《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[The miraculous healing of the nobleman’s son resembles the healing of the centurion’s servant, Matthew 8:5; Luke 7:1, but must not be confounded with it (see the points of difference in the note on John 4:46). It was the second miracle which Christ wrought in Galilee ( John 4:54); the first being the change of water into wine ( John 2). John relates a third miracle in Galilee, the feeding of the multitude, which is followed by a long discourse ( John 6), and three miracles in Judea, viz.: the healing of the cripple at the pool of Bethesda (5), the healing of the blind (9), and the raising of Lazarus (11). He also relates three appearances of the risen Saviour ( John 21:14). Bengel (on John 4:54) notes this threefold trinity with the remark: “Hæc nimirum Johannis methodus Esther, ut per ternarium incedat.”—P. S.]

John 4:43. And went.—The repetition: Ἐξῆλθεν ἐκεῖθεν, and καὶ ἀπῆλθεν, should be noted with reference to the next verse. See the Textual Notes (No2).

John 4:44. For Jesus himself testified.— Himself. Meyer: “Not only other people in reference to Him. For the matter itself, comp. Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24.” Tholuck better: “He had himself acknowledged the correctness of the popular proverb.” [The proverb itself is based upon common experience and needs no explanation. “Familiarity breeds contempt,” while “distance lends enchantment to the view.” The Germans have a similar proverb: “This is not far off” (Das ist nicht weit her), i. e., nothing uncommon. Many of the greatest men were despised or ignored in their native land or city, and made their renown or fortune in foreign lands. The only difficulty is in the logical connection as indicated by γάρ—P. S.] The question Isaiah, how is the for (γάρ) to be explained? or how can He go to Galilee because a prophet hath no honor in his own country? for we should expect either the reverse, or although (καίπερ) instead of for (γάρ).^[FN101] Answer:

1. Πατρίς [patria] is not the native country (Vaterland), but the native city (Vaterstadt), even in antithesis to the country of Galilee (Chrysostom, who understands it of Capernaum, Cyril, Erasmus, Calvin, etc.). Against this: The antithesis is not demonstrated.

[Nearly all who understand πατρίς of the native town, refer it, not to Capernaum (with Chrysostom and Euthymius Zig.), which is altogether out of the question, but to Nazareth, where Christ was not born, indeed, but raised, and where He lived to the time of His public ministry. (So Cyril Alex, Calvin, Grotius, Bengel, Olshausen, Hengstenberg, Bäumlein, Trench, on Miracles, p99, Wordsworth) Nazareth in Galilee then is contrasted here with Galilee in general, as the city of Jerusalem is contrasted with the land of Judea, John 3:22. This view has a strong support in Luke 4:24 (comp. Matthew 13:57; Mark 6:4), where Christ says in the synagogue of Nazareth: “No prophet is accepted in his own country ” (ἐν τῇ πατρίδι αὐτοῦ). This was soon shown by the action of the Nazaræans who “thrust Him out of the city and led Him to the brow of the hill, that they might cast Him down headlong” ( John 4:29); while in Capernaum the people “were astonished at His doctrine” ( John 4:32), and, as John relates, received Him well ( John 4:45). John may have supposed this event to be already known from the other Gospels. The only objection to this view Isaiah, that Galilee, John 4:43, would naturally include Nazareth. It would be necessary to explain the γάρ from John 4:46 : Christ went to Cana in Galilee (which lies north of Nazareth), without passing through His native place, for the reason mentioned. The choice lies between this interpretation and that of Dr. Lange (see below, No7), which comes nearest to it. All others are too far-fetched.—P. S.]

2. Πατρίς is Judea, since He was born in Bethlehem (Origen, Maldonatus, Schweizer, Ebrard [formerly], Baur). Against this: a. His acknowledged home was Nazareth, notwithstanding He was born in Bethlehem;^[FN102] b. In Judea He had been well received by the people; c. The construction, that Judea was His country, as being the country of the prophets (Origen, Baur, Baumgarten-Crusius), would be unintelligible.

3. Judea is indeed meant to be understood as His πατρίς, but this just proves the unhistorical character of John’s Gospel (Schwegler, Bruno Bauer; Schweizer: The unhistorical character of the ensuing narrative, which is to be considered an interpolation).

