city; in its large upper chamber, immediately under the flat roof, which might readily be reached by the flight of steps outside the house, according to the manner of building in the East to this day. The room is thronged, as well it might be, with an eager crowd. And in that congregation, some are captious critics, and some are simple and confiding souls. Among these latter must be reckoned this poor paralytic and his zealous friends.' They had heard of the fame of Jesus, and had faith in His wondrous power. This poor man's disorder which unnerved his physical frame, rendering him helpless as an infant, had not impaired his soul. It prevented him from going personally to the Healer; but where the mind is set upon anything, one can generally contrive the means. We can well believe therefore that he urged his friends to carry him, as he was, on his simple couch, little more than a mere mat or bedding, into the presence of the good Physician. And we can further understand how these who had undertaken this charitable work of theirs, when they arrived at the place, and found no access by reason of the crowd-a crowd even overflowing the place and blocking up the doorway-were yet nothing daunted by this obstacle. They were not the men to turn back when they had once set forth. And they seem to read us a lesson of perseverance; that we are not to be stopped in a good course by any apparent, or even by every real difficulty. Faith will find out a way. Hope will climb even to the house-top. And Love shall let us down at length into the very presence of the great Healer of bodies and of souls.

CXXXVI.

THE SAME SUBJECT—continued.

St. Mark. ii. 4, 5.

And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had St. Mark alone notices the precise number.

broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

See now these faithful friends, unable to enter by the door, climbing up to the roof, which, as in every Eastern. house, could be gained without going through the interior. See them with care and much toil carrying their dead-alive. burthen with them. And when they gain the top, they proceed to surmount the last obstacle of all. No thought of trouble or expense shall baulk them in their labour of love. They will not return, their errand unaccomplished. They dig through what intervenes, that which separates between them and their Saviour. So the sick man is let down (as another of the Evangelists relates) "through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus."

2

It was a strange interruption, but the spirit from which it proceeded was rare also. And here we may note how a lively faith will penetrate to Christ through all that may come between. Here, as in a picture, you may see how great obstacles are interposed. And even though many a one there be that say of our soul, There is no help for him in God, and though our own conscience even may accuse us, and the Law condemn us, yet must we break through them all to cast ourselves at the dear feet of Christ. So this sick man comes, and is brought. And this charitable work of theirs who brought him can hardly fail to remind us of the like work of Christian sponsors, and indeed of the whole Church of Christ,3 in bringing Infants to His Holy Baptism. And how does the Lord receive them? He recognises "their faith," the faith of the paralytic and his friends. He speaks to one for the comfort and instruction of them all; even as the miracles vouchsafed to selected sufferers were wrought for the sake of all; specimens of those greater things He will do hereafter, not just for one here and another there, but for all

1 So in the original.

2 St. Luke v. 19.

3 The bringing of Infants to Holy Baptism, it must be remembered, is the act, not of the particular sponsors

only, but of the whole Church of Christ. It is as though these four had been deputed by the whole body of his friends to present the paralytic.

♦

"Son," He says, for so He has the heart of

those who put their trust in Him. He still regards him, though a sinner. a father for His returning prodigal. So He encourages him who is perhaps by this time amazed at his own audacity, when he finds himself in the midst of the assembly. But He welcomes him with words of cheer, who is "more ready to hear than we to pray, and wont to give more than either we desire or deserve." 2

CXXXVII.

THE SAME SUBJECT-continued.

St. Mark ii. 6, 7.

But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

3

Our Lord Himself has taught us elsewhere that there is not invariably a connexion between personal sin and personal suffering. Indeed the best men are sometimes the most afflicted. Nevertheless in this particular case there seems to have been some course of sin which drew after it such a retribution. Under the Law of Moses, affliction of the body was a frequent chastisement for the sin of the soul; and we are not without instances of the same even under the Gospel of Christ. Even in that order of things which God has established on the earth, in the economy and course of nature, physical suffering is in many cases the penalty and direct product of spiritual wickedness. But here we have intimated to us no more than the general truth that sin is the fruitful parent of sorrow. Sorrow is the first-born child and heir of sin. There had been no scourges if there had been no sins. Therefore "had man never committed sin, he had never known disease." Sickness is but one of that

1 Jer. xxxi. 18-20.

2 Collect for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. Is. lxv. 27.

3 St. John ix. 2, 3.

4 St. John v. 14; 1 Cor. v. 5; xi. 30. Bp. Horne in D'Oyly and Mant.

"1

train of ills which sin let in upon us. There was something therefore most significant in the order which our Lord observed in the healing of the paralytic here; the forgiveness of his sin before the restoration of his body. It suggests to us a consolatory thought. It opens out to us a world of consolations. "Cure sin, and you cure sorrow.' But in that congregation at Capernaum there were certain critics, it appears; "Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by," who found fault with our Lord's procedure. They did not presume at present to utter their objections aloud. They had not yet got so far as that. But the Lord read their thoughts, and replied to them. The thought of their heart was evil. They were themselves doing the very thing of which they accused Jesus. They were the blasphemers.

2

CXXXVIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT-continued.

St. Mark ii. 8-12.

And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

See how mildly the Lord of all answers the gainsayers. It was easy enough, they might think, to say the one thing, but not so easy to do the other. But to Him this was no The Christian Year, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany. See Is. xxxiii. 24.

2 St. Luke v. 17.

more difficult than that. "Both are equally impossible to

1

any but a God of Almighty power and infinite mercy; who first made man, and then redeemed him." And the inference is plain-Christ is God. Though appearing as the Son of man, that title of His humiliation, he could yet exercise on earth that prerogative and power which belonged to Him as the Son of God in heaven. "As no power but God's could forgive sins, so none but God's could work this miracle of healing. If therefore He could give them a sensible proof of His Divinity in one of the instances, they ought to be satisfied that He had done no more than became Him in the other." 2 In this case we see a connexion between the forgiveness of sins and the healing of disease. There may be, we must know, the one without the other. Some arise from the bed of sickness and walk once more among their fellow men; but this is no proof that their sins are forgiven them. Too often they return to their sins, as the sow in the proverb to its congenial mire. And to the pastor of a parish it is one of his saddest thoughts, when those whom he has instructed in their sickness return to health indeed, but not to holiness. But, as in this case, "the couch of the paralytic, which before was the proof of his sickness, was now made the proof of his cure," so "the sin which once carried us when sick, is," as it were, "to be carried by us when we are restored to health."3 The Lord's deed now fills them with astonishment, as before His doctrine did. It leads them, no less than the restored paralytic," to glorify the name of God. They were filled with godly fear. They had never before, so they honestly confess, seen anything like what they had seen that day. They acknowledged the power of God in the person of Jesus.8

1 Bp. Horne.

Dean Stanhope in D'Oyly and Mant.

3 Bp. Wordsworth in St. Matt. ix. 6. St. Mark's account is evidently derived from an eye-witness. The way in which he represents the Lord as turning from the Scribes to address the sick man, is very graphic.

4 St. Matt. vii. 28, 29.
5 St. Luke v. 29.

6 St. Luke v. 26.

7 Compare St. Mark ii. 12; St. Luke v. 26.

8 On the men of St. Matt. ix. 8. Grotius refers to the like enallage in Judges xii. 7, and Jon. i. 5.