4. So then by His Flesh did the Lord Jesus Christ grant hope to our flesh. For He took on Him what we knew well in this earth, what aboundeth here, to be born, and to die. To be born and to die, abounded here; to rise again and to live for ever, was not here. Poor earthly merchandize found He here, He brought here strange and heavenly. If thou art alarmed at death, love the resurrection. He hath given thee help out of tribulation; for vain thy health had ever been. Let us acknowledge therefore and love the saving health in this world strange, that is, health everlasting, and live we in this world as strangers. Let us think that we are but passing away, so shall we be sinning less. Let us rather give thanks to our Lord God, that He hath been pleased that the last day of this life should be both near and uncertain. From the earliest infancy even to decrepit old age, it is but a short span. If Adam had died to-day, what would it have profited him, that he had lived so long? What "long time" is there in that in which there is an end? No one recalleth yesterday; to-day is pressed on by to-morrow, that it may pass away. In this little span let us live well, that we may go whence we may not pass away. And now even as we are talking, we are indeed passing away. Our words run on, and the hours fly by; so does our age, so our actions, so our honours, so our misery, so our happiness here below. All passeth away, but let us not be alarmed; "The Word of God endureth for ever." Let us turn to the Lord, etc.
[3677] Throughout this chapter there is the double meaning in the original of salus for "health" and "salvation."
[3678] Jas. iv. 14.
[3679] Ps. lx. 11.
[3680] Isa. xl. 6, 7; Jas. i. 10; 1 Pet. i. 24, 25.
[3681] Ps. lx. 11.
[3682] John i. 14.
[3683] John v.
[3684] John i. 1.
Sermon LXXV.
[CXXV. Ben.]
Again in John v. 2, etc., on the five porches, where lay a great multitude of impotent folk, and of the pool of Siloa.
1. Subjects strange neither to your ears nor hearts are now repeated: yet do they revive the affections of the hearer, and by repetition in some sort renew us: nor is it wearisome to hear what is well known already, for the words of the Lord are always sweet. The exposition of the sacred Scriptures is as the sacred Scriptures themselves: though they be well known, yet are they read to impress the remembrance of them. And so the exposition of them, though it be well known, is nevertheless to be repeated, that they who have forgotten it may be reminded, or they who chanced not to hear it may hear; and that with those who do retain what they are used to hear, it may by the repetition be brought to pass that they shall not be able to forget it. For I remember that I have already spoken to you, Beloved, on this lesson of the Gospel. Yet to repeat the same explanation to you is not wearisome, even as it was not wearisome to repeat the same Lesson to you. The Apostle Paul saith in a certain Epistle, "To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not wearisome, but for you it is necessary." [3685] So too with myself to say the same things to you, to me is not wearisome, but for you it is safe.
2. The five porches in which the infirm folk lay signify the Law, which was first given to the Jews and to the people of Israel by Moses the servant of God. For this Moses the minister of the Law wrote five books. In relation therefore to the number of the books which he wrote, the five porches figured the Law. But because the Law was not given to heal the infirm, but to discover and to manifest them; for so saith the Apostle, "For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law; But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe;" [3686] therefore in those porches the sick folk lay, but were not cured. For what saith he? "If there had been a law given which could have given life." Therefore those porches which figured the Law could not cure the sick. Some one will say to me, "Why then was it given?" The Apostle Paul hath himself explained: "Scripture," saith he, "hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." For these folk who were sick, thought themselves to be whole. They received the Law, which they were not able to fulfil; they learnt in what disease they were, and they implored the Physician's aid; they wished to be cured because they came to know they were in distress, which they would not have known if they had not been unable to fulfil the Law which had been given. For man thought himself innocent, and from this very pride of false innocence became more mad. To tame this pride then and to lay it bare, the Law was given; not to deliver the sick, but to convince the proud. Attend then, Beloved; to this end was the Law given, to discover diseases, not to take them away. And so then those sick folk who might have been sick in their own houses with greater privacy, if those five porches had not existed, were in those porches set forth to the eyes of all men, but were not by the porches cured. The Law therefore was useful to discover sins, because that man being made more abundantly guilty by the transgression of the Law, might, having tamed his pride, implore the help of Him That pitieth. Attend to the Apostle; "The Law entered that sin might abound; but where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded." [3687] What is, "The Law entered that sin might abound"? As in another place he saith, "For where there is no law, there is no transgression." [3688] Man may be called a sinner before the Law, a transgressor he cannot. But when he hath sinned, after that he hath received the Law, he is found not only a sinner, but a transgressor. Forasmuch then as to sin is