4. For means namely, that is to say, and relates not to what precedes, but to what follows. The sentence is a preliminary explanation of the fact that the Galileans did indeed this time receive Jesus well, but only on account of the miracles they had seen at their visit to the last passover in Jerusalem [which set them the fashion in their estimate of men and things, while the Samaritans believed in Him for His word without signs]. (So Lücke 3ed.], De Wette, Tholuck.^[FN103] Contrary to the spirit of the maxim, to the context (for a nobleman from Capernaum meets Him at the outset at Cana seeking help), and to the fact in general.

5. Christ went to Galilee just because He expected not to find acceptance there. (a) Brückner: To accept the conflict—which, however, was more threatening in Judea; (b) Hofmann, Luthardt [now also Ebrard]: Because He hoped [to avoid publicity and] to find rest and quiet in Galilee—in which, however, He would be disappointed. [Against both these views may be urged also that the text reports neither a conflict, nor a quiet retirement in Galilee, but a miracle of healing.—P. S.]

6. Meyer: “Πατρίς is not the native town, but the native country, viz, Galilee, as is proved by John 4:43; John 4:45, and as usual with the Greeks since Homer. The words contain the reason why Jesus did not hesitate to return to Galilee, but the reason lies in the antithetic relation implied in ἐν τῇ πατρίδι. For if, as Jesus Himself testified, a prophet is without honor in his own country, he must earn it in another. And this Jesus had done in Jerusalem. He now brought with Him the honor of a prophet from a distance. Hence too He found acceptance with the Galileans, because they had seen His miracles in Jerusalem ( John 2:23).”^[FN104] Against this: a. Then the word must have stood at John 4:1. But there another motive stands for His having now left Judea. b. The remark must have been, that He came already full of honor, because He had none to expect in Galilee, c. It must not have been known that He was ill-received in His own πατρίς, in the narrower sense, on this very return.

7. Πατρίς is Lower Galilee, to which Nazareth belonged. We believe we have found the full solution in the fact that now took place, the removal of Jesus from Nazareth, where He had been thrust out, to Capernaum, on the presumption that Capernaum belonged to Galilee in the narrower sense, i.e., to Upper Galilee, to which Nazareth, in Lower Galilee, did not belong. This is supported (a) by the fact that the name Galilee in the narrower sense referred to Upper Galilee (see Forbiger, Handbuch der alten Geographie II, p689); (b) by the statement of Josephus, that Upper Galilee was separated from Lower Galilee by a line drawn from Tiberias to Zebulon [De bello Jud. ΙΙΙ. 3, 1), which throws Nazareth into Lower Galilee. If now we consider that John writes with the living, popular view of Palestine thoroughly in his mind; that he knew of an unknown Bethany, a ferry-village on the other side of the Jordan, of an otherwise unknown Salim, near Ænon, of an elsewhere unknown Syohar, probably a suburb of Sichem, of the pool of Bethesda with its porches, of Solomon’s Porch in the temple,—we may also conceive that John knows of a Galilee in the provincial sense, and that he can say without geographical reflection, Jesus went to Galilee, as the Swiss in Geneva says without reflection: I am going to Switzerland; the Pomeranian: I am going to Prussia. This is further favored by the expression in Luke 4:31 : He “came down from Nazareth to Capernaum, a city of Galilee;” against which it signifies nothing that Galilee sometimes occurs in John, especially in the mouth of another, in the wider sense. (See Leben Jesu, II:2, p542.)

John 4:45. The Galileans received him.—Received Him favorably. A general observation concerning His acceptance in Upper Galilee, particularly in Cana, Bethsaida, Capernaum, etc. They received Him; antithetic to an implied rejection. Having seen all the things that he did.—No ignoring of His earlier miracles in Cana and Capernaum. It was to the Galileans a new and higher attestation, that Jesus had made a great impression even in Jerusalem with His signs. It was their countryman who had purified the temple, and filled the holy city with wonder.

John 4:46. So Jesus came again.—What means this οὖν, so? The first time Jesus had gone on from Nazareth to Cana. And now He again went first to Nazareth. And if He wished to go thence to Galilee, we might expect He would proceed first to His friends in Cana. In Cana He seems to have tarried several days; at all events the βασιλικός comes hither for Him.

