John Hooper was Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester in the mid 16th century. When plague struck, Hooper wrote a sermon to be read in all Churches in his Diocese… It makes hair-raising reading.
He begins by pointing out that just as we are ‘blind and unthankful’ for God’s favour and mercy when we are enjoying health, peace and prosperity, so we are ‘blind and insensible’ of His justice when He ‘punishes us in sickness’. We tend to think only of the way in which a pandemic affect people in this age. Hooper challenges us to think about the eternal implications of widespread sickness and death. Against that backdrop, Hooper charges his clergy - as watchmen - to explain what God is doing in times of ‘plague’. To help them in this duty, Hooper has written this sermon, based on Mk.1:15, ‘Repent and believe the Gospel’.
What, he asks, is the ‘chief cause of the pestilence’? We’ll need to understnad this before we can apply a sufficient rememdy. We must consult physicians if we are to understand the physical dimensions of this question, but we must consult the Physician of our souls if we are to appreciate the whole of the sickness we face. For that we will need the counsel of God’s Word.
Hooper is unambiguous and unapologetic: ‘The chief causes of all plagues and sicknesses, is sin’. He isn’t suggesting a strict cause and effect in terms of any individual’s expereince. He isn’t saying that only the sinful get sick (as if those who don’t get aren’t sinful), but at a more general level - there is sickness in the world because of human sin. Death came into the world through sin (Rom.5:12), and it because of sin int he world that ‘God sends the plague of pestilence and all other diseases that punish towards death’.
Plague and pestilence however is not beyond the providence of God, and as such ‘the people [must] understand both the cause of this plague fom God … and how to [respond to] the time of sickness, or any other disaster that shall happen to them by God’s appointment, as God may be glorified in them’. By the same teaching, those who are ill, and who are dying, may be ‘assured through true and godly doctrine to die in the Lord, and so be eternally blessed’. Such a diagnosis will be as shocking to our modern sensiblities as it would have been to Hooper’s original congregations (and probably some of the clergy being asked to read this sermon in their pulpits), but in defense Hooper cites Ps.39 & Dt.28.
Hooper goes on to argue that we need a rememdy that will deal with every aspect of our suffering. There are both physical and spiritual causes for a plague. ‘…the principal cause of pestilence is contempt for God’s word’. Clergy and Magistrates (i.e. civil authorities) both must ensure that they teach and minister in ‘the true knowledge and obedience of God’s laws…’; and we all have a responsiblity to ensure that we have ‘true, loving, faithful, trusting and obedient hearts’. If we disobey the Law of God, Hooper warns, ‘the plague will not cease … no matter what defence man (sic) makes against it’. Many medicines are devised and we should both give thanks for them, and take advantage of them, inasmuch as sin is also the cause of pestilence, we should equally avoid and shun it in all its forms.
This shunning and avoidance of sin is what is meant by the word ‘repentance’. This is the ‘medicine of Christ’, and should be taken alongside the medicines offered by doctors. ‘We must by God’s wisdom, God’s word and his most true religion amend our faults and turn to true and godly honouring of Him’. Until we acknowledge that we have turned away from the truth of God to the error and opinions of mere mortals, we will not have the healing that God’s pestilence would lead us to. We are too accustomed to doing evil, and too ignorant of God’s ways, and the only remedy is ‘the right understanding of God’s Word’.
‘Repentance that God requires ist he return of the sinner from sin into a new life in Christ … and springs from the knowledge of sin by the Law of God. From such knowledge comes hatred of sin. From the hatred of sin proceeds the leaving and departure from sin. From the departure from sin comes, by faith through Christ’s blood, remission for sin’.
‘This medicine of repentance consists in these parts: first in knowledge of sin; then in hatred of it; thirdly in forsaking of sin; fourhtly in beleiving the forgivenss of sins for Christ’s sake; and fifthly to live a virtuous and godly life, to honour God and to show obedience to God’s Law…’.
Hooper closes his sermon with a call to evangelism.
‘Now that it pleases God for our offences to show by plagues and sickness how He is offended, let us all … call upong them diligently to repent and beleive the Gospel, and to live a godly and virtuous life, that for Christ’s sake he will turn mercifully his plagues from us…’.
The full transcript of this sermon can be found in ‘Godly directions in a time of plague’ ed. Matthew & Therese McMahon, pub Puritan Publications (pp.11-32)