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THE

HEALING WATERS OF BETHESDA ;

SERMON,

PREACHED AT BUXTON WELLS,

ΤΟ

THE COMPANY ASSEMBLED THERE FOR THE BENEFIT OF

THE MEDICINAL WATERS.

ON WHITSUNDay, June 2, 1811.

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SERMON VIII.

THE

HEALING WATERS OF BETHESDA.

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66

દર

JOHN V. 2, 3, 4.-" There is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-market, a Pool, which is called in the "Hebrew tongue, BETHESDA, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel "went down at a certain season into the pool "and troubled the water; whosoever then, first, after the troubling of the water, step

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ped in, was made whole of whatsoever disease "he had."

I KNOW not any subject contained in the Scriptures, the contemplation of which is better suited to the circumstances of us who are here assembled, than that of the HEALING

4

WATERS of Jerusalem. There are now col. lected here, as formerly at Bethesda," a great "number of infirm persons, of halt and wither"ed," who have come to the healing waters at this place; and who expect a cure, not from the hand of man, but of God.

We have come

to try the efficacy of waters which flow by the divine command; medicinal waters, which owe nothing to human art or power, and whose nature and origin man does not even fully understand.*

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* Buxton is situated on the ridge of that mountainous region commencing in Derbyshire, which extends to the northern extremity of the kingdom, and which has been called by some Geographers the British Appenine. The medicinal well is nearly in the middle of England, and is supposed to be upwards of 1500 feet above the surface of the sea. It further occupies a most interesting situation, as being sur rounded by beds of shells, corals, and other marine products, the remains of the antediluvian world, and indelible testimonies of the truth of the Mosaic Record. The temperature of the air in these regions is always cooler than in the lower countries. There is generally a turbulent atmosphere; but this renders the change of air greater, and more salutary in certain complaints, than in any other part of northern Europe. From vestiges lately discovered, it it ascertained that buildings were erected at the Well of Buxton in the time of the Romans. In the middle ages it acquired the name of St. Ann's Well. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth a Treatise was written on the "Virtues of the Water of Buck-stones, by Dr. Jones of Derby," and it appears at that time (1572) to have been a place of great resort. But it is only within these few years that buildings have been erected for invalids

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