Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David.—­Matt. xx., 30.

I. Ye know, holy brethren, full well as we do, that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the physician of our eternal health; and that to this end we task the weakness of our natures, that our weakness might not last forever.  For He assumed a mortal body, wherein to kill death.  And, “though He was crucified through weakness,” as the apostle saith, yet He “liveth by the power of God.”  They are the words, too, of the same apostle:  “He dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over Him.”  These things, I say, are well known to your faith.  And there is also this which follows from them, that we should know that all the miracles which He did on the body avail to our instruction, that we may from them perceive that which is not to pass away, nor to have any end.  He restored to the blind those eyes which death was sure some time to close; He raised Lazarus to life who was to die again.  And whatever He did for the health of bodies, He did it not to this end that they should be forever; whereas, at the last, He will give eternal health even to the body itself.  But because those things which were not seen were not believed; by means of those temporal things which were seen, He built up faith in those things which were not seen.

II.  Let no one then, brethren, say that our Lord Jesus Christ doeth not those things now, and on this account prefer the former to the present ages of the Church.  In a certain place, indeed, the same Lord prefers those who do not see and yet believe to them who see and therefore believe.  For even at that time so irresolute was the infirmity of His disciples that they thought that He whom they saw to have risen again must be handled, in order that they might believe.  It was not enough for their eyes that they had seen Him, unless their hands also were applied to His limbs, and the scars of His recent wounds were touched:  that this disciple, who was in doubt, might cry suddenly when he had touched and recognized the scars, “My Lord and my God.”  The scars manifested Him who had healed all wounds in others.  Could not the Lord have risen again without scars?  Yes, but He knew the wounds which were in the hearts of His disciples, and to heal them He had preserved the scars on His own body.  And what said the Lord to him who now confest and said, “My lord, and my God?” “Because thou hast seen,” He said, “thou hast believed; blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed.”  Of whom spake He, brethren, but of us?  Not that He spoke only of us, but of those also who shall come after us.  For a little while when He had departed from the sight of men, that faith might be established in their hearts, whosoever believed, believed tho they saw Him not, and great has been the merit of their faith; for the procuring of which faith they brought only the movement of a pious heart, and not the touching of their hands.