Sermons on Sickness Sorrow and Death Author:Edward Berens Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SERMON III. CARE OF THE SICK. Matt. xxv. 86. I was sick, and ye visited me. AMONG the several offices of Christian charity, the performance or the negl... more »ect of which is represented by our Lord as influencing the sentence to be passed on each of us at the day of judgment, we find a place assigned to attention to the wants and sufferings of the sick. " I was sick, and ye visited me." The state of sickness has a just claim to compassion, in whatever rank of life, and in whatever outward circumstances, the sick man may be. If he is possessedof this world's riches, he certainly is enabled by them to procure many external comforts and accommodations, and to purchase the attendance and the services, of which he stands in need. But his ease and comfort both of body and mind depend, very materially, upon the manner in which that attendance and those services are fulfilled; and they may even have no inconsiderable influence upon his eternal welfare in the world to come. But when poverty is added to sickness, the condition of the sick person is often pitiable indeed. Perhaps in the days of health he was, by constant labour, but just able to earn a bare subsistence for himself and family. But now sickness has put a stop to his earnings, and so far from being able to procure those little additional comforts which his sickness requires, he is perhaps in want of the necessaries of life. The common feelings of our nature, the sense of our own liability to the like calamity, unite with the precepts and the -whole spirit of our holy religion in calling upon us to do what we can to minister to his comfort,' to alleviate his sufferings, and to assuage his pain and uneasiness. The Scriptures teach us, that, as the Almighty " hath made of one blood all nations of men that dwell o...« less