Christ about _our_ right
relations with Him; they tell _us_, from Him, that it is His will that
we too, as His, should form our hopes and plans "in Him," in conscious
recollection of our being His members.

St Paul speaks again of his human sensibilities. He tells us of his
sorrows, and his longings for encouragement, and his thankfulness that
an aggravation of trial, "sorrow upon sorrow," has been spared him. He
speaks of Epaphroditus, and of his generous carelessness of his own
health and life, and of the illness he had contracted, and of his
merciful recovery, and of his home-sick longing for Philippi, and of
his "bewilderment" of regret as he thinks of the Philippians' anxiety
about him. All this is quite as naturally and "humanly" conceived and
written on St Paul's part as anything that I or my reader ever wrote
about joys and griefs, our own or of our friends. But not one whit the
less is this all a message, an oracle, from our Lord Jesus Christ, in a
sense in which no letter of ours could possibly be such. For it is a
"Scripture." And so it tells me _from above_ that the free and loving
exercise of human sympathies is entirely according to the will of God;
that human tears and longings are in perfect harmony with holiness. It
assures me that from one point of view it is right to speak of the
prolongation of the believer's life as a "mercy," even though "to
depart is to be with Christ, which is far better." It assures me, let
me notice by the way, that bodily sickness is not by any means
necessarily a direct result or index of sinfulness in the sufferer.
There are those who think and say that it is. But this is not the view
of the "chosen vessel." He sees no sin in Epaphroditus' "falling ill,
nigh unto death," "drawing near, up to death." It is for him only an
occasion for fresh gratitude and affection towards the sufferer, and
for deep thanksgivings to Him who in His mercy has granted the
recovery. All this is not only an experience, recorded with beautiful
naturalness; it is a revelation, an oracle. We learn by it, as by the
voice of Christ, that although "He took our infirmities and bare our
sicknesses," His servants do not therefore of necessity fail in either
faith or love when they suffer "in this tabernacle," and "groan, being
burthened." Let them look indeed with great simplicity, in humble
faith, for the healing power of their Lord, whether or not it may
please Him to apply it through human