And there was a certain nobleman [royal officer, βασιλικός].—An officer of Herod Antipas, the tetrarch (whom the common people considered and called a king, Matthew 14:1; Matthew 14:9),^[FN105] The title βασιλικός combines civil and military dignity; hence some have taken this βασιλικός to be identical with the centurion of Capernaum (Irenæus, Semler, Strauss, Baumgarten-Crusius).

The office, the sick boy, the distant healing, are similar features.

On the other side are these differences:

1.The time; here before the removal of Jesus to Capernaum, there long after it.

2. The place of Christ at the time; here Cana, there the vicinity of Capernaum.

3.The characters; here excited, weak, feebly believing, there calm, confident, strong of faith.

Other differences, by themselves considered, might be more easily wiped away: The υἱός here, the δοῦλος there (a distinction, however, which is not resolved by the common παῖς: here the boy is a small boy, a child ( John 4:49), there a stout youth); there a Gentile, here a miracle-believer, probably a Jew. Yet these with the foregoing strengthen the difference. But the most decisive diversity is in the judgment of the Lord. The faith of the centurion He commends with admiration; the faith of the nobleman He must first subject to a trial. [Chrysostom, Trench, Alford: The weak faith of the nobleman is strengthened, while the humility of the centurion is honored.]

Accordingly this miracle has been in fact by most expositors (from Origen down) made distinct from the other.^[FN106]

John 4:48. Except ye see signs and wonders.—Shall have seen. Ye must first have seen these, before ye come to faith. The stress does not lie decidedly on ἴδητε (Storr), thus censuring the request to go with him. The man’s answer does not agree with this; and ἴδητε must then have stood first. Still the ἴδητε is not without significance; as is indicated by the fact that we here have for the first time in John σημεῖα καὶ τέρατα, whereas hitherto he has spoken only of σημεῖα. And wonders (τέρατα) must be emphasized. But the less therefore can we suppose a general reproof of the Galileans, with reference to John 4:45 (Meyer); for it was the way of Jesus Himself to lead through faith in miracles to faith in the word, John 10:38; John 14:11; John 15:24. Christ, therefore, reproves not the faith in miracles in itself (Eckermann), but the craving for miracles or miracle-mania. He intimates besides, that there is a higher grade of faith than that which rests on the seeing of miracles; as appears more distinctly afterwards, in John 14:11; John 20:29. He designates the petitioner and those like him as a class of people who are not

set beforehand towards the kingdom of God, but have yet to be brought to faith by signs and wonders (τέρατα); of course presupposing a sensuous spirit with a weak readiness to believe, passion for miracles, personal interest in the miracle (signs and wonders for yourselves), and an inordinate desire for seeing, 1 Corinthians 1:22. We must, however, consider that the reproof is not intended for a rejection, but for discipline, to hush the excitement of the Prayer of Manasseh, and recall him to his inward spirit. Yet the palliation of Maldonatus [Rom. Cath.] is too strong: That the words contain no censure, but only a declaration of the spiritual infirmity of the people now proved by a fact.

John 4:49. Sirach, come down ere, etc.—The man proves not strong enough, indeed, to take the reproof of Christ, but it is enough that he does not feel wounded and repulsed, and that he persists and grows more urgent in his prayer. The utterance of a father’s love in trouble and anguish: My child is dying; as in Jairus, the Canaanitish mother, and the father of the demoniac under the mount of transfiguration. This distress of love makes him a believer.

John 4:50. Go thy way; thy son liveth.—Not only the word of miraculous help, but at the same time also the second and decisive test. He must believe and go at the word. And the man believed the word; he stood the test.

Explanation of the miracle:

1. Paulus makes of it a medical prognostication after the account of the sickness given by the father: comp. also Ammon.

2. Others have supposed the operation of a magnetic healing power (Olshausen, Krabbe, etc.).

3. Meyer, on the other hand: By his will. This is of course the main thing, as in the doctrine of creation. God created the world by His will. But if we conceive the will of God abstractly, and exclude all co-operation of His vital force, we are ultra-supernaturalistic (and perhaps ultra-Reformed). The will of Christ is unquestionably the main thing, but it does not work abstractly; without a vital force proceeding from Him. (comp. Mark 5:30) the thing is not apprehended, though the magnetic healing virtue affords only the natural analogy or form for it. Even the miracle of immediate knowledge comes into the account, inasmuch as Christ wrought only where He saw the Father work, John 5:19. And the same instant, in which this saving life-ray flies into the heart of the father, it flies also into the heart of his distant son. For how near this father now was to his son in his inward communication, Jesus alone knew.

