III. The care of the body is a religious duty.--(_a_) It is so because our spiritual feelings are largely dependent upon the state of our health. "Certain conditions of body undeniably occasion, irritate and inflame those appetites and inclinations which it is one great end of Christianity to repress and regulate." The spirit has sometimes to maintain a terrible struggle against the flesh. Intemperance is largely the result of bad feeding. "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle," than for a dyspeptic person to be gentle, meek, long-suffering. Dark views of God often come from the state of the body. It would largely lift up the moral and spiritual condition of men if their surroundings were such as tended to keep them in health. To improve men's dwellings, to give them healthy homes, pure air to breathe, and pure water to drink, would tend to help them morally and spiritually, (_b_) God requires of us a certain amount of service by and through our bodies. We cannot perform the work if we destroy the machines by which the work is to be done. (_c_) Scripture especially calls us to make the body the object of our reverent care. "Your bodies are members of Christ." The body "is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God." "If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy." Yield "your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Sin is not to "reign in your mortal body." "Glorify God in your body." We are to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service." (_d_) The body is a part of that humanity which Christ by His _incarnation_ took, redeemed, sanctified and glorified. (_e_) Our Lord's miracles were nearly all performed on the human body, for its relief, cure, and restoration to life. IV. To a certain extent our health is in our own hands.--Not altogether, for some are constitutionally defective, and subject to infirmities with which they are born, and which they have perhaps inherited. But a vast amount of disease is preventable, and comes from causes over which we have direct control. "It is reckoned that a hundred thousand persons die annually in England of preventable diseases"--from disobedience to the laws of health, which are God's laws, and the transgression of which, wilfully, is sin. Beyond all doubt a vast amount of sickness comes from bad living, from intemperance in eating and drinking, from breathing bad air, from inhabiting ill-constructed houses. It is possible to live in accordance with the laws of health so that life may be comparatively free from disease and from pain. If Providence denies health, the want of it must be patiently endured. If we have inherited weakness, we must make the most of the strength we have. But if we lack health through our own fault we are guilty of shameful sin.