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This text presents a comparison between .the grief that afflicts the outward man and that which preys upon the inward. What is meant in the text by "spirit"? In the soul of man is an upper and lower part; not, indeed, in respect of its substance, for that is indivisible, but in respect of its faculties. There is a higher and more noble portion of the soul, purely intellectual; and in operation, as well as in substance, perfectly spiritual, and this is expressed in the text by the term "spirit." What is the import of the soul being "wounded"? This signifies nothing else but its being deeply and intimately possessed with a lively sense of God's wrath for sin. The sense of the text lies full and clear in this one proposition, viz., that the trouble and anguish of a soul labouring under a sense of God's displeasure for sin is inexpressibly greater than any other grief or trouble whatsoever.

I. WHAT KIND OF PERSONS ARE THE PROPER SUBJECTS OF THIS TROUBLE? Both the righteous and the wicked; but with a very different issue in one and in the other.

II. WHEREIN DOES THE STRANGE, EXCESSIVE, AND SOMETIMES SUPERNATURAL GREATNESS OF IT APPEAR? We may gather this —

1. From the behaviour of our Saviour Himself in this condition.

2. From the most raised and passionate expressions that have been uttered from time to time, by persons eminent in the ways of God, while they were labouring under it.

3. From the uninterrupted, incessant continuance of it.

4. From the violent and more than ordinary manifestation of itself in outward signs and effects.

5. From those horrid effects it has had upon persons not upheld under it by Divine grace. Both history and experience testify what tragical ends men deserted by God, under the troubles of a wounded spirit, have been brought into.

III. BY WHAT WAYS AND MEANS THIS TROUBLE IS BROUGHT INTO THE SOUL.

1. By reflections upon the Divine justice, as provoked.

2. By fearful apprehensions of the Divine mercy, as abused.

3. By God's withdrawing His presence and the sense of His love.

4. These wounding perplexities are brought upon the soul by God's giving commission to the tempter more than usually to trouble and disquiet it.

IV. WHAT IS GOD'S END AND DESIGN IN CASTING MEN INTO SUCH A PERPLEXED CONDITION? God brings anguish upon the spirit of the pious and sincere for a twofold end.

1. To embitter sin to them.

2. To endear and enhance the value of returning mercy.

V. DRAW SOME USEFUL INFERENCES FROM THE WHOLE.

1. Let no man presume to pronounce anything scoffingly of the present or severely of the final estate of such as he finds exercised with the distracting troubles of a wounded spirit.

2. Let no secure sinner applaud or soothe up himself in the presumed safety of his spiritual estate because he finds so much trouble or anguish upon his spirit for sin.

3. Let no person exclude himself from the number of such as are truly sincere and regenerate, only because he never yet felt any of these amazing pangs of conscience for sin.

(R. South.)

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KJV: The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

WEB: A man's spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?