Drihten cwæð to þam hundredes ealdre, "Far ðe hám, and getimige ðe swa swa ðu gelyfdest; and his cniht wearð gehæled of ðære tide." Be ðisum is to understandenne hu micclum þam cristenum men his agen geleafa fremige, þonne oðres mannes swa micclum fremode. Witodlice, for ðæs {134} hundredes ealdres geleafan wearð se bedreda gehæled. Geleafa is ealra mægena fyrmest; buton þam ne mæg nán man Gode lician; and se rihtwisa leofað be his geleafan. Uton gelyfan on þa Halgan Ðrynnysse, and on soðe Annysse, þæt se Ælmihtiga Fæder, and his Sunu, þæt is his wisdom, and se Halga Gast, seðe is heora begra lufu and willa, þæt hí sind þry on hadum and on namum, and án God, on ánre godcundnysse æfre wunigende, butan angynne and ende. Amen. THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE LORD'S EPIPHANY. Cum descendisset Jesus de monte secutæ sunt eum turbæ multæ: et reliqua. Matthew, the blessed Evangelist, wrote in this evangelical lecture, that "Jesus came down from a mountain, and a great multitude followed him. Behold, there came a leprous man, and fell down before Jesus, thus saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst cleanse me. Jesus stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and said, I will; and be thou cleansed. Then immediately was his leprosy all cleansed, and he was healed. Then said Jesus to him, Take care that thou say it to no man; but go to God's temple, and show thyself to the priest, and offer thy gift, as Moses commanded for a witness to them." The doctor Haymo says in exposition of this, that the mountain from which Jesus descended betokened the kingdom of heaven, from which the Almighty Son of God came down, when he assumed our nature, and became incarnate as a human being, in order that he might redeem mankind from the power of the devil. He was invisible and impassible in his nature; then he became visible in our nature, and passible. The great multitude which followed him betokened those faithful christians, who follow the Lord with the steps of their moral virtues. Verily we follow Christ's foot-traces, if, with good works, we imitate his examples. "Behold, there came a leprous man, and fell down before Jesus, thus saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst cleanse me. Jesus {123} stretched forth his hand, and touched him, and said, I will; and be thou cleansed. Then immediately was his leprosy all cleansed, and he was healed."