The Good News of God eBook

And no man can say now, What has God to do with sufferers—­sick, weak, deformed wretches?  If he had cared for them, would he have made them thus?  For we can answer, However sick, or weak they may be, God in Christ has been as weak as they.  God has shared their sufferings, and has been made perfect by sufferings, that they might be made perfect also.  God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow upon his cross, and made them holy; as holy as health, and strength, and happiness are.  And so on Good Friday God bridged over the gulf between man and man.  He has shown that God is charity and love; and that the way to live for ever in God is to live for ever in that charity and love to all mankind which God showed this day upon the cross.

And, therefore, all charity is rightly called Christian charity; for it is Christ, and the news of Good Friday, which first taught men to have charity; to look on the poor, the afflicted, the weak, the orphan, with love, pity, respect.  By the sight of a suffering and dying God, God has touched the hearts of men, that they might learn to love and respect suffering and dying men; and in the face of every mourner, see the face of Christ, who died for them.  Because Christ the sufferer is their elder brother, all sufferers are their brothers likewise.  Because Christ tasted pain, shame, misery, death for all men, therefore we are bound this day to pray for all men, that they may have their share in the blessings of Christ’s death; not to look on them any longer as aliens, strangers, enemies, parted from us and each other and God; but whether wise or foolish, sick or well, happy or unhappy, alive or dead, as brothers.  We are bound to pray for his Holy Church as one family of brothers; for all ranks of men in it, that each of them may learn to give up their own will and pleasure for the sake of doing their duty in their calling, as Christ did; to pray for Jews, Turks, Heathens, and Infidels; as for God’s lost children, and our lost brothers, that God would bring them home to his flock, and touch their hearts by the news of his sufferings for them; that they may taste the inestimable comfort of knowing that God so loved them as to suffer, to groan, to die for them and all mankind.

SERMON XXXVI.  ON THE FALL

(Sexagesima Sunday.)

Genesis iii. 12.

And the man said, The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

This morning we read the history of Adam’s fall in the first Lesson.  Now does this story seem strange to you, my friends?  Do you say to yourselves, If I had been in Adam’s place, I should never have been so foolish as Adam was?  If you do say so, you cannot have looked at the story carefully enough.  For if you do look at it carefully, I believe you will find enough in it to show you that it is a very natural story, that we have the same nature in us that Adam had; that we are indeed Adam’s children; and that the Bible speaks truth when it says, ‘Adam begat a son after his own likeness.’