From Sermon LXIX in Sermons on New Testament Lessons:
7. I am treating of the Word, and perchance the word of men may furnish
somewhat like; though very unequal, far distant, in no comparable, yet
something which may convey a hint to you by way of resemblance. Lo, the
word which I am speaking to you, I have had previously in my heart: it
came forth to thee, yet it has not departed from me; that began to be in
thee, which was not in thee; it continued with me when it went forth to
thee. As then my word was brought forth to thy sense, yet did not depart
from my heart; so That Word came forth to our senses, yet departed not
from His Father. My word was with me, and it came forth into a voice: the
Word of God was with the Father, and came forth into Flesh. But can I do
with my voice that which He could do with His Flesh? For I am not master
of my voice as it flies; He is not only master of His Flesh, that It should
be born, live, act; but even when dead He raised It up, and exalted unto
the Father the Vehicle as it were in which He came forth to us. You may
call the Flesh of Christ a Garment, you may call It a Vehicle, and as perchance
Himself vouchsafed to teach us, you may call It His Beast; for on this
beast He raised him who had been wounded by robbers; lastly, as He said
Himself more expressly, you may call It a Temple; This Temple knows death
no more, Its seat is at the right Hand of the Father: in This Temple shall
He come to judge the quick and dead. What He hath by precept taught, He
hath by example manifested. What He hath in His own Flesh shown, that oughtest
thou to hope for in thy flesh. This is faith; hold fast what as yet thou
seest not. Need there is, that by believing thou abide firm in that thou
seest not; lest when thou shalt see, thou be put to shame.
From Sermon LXXXI in Sermons on New Testament Lessons:
"By grace are we saved, not of ourselves, but it is the gift of God."
6. Peradventure ye are saying, "What does he mean, that he is so often
saying this? A second and a third time he says it; and scarcely ever speaks,
but when he says it." Would that I may not say it in vain! For men there
are unthankful to grace, attributing much to poor and disabled nature.
True it is, when man was created he received great power of free-will;
but he lost it by sin. He fell into death, became infirm, was left in the
way by the robbers half dead; the Samaritan, which is by interpretation
keeper, passing by lifted him up on his own beast; he is still being brought
to the inn. Why is he lifted up? He is still in process of curing. "But,"
he will say, "it is enough for me that in baptism I received remission
of all sins." Because iniquity was blotted out, was therefore infirmity
brought to an end? "I received," says he, "remission of all sins." It is
quite true. All sins were blotted out in the Sacrament of Baptism, all
entirely, of words, deeds, thoughts, all were blotted out. But this is
the "oil and wine" which was poured in by the way. Ye remember, beloved
Brethren, that man who was wounded by the robbers, and half dead by the
way, how he was strengthened, by receiving oil and wine for his wounds.
His error indeed was already pardoned, and yet his weakness is in process
of healing in the inn. The inn, if ye recognise it, is the Church. In the
time present, an inn, because in life we are passing by: it will be a home,
whence we shall never remove, when we shall have got in perfect health
unto the kingdom of heaven. Meanwhile receive we gladly our treatment in
the inn, and weak as we still are, glory we not of sound health: lest through
our pride we gain nothing else, but never for all our treatment to be cured.
Chapter LXXIII of Book II in the Harmony of the Gospels
Chapter LXXIII.-Of the Person to Whom the Two Precepts Concerning
the Love of God and the Love of Our Neighbour Were Commended; And of the
Question as to the Order of Narration Which is Observed by Matthew and
Mark, and the Absence of Any Discrepancy Between Them and Luke.
141. Matthew then proceeds with his narrative in the following terms:
"But when the Pharisees had heard that He had put the Sadducees to silence,
they were gathered together. And one of them, which was a lawyer, asked
Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment
in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law
and the prophets." This is recorded also by Mark, and that too in the same
order. Neither should there be any difficulty in the statement made by
Matthew, to the effect that the person by whom the question was put to
the Lord tempted Him; whereas Mark says nothing about that, but tells us
at the end of the paragraph how the Lord said to the man, as to one who
answered discreetly, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." For it
is quite possible that, although the man approached Him with the view of
tempting Him, he may have been set right by the Lord's response. Or we
need not at any rate take the tempting referred to in a bad sense, as if
it were the device of one who sought to deceive an adversary; but we may
rather suppose it to have been the result of caution, as if it were the
act of one who wished to have further trial of a person who was unknown
to him. For it is not without a good purpose that this sentence has been
written, "He that is hasty to give credit is light-minded, and shall be
impaired."
142. Luke, on the other hand, not indeed in this order, but in a widely
different connection, introduces something which resembles this.
But whether in that passage he is actually recording this same incident,
or whether the person with whom the Lord [is represented to have] dealt
in a similar manner there on the subject of those two commandments is quite
another individual, is altogether uncertain. At the same time, it may appear
right to regard the person who is introduced by Luke as a different individual
from the one before us here, not only on the ground of the remarkable divergence
in the order of narration, but also because he is there reported to have
replied to a question which was addressed to him by the Lord, and in that
reply to have himself mentioned those two precepts. The same opinion is
further confirmed by the fact that, after telling us how the Lord said
to him, "This do, and thou shall live,"-thus instructing him to do that
great thing which, according to his own answer, was contained in the law,-the
evangelist follows up what had passed with the statement, "But he, willing
to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?" Thereupon,
too [according to Luke], the Lord told the story of the man who was going
down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers. Consequently, considering
that this individual is described at the outset as tempting Christ, and
is represented to have repeated the two commandments in his reply; and
considering, further, that after the counsel which was given by the Lord
in the words, "This do, and thou shalt live," he is not commended as good,
but, on the contrary, has this said of him, "But he, willing to justify
himself," etc., whereas the person who is mentioned in parallel order both
by Mark and by Luke received a commendation so marked, that the Lord spake
to him in these terms, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God,"-the
more probable view is that which takes the person who appears on that occasion
to be a different individual from the man who comes before us here.
