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SERMON XXVIII. THE TEN LEPERS
(Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.)
Luke xvii. 17, 18. Were there not ten cleansed, but where are the
nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save
this stranger.
No men, one would have thought, had more reason to thank God than
those nine lepers. Afflicted with a filthy and tormenting disease,
hopelessly incurable, at least in those days, they were cut off from
family and friends, cut off from all mankind; forced to leave their
homes, and wander away; forbidden to enter the houses of men, or the
churches of God; forbidden, for fear of infection, to go near any
human being; keeping no company but that of wretched lepers like
themselves, and forced to get their living by begging; by standing
(as the Gospel says) afar off, and praying the passers-by to throw
them a coin.
In this wretched state, in which they had been certain of living and
dying miserably, they met the Lord: and suddenly, instantly, beyond
all hope or expectation, they found themselves cured, restored to
their families, their homes, their power of working, their rights as
citizens; restored to all that makes life worth having, and that
freely, and in a moment. If such a blessing had come to us, should
we have thought any thanks too great! Would not our whole lives
have been too short to bless God for his great mercy? Should we
have gone away, like those nine, without a word of thanks to God, or
even to the man who had healed us? What stupidity, hardhearted-
ness, ingratitude of those nine, never to have even thanked the Lord
for their restoration to health and happiness.
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