I say unto you, Arise, and take up your bed, and go your way into your house.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
He charged the man to perform an action of which health was the necessary condition, even while the patient was still praying for a remedy for his disease…. It was our Lord’s custom to require of those whom he healed some response or duty to be done. .
"But the good Instructor, the Wisdom, the Word of the Father, who made man, cares for the whole nature of His creature; the all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Saviour, heals both body and soul. "Rise up "He said to the paralytic; "take the bed on which thou liest, and go away home; "
Take up your bed. Carry the very mat that once carried you. Change places, so that what was the proof of your sickness may now give testimony to your soundness. Your bed of pain becomes the sign of healing, its very weight the measure of the strength that has been restored to you. :.
