Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

⁷ Consider then, brethren, for of these are you; you are of this people, even then foretold, and now exhibited. Yes, verily, you are of those who have been called from the East and West, to sit down in the kingdom of heaven, not in the temple of idols. Be then the Body of Christ, not the pressure of His Body. You have the border of His garment to touch, that you may be healed of the issue of blood, that is, of carnal pleasures. You have, I say, the border of the garment to touch.

Look upon the Apostles as the garment, by the texture of unity clinging closely to the sides of Christ. Among these Apostles was Paul, as it were the border, the least and last; as he says himself, “I am the least of the Apostles.” In a garment the last and least thing is the border. The border is in appearance contemptible, yet is it touched with saving efficacy. “Even to this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked and buffeted.” What state so low, so contemptible as this!

Touch then, if you are suffering from a bloody flux. There will go power out of Him whose garment it is, and it will heal you. The border was proposed to you just now to be touched, when out of the same Apostle there was read, “For if any one see him which has knowledge sit at meat in an idol's temple, shall not the conscience of him who is weak, be emboldened to eat things offered to idols? And through your knowledge shall your weak brother perish, for whom Christ died!” How think ye may men be deceived by idols, which they suppose are honoured by Christians?

A man may say, “God knows my heart.” Yes, but your brother did not know your heart. If you are weak, beware of a still greater weakness; if you are strong, have a care of your brother's weakness. They who see what you do, are emboldened to do more, so as to desire not only to eat, but also to sacrifice there. And lo, “Through your knowledge the weak brother perishes.” Hear then, my brother; if you disregarded the weak, would you disregard a brother also? Awake. What if so you sin against Christ Himself?

For attend to what you can not by any means disregard. “But,” says he, “when you sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” Let them who disregard these words, go now, and sit at meat in the idol's temple; will they not be of those who press, and do not touch? And when they have been at meat in the idol's temple, let them come and fill the Church; not to receive saving health, but to make a pressure there.