger and utter despair in themselves. As physic kindly working delivers the party, not only from death, but such humours as were the cause of his sickness, at least that they be not predominant; even so must this physic rid us of our sin, and these peccant humours which were the matter of our sickness. As after application of proper physic we find a great change in our bodies, as if we had new bodies given us; so after the kindly work of this physic we may find ourselves cast into a new mould; this blood applied makes us new creatures, new men, having new minds, new wills, new words, new affections, new actions, new conversations. Our strength is renewed to Christian actions and passion; we are strong for our journey, for our combat, and strong to carry burdens, with a strong appetite, and digestion of the word; every way more hearty and cheerful. Thus having received our health, by means of this cure, wisdom commands us to be as careful to preserve our health as to attain it. Every wise man will be as careful to keep himself well as to get himself well. And to this purpose, we must remember the counsel of our Physician for maintaining our health attained. Among many direction prescribed, I mention four.

1. Not to be tampering with our own medicines, nor the medicines of Egypt, merits, pilgrimages, penance, or the like; nor any quintessence or mineral from the hand of any libertine teacher; but only such as we find prescribed in the Word of God, by our great Doctor.

2. To keep our health, we must keep good diet, both for soul and body. The best diet for the soul is to keep God's hours for our daily repast by the Word, in reading and meditating on it; which David regarded above his ordinary food. A liberal diet is best for the soul; but the best diet for the body is a spare diet, a sober and moderate use of meat, drink, and pleasure, for beating down and mortifying corrupt affections and lusts.

3. To preserve our health, we must strive to live in a good and wholesome air. If thou livest in a corrupt air, change it for a better. The worst air that can be is where worst men and worst company are. The air of a hot plague house is not so infectious as the contagious air of wicked company.

4. To preserve health, physicians prescribe the use of good exercises. The best exercises to use for the health of the soul are hearing and reading of God's Word; pray also, and meditate when thou art alone; with conference of good things in company. These are notable helps to bring thee through weaknesses, and keep thy soul in good plight, health, and cheerfulness.

(T. Taylor. D. D.)

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KJV: And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.

WEB: Jesus answered them, "Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do.