Heal the sick.
Heal the sick
I. A confirmation of our sincerity.
II. An illustration of the completeness Of Christianity.
1. Its concern with the whole nature of man.
2. Its care for the individual.
III. A revelation Of the Spirit of the Lord.
IV. An undoubted mode of serving the Christ Himself. (U. R. Thomas.)
Cleanse the lepers.-
History of leprosy
Leprosy is a disease with which we are happily so little acquainted in Western lauds that the miraculous power exerted by our Lord and His apostles in connection with it does not strike us with the wonder and admiration it must have occasioned in early times, It is, in the passage before us, distinguished from sickness-“Heal the sick” and” Cleanse the lepers,” being distinct commands. For leprosy was the special disease of Palestine; was looked upon as a type of sin, was in most cases incurable, and was one that necessitated separation, as indeed it does at the present day, though what is now termed leprosy, Elephantiasis Groecorum, is distinct from the Lepra Mosaics to which the Israelites from the period of their bondage in Egypt to the time of our Lord, were subject. But the former disease, like the latter, is of Eastern origin, and is thought to have been brought into Europe by the Crusaders, while others affirm that it was introduced in the tenth and eleventh centuries by the Moors and Arabs, who not only conquered the larger part of Spain, but penetrated much further into Europe than is generally known, reaching, it is believed, even as far as Switzerland. Its frequency in various parts of Europe through the Middle Ages is shown by the word “Lazar,” for hospital, which referred to Lazarus, because he was “full of sores,” and these hospitals were intended primarily for lepers. Most great towns in England had their “ St. Giles’s Gate,” outside which these wretched beings were housed to avoid infection, St. Giles being the patron saint of lepers. This was generally a particularly low and wretched part of the town-St. Giles’s Church in London and the Gilligate at Durham are instances. The laws to prevent the spread of leprosy were very stringent, sometimes even cruel. At Edinburgh, for instance, there was at one time a statute that if any person harboured a leper in their house, he was, among other penalties, to be branded in the cheek. There is only one country in Northern Europe in which this dire disease is still frequent, Norway. From want of vigorous measures to stamp it out leprosy is common in that country, and there is a large leper hospital at Christiania, the capital. In England isolated instances are met with-for instance, at Marazide, in Cornwall, there lived some years ago a person most grievously afflicted with Elephantiasis Groecorum, a form of the disease in which the extremities swell to a great size, and sometimes fall off. In the Holy Land, at the present day, as well as in Greece and Spain, this form of leprosy is far from uncommon. Ewald gives a thrilling account of a village near Jerusalem which is exclusively inhabited by lepers-about one hundred in number at the time he visited it. “This unfortunate and pitiable race,” he says, “are compelled to live separate from all. The malady appears generally when they are about twelve or fourteen years old, and increases every year, till they lose literally one limb after the other. As they grow older their sight fails, their throat and lungs become infected, till death ends their protracted sufferings. They live upon the alms which they receive from pilgrims and others.” In South Africa the disease is very frequent, more especially among the negroes and Hottentots. Very little care was taken to tend or isolate these unfortunate sufferers while the Dutch were in possession of Cape Colony, since they mostly belonged to the despised black race, but when the English came into power in 1810 a settlement was appointed for the lepers at a place called by the Dutch Hemel en Aaede (Heaven on Earth), which seems a most inappropriate name, but that the devoted labours of the Moravian missionary Lehmann sweetened the lot of these unhappy ones. In 1845 the settlement was removed to Robber Island, nearly opposite Cape Town, where the lepers, it was thought, would be more completely isolated, and would enjoy the benefit of sea-air. There the devoted Lehmann continued his ministrations, having under his spiritual charge a motley assemblage of English, Germans, Frenchmen, Malays, Swedes, Africans, only alike in their misfortune.
Freely ye have received, freely give.-
Freely ye have received, freely give
I. A very profitable recollection. Have you received at all? How have we received? “Freely.”
1. Look at your own personal salvation.
2. Look at the abundance of grace given you.
3. Look at the treasures set before you.
II. The constraining obligation-“Freely give.”
1. Think what you have to give, give your own selves, your substance, your prayers.
2. How you are to give. (C. Bridges, M. A.)
I. Consider the privileges which have been so freely bestowed upon us. The value of the gospel seen-
1. From our Lord’s commission to His disciples.
2. The labours attendant on the execution of that commission.
II. The duty resulting from these privileges.
1. Freely give your money, influence, and ability.
2. Freely give your friends and relatives to engage in this great missionary work.
3. Freely give yourselves, your lives to this great work.
4. Freely give your prayers. (J. B. Sumpter, M. A.)
The philosophy of benevolence
I. Giving is an act of consecration.
II. It is an act of grace.
III. It is an act of communion.
IV. It is a privilege. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Freely ye have received
1. Manifested in creation.
2. Redemption.
3. Assurance.
4. All these blessings come freely.
5. The favourable administrations of providence. (R. Alliott.)
The best place for a fortune
When a gentleman, who had been accustomed to give away some thousands, was supposed to be at the point of death, his presumptive heir inquired where his fortune was to be found. To whom he answered, “that it was in the pockets of the indigent.”
The gospel gratis
In The Indian Female Evangelist for September of this year, we meet with rather a pleasing illustration of this verse, in the report given by a native Bible-woman, who accompanied the missionary, Mr. Harding and his wife, on an evangelizing tour of 180 miles in the Bombay Presidency, in a bullock-cart. At one place they came to, she says, “We had so many openings in the town here to-day. There were several of us who went, and at times we divided into two companies. We must have gone to six places. One interesting-looking lad followed us around, waiting patiently for his time to come, when we could follow him to his home. We gladly did so, and had a large company in front of his mother’s house and yard. He tried to slip a few coppers into our hands but we refused, for as we have received freely, we are glad to give freely.” But the boy’s offer was gratifying, as showing how the work was appreciated. Freely … St. Helanon healed very many sick persons, but would not receive any gifts from them, not so much as a morsel of bread; for he was wont to say, “Gratis ye have received, gratis give.” He replied to a certain nobleman whom he had delivered from a legion of devils, and who urgently pressed him to receive a gift, at least that he might distribute it among the poor, “Be not grieved, my son at what I do, for I do it for thy sake as well as my own. If I should receive this I should offend God, and the legion would return to thee.”