I. Consider the power which the mind can exert in support of the body, so long as itself is in good case. If it be true that the spirit of man has a medicinal power, that there is a strength in his nature which endows him with such control over the body that he can give it up to the worst tortures, and yet betray no fear, then it must be quite idle to argue that he possesses no power by which to keep passions in check, and to make a bold stand against the cravings of unrighteousness. We want no better argument by which to prove to man that there is a strength in his nature for offering resistance to evil, a strength for which he shall give account at the judgment, than that which we fetch from the fact that there is a strength for sustaining infirmity.
II. Consider how, if the mind itself be disordered, it will break down the body "A broken spirit drieth the bones." We take the statement of Solomon to be that, though there is a strength in man through which he can bear up against physical pressure, there is comparatively none for the sustaining of mental. We will admit that under certain limitations men may endure mental pain as well as bodily. It is a fine argument for the immortality of the soul, for the certainty of her soaring above the wreck of matter, that, however she be assailed by pain, so long as the pain is unconnected with her everlasting destinies, she never fails, so to speak, as to pass beyond the hope of recovery. We believe that a truly broken spirit is that which is bruised with a sense of sin, and if this be a broken spirit, how true that "a broken spirit drieth the bones." Yet though a man may have been forced to say with Job, "The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit; the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me," he will have passed speedily on to the beholding Jesus dying, "the just for the unjust," to the viewing in Him the propitiation for sin, and the "Advocate with the Father."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 1896.
References: Proverbs 17:22. S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook,p. 161; H. Melvill, Voices of the Year,vol. ii., p. 321.Proverbs 17:26. J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 219. Proverbs 18:1-8. R. Wardlaw, Lectures on Proverbs,vol. ii., p. 169. Proverbs 18:9-14. Ibid.,p. 180.