I. Sickness, in common with all our ills, is a solemn witness to the existence of sin. If we trace it back to its first cause, we shall find it to have originated in "the transgression of the law." It would be contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the gospel to see in each sickness the direct result of a particular sin. Yet cases of this kind are not so rare as we suppose. Many men, even professing Christians, suffer in consequence of sins known only to God and to themselves; secret luxuries and excesses, or a trifling, perhaps half unconscious, with some of the simplest laws of Nature. Let not this be altogether overlooked. Moreover, whilst we are not at liberty to suppose an immediate connection between some particular sickness and some particular sin, there is a general connection between sin and suffering. There would have been no sickness in the world if there had been no sin. There was none in Eden: there will be none in heaven. Sickness is a witness to the disorder which sin has created. The Christian is a forgiven man, but the secondary consequences of sin remain. In a sinful world, the sins of others react upon him in various ways. He himself, though forgiven, is not yet perfect. There will always be enough of the sense of sin even in the most devout heart, to bend the sufferer in humiliation beneath the thought that in a thousand ways he has deserved the discipline of sorrow. II. Sickness, however, affords equal testimony to the love of God. The Christian has ample reason for knowing that it is a Father's hand that smites, and that the blow is tempered with gentle mercy. We suffer less than many have suffered before: less than many are suffering now. The Old Testament gives us some notable examples of suffering--Job, David, etc.; so also does the New Testament--Paul, for instance. And what were the sufferings of these compared with those of Christ, who wept and bled and died, not for Himself, but for us? In all ages better men than we have suffered more. Consider what we have deserved, and what, but for the mercy of God, we must have had to bear. If the sufferings of life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to follow, neither are they worthy to be compared with the doom which _must_ have followed, if God had not loved us with an infinite and everlasting love. Nor is it beneath the subject to mention the alleviations which are granted to us, and which we must all trace to the Divine Hand--sleep, the suspension of pain, sympathy, and, most of all, the hopes of the gospel. These are common-place considerations, but we must entertain them, if our gratitude and trust are to be strong and simple. But we must enter into particulars a little further for the sake of evolving truth still more immediate and personal.