added transgression, therefore "hath sin abounded." And when sin abounds, human pride learns at length to submit itself, and to confess to God, and to say "I am weak." To say to those words of the Psalm which none but the humbled soul saith, "I said, Lord, be merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee." [3689] Let the weak soul then say this that is at least convinced by transgression, and not cured, but manifested by the Law. Hear too Paul himself showing thee, both that the Law is good, and yet that nothing but the grace of Christ delivereth from sin. For the Law can prohibit and command; apply the medicine, that that which doth not allow a man to fulfil the Law, may be cured, it cannot, but grace only doeth that. For the Apostle saith, "For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man." [3690] That is, I see now that what the Law blames is evil, and what the Law commands is good. "For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man. I see another law in my members resisting the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity in the law of sin." This derived from the punishment of sin, from the propagation of death, from the condemnation of Adam, "resists the law of the mind, and brings it into captivity in the law of sin which is in the members." He was convinced; he received the Law, that he might be convinced: see now what profit it was to him that he was convinced. Hear the following words, "Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord." [3691]
3. Give heed then. Those five porches were significative of the Law, bearing the sick, not healing them; discovering, not curing them. But who did cure the sick? He that descended into the pool. And when did the sick man descend into the pool? When the Angel gave the sign by the moving of the water. For thus was that pool sanctified, for that the Angel came down and moved the water. Men saw the water; and from the motion of the troubled water they understood the presence of the Angel. If any one then went down, he was cured. Why then was not that sick man cured? Let us consider his own words; "I have no man," he says, "when the water is moved, to put me into the pool, but while I am coming, another steppeth down." [3692] Couldest not thou then step down afterwards, if another step down before thee? Here it is shown us, that only one was cured at the moving of the water. Whosoever stepped down first, he alone was cured: but whoever stepped down afterwards, at that moving of the water was not cured, but waited till it was moved again. What then does this mystery [3693] mean? For it is not without a meaning. Attend, Beloved. Waters are put in the Apocalypse for a figure of peoples. For when in the Apocalypse John saw many waters, he asked what it meant, and it was told him that they were peoples. [3694] The water then of the pool signified the people of the Jews. For as that people was held in by the five books of Moses in the Law, so that water too was enclosed by five porches. When was the water troubled? When the people of the Jews was troubled. And when was the people of the Jews troubled, but when the Lord Jesus Christ came? The Lord's Passion was the troubling of the water. For the Jews were troubled when the Lord suffered. See, what was just now read had relation to this troubling. "The Jews wished to kill Him, not only because He did these things on the sabbaths, but because He called Himself the Son of God, making Himself equal with God." [3695] For Christ called Himself the Son after one manner, in another was it said to men, "I said, Ye are Gods, and ye are all children of the Most High." [3696] For if He had made Himself the Son of God in such sort as any man whatever may be called the son of God (for by the grace of God men are called sons of God); the Jews would not have been enraged. But because they understand Him to call Himself the Son of God in another way, according to that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" [3697] and according to what the Apostle saith, "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God;" [3698] they saw a man, and they were enraged, because He made Himself equal with God. But He well knew that He was equal, but wherein they saw not. For that which they saw they wished to crucify; by That which they saw not, they were judged. What did the Jews see? What the Apostles also saw, when Philip said, "Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." [3699] But what did the Jews not see? What not even the Apostles saw, when the Lord answered, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet have ye not known Me? He that seeth Me, seeth the Father also." [3700] Because then the Jews were not able to see This in Him, they held Him for a proud and ungodly man, making Himself equal with God. Here was a troubling, the water was troubled, the Angel had come. For the Lord is called also the "Angel of the Great Counsel," [3701] in that He is the messenger of the Father's will. For Angel in Greek is in Latin "messenger". So you have the Lord saying that He announces to us the kingdom of Heaven. He then had come, the "Angel of the Great Counsel," but the Lord of all the Angels. "Angel" on this account, because He took Flesh; the "Lord of Angels," in that by "Him all things were made, and without Him was nothing made." [3702] For if all things, Angels too. And therefore Himself was not made, because by Him all things were made. Now what was made, was not made without the operation of the Word. But the flesh which became the mother of Christ, could not have been born, if it had not been created by the Word, which was afterwards born of it.