He heals the broken of heart and binds up their wounds. A marvelous kind of healing is spoken of so that we wear ourselves away constantly if we wish to be restored to health. But that wound of contrition pertains to what makes us whole and leads to full recovery. And—what is beyond every good—it leads us to that physician who offers eternal health. Next comes, He binds up their wounds. The metaphor is taken from a doctor’s skills, which bind up broken and crushed bones with cloth bandages, whenever they want to make them solid, so that the limbs come back together into their proper place and coalesce into their former solidity. The heavenly physician binds penitents’ hearts that have been crushed by dire affliction with a certain bundle of his piety imposed on the penitent and he further solidifies it and leads it to a very firm hope of healing, just as was said in the fiftieth psalm, God does not despise a contrite and humbled heart.^[1] For also that publican who beat his heart with constant beating showed that he had brought about that contrition in himself, which he did not cease to pour into his guilty heart.

If anyone undertakes to speak of the attributes of God, let him first describe the bounds of the earth. Though you dwell on the earth, you do not know the limit of your dwelling place; how then will you be able to form a worthy concept of its Creator? You see the stars, but their Maker you do not see; first, number the stars, which are seen, and then set forth him who is not seen; He tells the number of the stars; he calls each by name.^[1] The recent violent rains all but destroyed us; number the drops of rain in this city alone; rather, not in the city, but number the drops that fell on your own house in a single hour, if you can. But since you cannot, you acknowledge your own weakness. From this learn the power of God. For he has numbered the raindrops^[2] poured down on the whole earth, not only now but through all time. The sun is a work of God, great indeed, but very small compared with the whole heavens. Fix your attention on the sun first, and then inquire assiduously about its Lord. What is too sublime for you seek not; into things beyond your strength search not. What is committed to you, O attend to.^[3]

They^[1] must suppose that our ancestors went down into Egypt without bodies and invisible and that only the soul of Joseph was imprisoned by Pharaoh, because it is written, They went down into Egypt with threescore and fifteen souls,^[2] and The iron entered into his soul,^[3] a thing that could not be bound. They who argue thus do not know that such expressions are used by synecdoche, declaring the whole by the part, as when Scripture says that the young ravens call on God,^[4] to indicate the whole feathered race; or Pleiades, Hesperus and Arcturus^[5] are mentioned, instead of all the stars and his providence over them.

That you may be aware that God the Father worked not only on those first six days but even until now, read the [saying] of the prophet, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you;^[1] and in the psalm, He who shaped the hearts of every one of them;^[2] and elsewhere, Who covers the heavens with clouds and prepares rain for the earth, who produces hay on the mountains,^[3] and other things of this sort. We must indeed note that [the psalmist] did not put the verb in the past tense, saying, who covered and prepared and produced, but in the present, he covers, prepares, produces in order to demonstrate that the Father works every day, no less on the sabbath than on other days. So that you may not doubt that the Son works all things equally, recall that [saying] of the psalmist: He spoke, and flies and gnats came; he spoke, and the locust and the grasshopper came; he spoke, and there stood forth the wind of a storm.^[4]

Because whatever pains and difficulties we may have endured in this world, everything that comes to an end is in fact nothing. Good things are coming that will not come to an end; it is through toils and troubles that we come to them. But when we get there, no one can tear us away from them. The gates of Jerusalem are closed, their bars are also put in place, so that it may be said to that city, Praise the Lord, Jerusalem; Zion, praise your God, because he has strengthened the bars of your gates, he has blessed your children within you, he has made peace in your borders. The gates being shut, the bars bolted home, no friend can go out, no enemy come in. There we are to enjoy true and real security, if here we have not let go of true reality.

He that sends his word on earth, until his word runs swiftly. He that sends is evidently distinct from him that is sent. You have then, here, both the Sender, the almighty God, and also the Word that was sent, who having many names is called by the holy oracles now Wisdom, now Word, now God, and also Lord. And as you know how in a very short time the word of his teaching has filled the whole world, I am sure you will wonder at the fulfillment of the prophecy, Till his word runs swiftly.