Tuesday 16 December 2014

Why God sends sickness?

Below is one of answers given in the 1549 Prayer Book of the Church of England. After reading it, you'll see why officials (cowardly/unwisely) decided to remove it in later editions of the PB.

First, being assured that “Almighty God is the Lord of life and death, and of all things to them pertaining,” such as “youth, strength, health, age, weakness, and sickness,” the sick person is urged to know “certainly” that “whatsoever your sickness be…it is God’s visitation.” There are, moreover, at least two possible reasons for which God has sent this sickness. It is either a trial of the sick person’s patience, both for the example of others and that the individual’s faith “may be found, in the day of the Lord, laudable, glorious, and honourable, to the increase of glory and endless felicity.” Or it is sent “to correct and amend in you whatsoever doth offend the eyes of your heavenly Father.” If, therefore, the sick person truly repents of his sins, bears the sickness patiently (“trusting in God’s mercy”), renders to God “humble thanks for his fatherly visitation,” and submits himself wholly to God’s will, then his sickness shall turn to his profit, and help him forward in “the right way that leadeth unto everlasting life.”

It's things like that, which make clear why ministers must be *men*.


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