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 many sufferers who will follow the invitation. And ever, if there were one who, although aware that from this inviter no actual worldly help was to be expected, nevertheless had sought refuge with him, touched by his compassion: now even he will flee from him. For is it not almost a bit of sharp practice to profess to be here out of compassion, and then to speak about sin?

Indeed, it is a piece of cunning, unless you are altogether certain that you are a sinner. If it is tooth‑ache which bothers you, or if your house is burned to the ground, but if it has escaped you that you are a sinner why, then it was cunning on his part. It is a bit of sharp practice of him to assert: "I heal all manner of disease," in order to say, when one approaches him: "the fact is, I recognize only one disease, which is sin of that I shall cure all them 'that labor and are heavy laden,' all them that labor to work themselves free of the power of sin, that labor to resist the evil, and to vanquish their weakness, but succeed only in being laden." Of this malady he cures "all" persons; even if there were but a single one who turned to him because of this malady: he heals all persons. But to come to him on account of any other disease, and only because of that, is about as useful as to look up an eye‑doctor when you have fractured your leg.

Christianity as the Absolute: Contemporaneousness with Christ
With its invitation to all "that labor and are heavy laden" Christianity has entered the world, not as the clergy whimperingly and falsely introduce it as a shining paragon of mild grounds of consolation; but as the absolute. God wills it so because of His love, but it is God who wills it, and He wills it as He wills it. He does not choose to have His nature changed by man and become a nice, that is to say, humane, God; but He chooses to change the nature of man because of His love for them. Neither does He care to hear any human impertinence concerning the why and wherefore of Christianity, and why it entered the world: