For I was hungry, and you gave me no food: I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink:
Read Chapter 25
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Gave me not. Jesus Christ chargeth them not here with a want of faith, but with a want of good works. They certainly believed, but they attended not to good works; as if a dead faith, i.e. a faith not working by charity, could bring them to heaven. (St. Augustine, de fideoper. chap. xv. and ad Dulcit. q. 2. ad 4.)
Jesus Christ suffers his members to want, in mercy to them, and to afford others an opportunity of shewing their love for him, and of redeeming their sins by alms-deeds, as was said to the king of the Chaldeans, peccata tua eleemosynis redime. (Daniel iv.)
For though He that came to you had been your enemy, were not His sufferings enough to have overcome and subdued even the merciless? Hunger, and cold, and bonds, and nakedness, and sickness, and to wander everywhere houseless? These things are sufficient even to destroy enmity. But you did not do these things even to a friend, being at once friend, and benefactor, and Lord. Though it be a dog we see hungry, often we are overcome; and though we behold a wild beast, we are subdued; but seeing the Lord, are you not subdued? And wherein are these things worthy of defense?
For if it were this only, were it not sufficient for a recompense? (I speak not of hearing such a voice, in the presence of the world, from Him that sits on the Father's throne, and of obtaining the kingdom), but were not the very doing it sufficient for a reward? But now even in the presence of the world, and at the appearing of that unspeakable glory, He proclaims and crowns you, and acknowledges you as His sustainer ...
