did. You remember how there crop up, here and there, in the
Gospels, general _resumes_ of our Lord's work, of such a kind as
this:--'And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,
and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all manner of
sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And they brought
unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and
torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which
were lunatic, and those that had the palsy and He healed them.' Or,
again:--'And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of
Galilee, and went up into a mountain, and sat down there. And great
multitudes came unto Him, having those that were lame, blind, dumb,
maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He
healed them.' Now these are but specimens of the occasional
generalisations which we find in the Gospels, which warrant us in saying
that, according to the New Testament record, Christ's works of healing
were to be numbered, not by tens, but by hundreds, and perhaps by
thousands.

That is the first fact calling for notice. The words of our text suggest
a second thought as to the cost at which these cures were wrought.
'Himself took and bare' does not mean only 'took away.' It includes
that, as a consequence, but it points to something before the removal of
the sicknesses. It points to the fact that Christ in some real sense
endured the loads which He removed. Of course, His cross is the highest
exemplification of the great law which runs through His whole life, that
He identifies Himself with all the evil which He takes away, and is able
to take it away only because He identifies Himself with it. But whilst
the cross is the highest exemplification of this, every miracle of mercy
which He wrought is an illustration of the same principle in its
appropriate fashion, and upon a lower level. And although we cannot say
that the physical sufferings which He alleviated were physically laid
upon Him, yet we can say that He so identified Himself with all
sufferers by His swift sympathy as that He bore, and therefore bore
away, the diseases as well as the sins of the men for whose healing He
lived, and for whose redemption He died.

The proof of this crops up now and then. What did it mean that, when He
stood beside one poor sufferer, before He could utter from His
authoritative lips the divine word of power, 'Ephphatha, be opened,'