And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
Ver. 2. And, behold, there came a leper] This leprosy was most rife in our Saviour's time; God so ordering that Judea was sickest when her Physician was nearest. The Jews are still a nasty people; and this kind of leprosy seems to have been proper to them, as Plica Polonica, Morbus Gallicus, Sudor Anglicus. No stranger in England was touched with this disease, and yet the English were chased therewith, not in England only, but in other countries abroad; which made them like tyrants, both feared and avoided wherever they came. So were these Jewish lepers. Hence that fable in Tacitus, that the Israelites were driven out of Egypt for that loathsome disease. This, said one malevolent heathen, is the cause why they rest every seventh day. Bodinus observes it for a special providence of God, that in Arabia (which bordereth upon Judea) there are no swine to be found, lest that most leprous creature, saith he, should more and more infest and infect that people, who are naturally subject to the leprosy. a And another good author is of the opinion that God did therefore forbid the Jews to eat either swine's flesh or hare's flesh, quod ista caro facile in male affectis corporibus putrescat, because in diseased bodies it easily corrupts and turns to ill humours.
And worshipped him] Which he would hardly ever have done, haply, had he not been a leper. Morbi sunt vlrtutum officina: diseases, saith St Ambrose, are the shop of virtues. King Alfred found himself ever best when he was worst; and therefore prayed God to send him always some sickness; Gehazi's leprosy cured him, his white forehead made him a white soul.
If thou wilt, thou canst, &c.] So another came with, "If thou canst do anything, help us." We never doubt of Christ's will to do us good (saith a great divine), but, in some degree, we doubt also his power. True faith doubts neither, but believes against sense in things invisible, and against reason in things incredible. Sense corrects imagination, reason corrects sense, but faith corrects both.
a Summa Dei bonitate id factum est, ne populos ad lepram proclives, animal leprosissimum magis, ac magis infestaret. Jo. Bodin.