The Water of Life and Other Sermons | Page 5

falls, struggle on. Blessed are
you that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for you shall be filled. To
you--and not in vain-- 'The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And

whosoever will, let him drink of the water of life freely.'

SERMON II. THE PHYSICIAN'S CALLING (Preached at Whitehall
for St. George's Hospital.)

ST. MATTHEW ix. 35.
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing
every sickness and every disease among the people.
The Gospels speak of disease and death in a very simple and human
tone. They regard them in theory, as all are forced to regard them in
fact, as sore and sad evils.
The Gospels never speak of disease or death as necessities; never as the
will of God. It is Satan, not God, who binds the woman with a spirit of
infirmity. It is not the will of our Father in heaven that one little one
should perish. Indeed, we do not sufficiently appreciate the abhorrence
with which the whole of Scripture speaks of disease and death: because
we are in the habit of interpreting many texts which speak of the
disease and death of the body in this life as if they referred to the
punishment and death of the soul in the world to come. We have a
perfect right to do that; for Scripture tells us that there is a mysterious
analogy and likeness between the life of the body and that of the soul,
and therefore between the death of the body and that of the soul: but we
must not forget, in the secondary and higher spiritual interpretation of
such texts, their primary and physical meaning, which is this--that
disease and death are uniformly throughout Scripture held up to the
abhorrence of man.
Moreover--and this is noteworthy--the Gospels, and indeed all
Scripture, very seldom palliate the misery of disease, by drawing from
it those moral lessons which we ourselves do. I say very seldom. The
Bible does so here and there, to tell us that we may do so likewise. And

we may thank God heartily that the Bible does so. It would be a
miserable world, if all that the clergyman or the friend might say by the
sick-bed were, 'This is an inevitable evil, like hail and thunder. You
must bear it if you can: and if not, then not.' A miserable world, if he
could not say with full belief; '"My son, despise not thou the chastening
of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him. For whom the
Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth." Thou knowest not now why thou art afflicted; perhaps thou
wilt never know in this life. But a day will come when thou wilt know:
when thou wilt find that this sickness came to thee at the exact right
time, in the exact right way; when thou wilt find that God has been
keeping thee in the secret place of His presence from the provoking of
men, and hiding thee privately in His tabernacle from the spite of
tongues; when thou wilt discover that thou hast been learning precious
lessons for thy immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely
tossing with clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt
find that God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed
to have left thee most utterly.'
Thank God, we can say that, and more; and we will say it. But we must
bear in mind, that the Gospels, which are the very parts of Scripture
which speak most concerning disease, omit almost entirely that
cheering and comforting view of it.
And why? Only to force upon our attention, I believe, a view even
more cheering and comforting: a view deeper and wider, because
supplied not merely to the pious sufferer, but to all sufferers; not
merely to the Christian, but to all mankind. And that is, I believe, none
other than this: that God does not only bring spiritual good out of
physical evil, but that He hates physical evil itself: that He desires not
only the salvation of our souls, but the health of our bodies; and that
when He sent His only begotten Son into the world to do His will, part
of that will was, that He should attack and conquer the physical evil of
disease--as it were instinctively, as his natural enemy, and directly, for
the sake of the body of the sufferer.
Many excellent men, seeing how the healing of disease was an integral

part of our Lord's mission, and of the mission of His apostles,