---

Consider, first, what awful notions our Saviour would here impress on us concerning the future end and sure punishment of sin. "A worse thing" — worse, that is, than a palsy of thirty and eight years: worse than lying, helpless and weary, day after day in sight of relief, and seeing one after another step down into the pool and be made whole, while he was himself unable to stir, and had no friend to lift him: yet, says Christ, if you fall again into wilful sin, you are to expect worse than this. Here, then, you at once discern one most merciful purpose of Almighty God, in sending upon men pain and calamity. It may serve effectually, as a kind of sample, to teach them, feelingly as it were, somewhat of the wrath and justice of God. It may serve to awaken a wholesome fear of falling into His hands without a Mediator to speak for them. And happy indeed will that man prove, whose severe bodily pains shall have taught him in time to recollect and fear the torments of hell. But where things unhappily turn out otherwise; where the caution of our Lord is slighted, and the evil habit, suspended only by the affliction, returns and grows over the man anew; or he falls into fresh transgressions; that man's case is worse in many respects than if he had never been visited at all.

1. First, his wickedness is greatly aggravated by his ingratitude for God's especial mercies. "The goodness of God," says an Apostle, "leadeth to repentance;" i.e., the very purpose of the Almighty Father in sparing such disobedient children, was to melt them as it were by His mercy, and make them feel pained and ashamed at the thought of displeasing Him any longer.

2. Again, as such a case is very bad in itself, so it has the worst possible effect. It sears and deadens the heart and conscience, rendering it more and more difficult for any good advice, either of God or man, to find its way into our thoughts. If you reflect on such a relapse at all, you must own it to be mere wickedness of heart, settled ingratitude to your best friend; and that is a thought so painful, that impenitent souls, in order to avoid it, shrink from serious reflection altogether. Thus every day their bad habits strengthen, while their chance of repenting grows less and less.

3. Observe by what steps and degrees that wretched decay comes on, which makes the redeemed of the Son of God first unthankful and then, unholy; and do you, by the blessing of God, resolve to set yourself against every one of them. Thus, there can be no doubt that the first step in most men's corruption and degeneracy is their wilful neglect of private prayer; of reading and meditating on holy things. Again: it is a perilous step towards relapsing, when a man finds himself content to stand still, sad taking no pains to get forward. There are some hills so steep, that he who would climb them must keep urging himself upwards, else he is sure to fall back: he cannot stop and breathe where he will.

(Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times. ")

---

---

KJV: After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

WEB: After these things, there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.