John 4:52. Then he inquired of them.—The fact alone did not satisfy him; he wished to trace it to its cause. That Isaiah, he leaned towards faith. “Not self-interest merely, but a religious interest also in the case, is guiding him.” Tholuck. And then it appeared, (1) that the son suddenly recovered, and (2) at the hour when Jesus spoke the word. Yesterday at the seventh hour.—According to the Jewish division of the day this could perhaps have been said in the evening of the same day, after six o’clock. The healing took place soon after noon, and probably the father set out immediately for home. According to our reckoning of the day, a night must have intervened; which would give a strange length of time for a distance of some eight or ten hours, and Lampe adjusts by supposing that the Prayer of Manasseh, in his firm faith, did not travel festinans, while De Wette thinks it strange that he stopped over night on the way. But the meeting of the servants might very well have occurred the next morning, without the journey having been slow.

John 4:53. And he himself believed, and his whole house.—It is palpably the rule, that, with the father, the family also become believers ( Acts 10:44; Acts 16:15; Acts 16:32); but here the Evangelist calls particular attention to it by his expression. The members of the family had seen the sudden recovery, but had not heard the word of the Saviour.

John 4:54. This sign Jesus wrought as the second, etc., Πάλιν is not to be connected with δεύτερον, nor to be referred to ἐποίησεν by itself, but to the statement that Jesus had returned from Judea to Galilee. Jesus had meantime done many other miracles, even in Capernaum; this miracle marks His second return to Galilee, as the miracle at Cana had marked the first. He brought healing with Him at once, and it went out from Him even in distant results.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. In regard to the spirit in which Jesus just now comes to Upper Galilee and performs this miracle, it must be observed that according to Luke 4:14 sqq.; Matthew 13:53 sqq, He had just been thrust out from His city Nazareth. See Leben Jesu, II:2, p541. Experiences of this kind could in Him produce only an increase of His manifestations of love to those who were susceptible.

2. As the first miracle of distant operation this incident bears a close relation to the healing of the servant of the centurion at Capernaum and of the daughter of the Canaanitish woman. In the mysterious manifestation of the divine power of Christ, we must still not neglect the human media, which here lay in the inward connection of an anxious father’s heart with the dying child. As in fact the help of God owns the human intercession. The spiritual roads, streets and paths which human love, distress, and prayer have to make for the divine help in the invisible world, can only glorify the freedom, truth, and miraculous power of this help, as a power which is at the same time the power of a personal Spirit and love, i. e., not abstractly working in a void, but as divine life applied to the human.

3. As the Lord in the case of the Samaritan woman rebuked superstitious trust in a place of pilgrimage, so here He reproves superstitious trust in visible miracles.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

