Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/214

 life of the soul. The issue of blood is named to denote a perversion and profanation of that life from God, which was given to circulate within, and not to pass out as a thing of naught. The afflicted woman was an emblem of the church, which, when the Lord appeared in the flesh, was thus diseased: her members, by traditions, had made the Word of God of noneffect, and forgetting the weightier matters of the law of life, they made religion to consist of ceremonies; while pretended sanctity, like whited sepulchres, hid the uncleanness within. There is no remedy for this evil but a heart-desire to touch the garments of Jesus. As Jesus is the Word made flesh, so by his garments are meant the truths of that Word; these, as garments, invest the body. To touch the Lord's garments is to have communication with these truths, and thence to receive them into the life and practice; for truth known and not applied to life, tends but to condemn. Upon the touch of the woman, Jesus perceived virtue to go out of him; this instructs us that the motives of all are known to the Lord. Wherever there is a desire for truth, God is present to give. There is instantly communication with him and renovation of mind; for the touch of Jesus, or of his garments, is life. If we have a heart-desire to touch the garments of Jesus, or to have communication and conjunction with him by his truth, that desire will lead us at once to apply the truth to life. Jesus will then work in us both to will and to do; for as God is Love, so Love, working, is regeneration's process, the disturber of which is our own self-love. When we are healed of our evils of profanation and perversion, we shall hear the voice of Jesus saying to each, as he said to the