After the two days. The great days of grace, in which the Lord visits us, are numbered, and swiftly pass away.—Jesus departed thence. The itinerancy of Jesus a clear expression of His inner life: (1) of His Israelite fidelity to duty; (2) of His heavenly calling; (3) of His love; (4) of His holy Spirit.—The rapid change of time and place in the life of Jesus a token of His unworldly pilgrim nature.—How the Lord learned and sealed in its highest sense the universal human experience that a prophet has no honor in his own country, in order to make of it a holy maxim of life.—Want of esteem at home, the prophet’s signal to travel.—The closed door a way-mark for the Lord and His disciples to go on to the open door.—A good word finds its place.—It is no question, Whether there be in the world persons susceptible to thy mission; the only question Isaiah, Where they are (whether here or far away; whether in the present or in the future); and herein is much to be unlearned and to be learned by the heart of youthful Christian enthusiasm.—How the divine fire of Christ was always only inflamed by the coldness of men.—The two works of Jesus in Cana, the transformation of water and the distant healing, as conspicuous tokens of His heavenly nature: 1. The first, so to speak, leads up into heaven2. The second as it were comes down from heaven.—How the nobleman of Capernaum learns to believe. This nobleman compared with the centurion of Capernaum (resemblances, differences, see above).—The deliberation of Jesus with the nobleman, a mark of the elevation of His spirit; (1) Of His freedom from obsequiousness and respect of persons; (2) of His wise reserve and loving compliance.—Except ye see signs and wonders. Or, the distinction between true and false resting of faith on miracles.—Also a distinction between the true and the false miracle.—The marks of each (faith and miracle).—Except ye. Or, the connection between worldly-minded unbelief and worldly-minded superstition in the polite world (at that time the court of Herod).—Yet a nobler germ may lie in the miracle-craving form of faith. (The question Isaiah, which is the germ, and which the shell.)—The testing of faith, which the nobleman stands: 1. How he is tested (a) in his humility by a stern word which might wound the pride of a nobleman; (b) in his faith, by being required to trust a word2. How he stands the test: (a) in his persistent prayer he passes the test of the humility of his faith; (b) in his confident departure at the word of Jesus he proves the power of his faith.—Only the faith, which is itself a miracle of God can receive the miraculous help of God.—Faith in the divine help must be directed above all to the divine in the help.—How the Lord in granting refuses and in refusing grants.—His refusing, a higher granting.—Necessity and love as handmaids of faith.—Comparison of the nobleman with the Canaanitish woman.—The father and his sick child.—How the upright man in approaching Jesus becomes at once smaller and greater: 1. The nobleman is smaller in his going than in his coming, in that he is humbly satisfied with the healing word of Jesus, and no longer desires that he should go down with him2. He is greater in his going than in his coming, in that he returns full of confidence in the word of Jesus. The majesty in trusting the promise of Christ, the power, out of which the greatness in the confidence of the believer grows. Out of the Amen of Christ the Amen of the believer. The divine education of the sensuous believing of miracles into believing of the word: (1) In this incident, (2) in the church, (3) in the life of the individual Christian.—The health-message of Christ and the health-messenger of the servants; or, how the health-messages of heaven by far precede the health-messages of earth.—The echo of the divine word of Christ: Thy son liveth! in the mouth of the servants: Thy son liveth!—The dull echo of earth, and the clear echo of heaven.—The hard ascent and the glad descent in the journey of the nobleman.—Yesterday at the seventh hour; or, in the proper hour the help comes home with power.—Mark the great hours (of extremity, of prayer, of miraculous help).—Remember those hours, and believe!—The distress of the whole house must become also the faith of the whole (this maybe said of the family, of the church, of mankind).—The faith wrought by the miracle at the moment must make itself good in the moral expansion of faith1. Through the whole life, 2. Through the whole house.—How the sickness of a child may become the salvation of a whole house; may, under His management, serve to glorify the Lord.—The connection between the faith of the father and the germ of faith in the heart of the child.—He prayed for the healing of his child, and obtained healing for himself and his whole house.—The Lord comes announced by the forerunning miraculous help.—The healing work of Christ in His presence and at a distance: (1) At a distance even when it is in His presence; (2) in His presence even when it is at a distance (susceptible hearts are near to Him, and He is near to them).—Jesus always peculiarly rich when He comes from Judea to Galilee: 1. From enemies to friends; 2. From the great to the small; 3. From the proud to the poor.

Starke: The bad manners of men in esteeming nothing which is common and always before their eyes, but highly esteeming what is strange and rare.—Every one is bound, indeed, to serve his own country; but if his own country despise him, any place which receives him is his country.—Hedinger: Jesus comes again (when He has once retired apparently in vexation).—God has a holy seed even among the great. All men, whatever their station, are subject to need and sickness.—The same: Trouble gives feet, humbles pride, teaches prayer.—Lange: To seek Jesus under special distress is indeed good and needful, but it is better that one should not wait so long, but knowing his sin and misery should in spirit be near to Jesus.—Osiander: Parents should interest themselves both bodily and spiritually for their children.—The bodily sickness of children troubles Christian “parents; what an affliction, when-they lie sick in soul! Christ comes always at the right time with His help.—Bibl. Wirt.: Christ rejects not those who are weak in faith, but takes pains, that their faith may grow.—Nova Bibl. Tub.: Faith is [seems] shameless and cannot be rebuffed.—Osiander: It is well to persevere in prayer, but not prescribe the manner or time of help.—Faith has not only grand, but also swift results: almost every hour some form of divine help meets the believer.—As the master, so the servant; good governing makes good domestics.—Canstein: When we duly reflect, not an hour passes in which God does not show us good.—Osiander: Christ’s followers must not be weary of wandering far on earth and doing good in all places.—The more a country has seen and heard of Christ, the heavier judgment will it receive, if it believe not.—Rieger: Much of the teaching and wholesome direction of God comes to us through our children, and what concerns their life and death, their success and hindrances, goes to our heart.—All depends on whether a man will.

Besser: It is a wonderfully beautiful example of growing faith, that we have in this nobleman. Methinks John expresses his own joyful surprise, when he pictures to us the suddenly stilled and satisfied man: The man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way.

Heubner: By the sickness of children God disciplines the parents themselves.—Though he was at the court of Herod (at least as a servant), yet he went to Jesus.—Domestic troubles should drive us to Jesus.—The true sense is: Except ye see signs and wonders. The emphasis lies on see [yet τέρατα also is not unmeaning].—There is a secret inclination [a universal passion of the world] for miracles: 1. Desire for special extraordinary fortune to befall us, while we do not exert ourselves to obtain that which satisfies2. Waiting for extraordinary help in exigency, when we will not earnestly use the right means3. Desire for extraordinary fruits of our labor, when we will not sow, hoping in faith4. Desire of extraordinary violent assistance when we wish to get rid of faults, while we ourselves do not lift a hand5. Desire or expectation of honor, etc., while yet we have done or sacrificed nothing at all for the glory of God.—The word of Jesus holds good for us in every conflict and every strait; Go thy way, and believe!—Hours of deliverance in human life.—The more thou searchest, the more plain will the moments of the divine deliverance be to thee.—And he believed. This faith was more than the preceding; it attained to faith in Jesus the Saviour.—This faith was the fruit of trial. For this God sends distress.—The Christian father, as priest in his own house.—(Whitefield): The head of a family has three offices (prophet, priest, king: “the last he does not so easily forget”).—The nobleman as an example of gradual progress in faith.

Draeseke: The new house: 1. It has a now attitude outwardly2. It has a new manner of spirit. (These two are reversible).—Greiling: To our sufferings we owe the most precious experiences of our life.—Goldhorn: Consolatory reflections on the moral influence of sickness.—Grueneisen: Concerning the growth of faith: 1. Need is its rise; bodily need, less than spiritual2. Trust is its second stage; and it must be directed less to the bodily than to the spiritual3. Experience is the third stage; experience more of spiritual than of bodily help.—Kniewel: The three stages of faith: 1. Its childhood, the stage of seeking miracle2. Its youth, the stage of receiving miracle3. Its manhood, the stage of the power of miracle.—Reinhard: How weighty should be to us the thought, that distress is often our guide to truth.—Schulz: How trial and trouble lead men to the fellowship of Jesus Christ.—Bachmann: The Christian calls the Saviour to his sick: 1. He calls Him2. In due time3. In the right spirit4. With the most blessed result.—Lisco: The house of the Christian, when God visits it with trouble: The trouble (1) unites the members in tenderer love, (2) directs their hearts more trustfully to the Lord, (3) awakens them to importunate prayer and intercession, (4) produces at last a joyful and thankful faith.—Kaempfe: The humility and the persistence of the nobleman.—Ahlfeld: The blessing of trial.—Beck: The exigence, the test, the victory, of faith.—Rautenberg: The hard condition of the Christian at the sick-bed of his darlings.

[Alford: This miracle is a notable instance of our Lord “not quenching the smoking flax,” just as His reproof of the Samaritan woman was of His “not breaking the bruised reed.” The little spark of faith in the breast of this nobleman is by Him lit up into a clear and enduring flame for the light and comfort of himself and his house.—Wordsworth: Our Lord would not go down at the desire of the nobleman to heal his son, but He offered to go down to heal the servant of the centurion ( Matthew 8:7). He thus teaches us, that what is lofty in man’s sight, is low in His eyes, and the reverse.—There are degrees in faith ( John 4:53) as in other virtues.—Ryle: The lessons of this miracle: 1. The rich have afflictions as well as the poor2. Sickness and death come to the young as well as the old3. What benefits affliction can confer on the soul4. Christ’s word is as good as Christ’s presence.—P. S.]