Christian healing

“ To the Christian, it is less to heal disease, which is a mere consequence, than sin, which is the source of all our woes. To the power of Jesus they were alike, and connected with each other [pg 051] as the symptom and the true disease. In truth, all the compassion which blesses our daily life is a pledge of grace; and He Who healeth all our diseases forgiveth also all our iniquities. But since healing was the severer test in their reckoning, Jesus does not evade it. He restores the palsied man to health, that they might know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins. ”

“ THE MIRACLES OF CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES
We find that in comparison with the Mormons, Spiritualists, Mind-Curers, Roman Catholics, and Magnetizers, the Protestant Faith-Healers can accomplish as much, but no more; that they have the same limitations as to diseases they cannot heal, and injuries they cannot repair; as to particular cases of diseases that they can generally cure, but which occasionally defy them; and as to their liability to relapses. ”

“ Theology and physics teach that both Spirit and matter are real and good, whereas the fact is that Spirit is good and real, and matter is Spirit's opposite. The question, What is Truth, is answered by demonstration, — by healing both disease and sin; and this demonstration shows that Christian healing confers the most health and makes the best men. On this basis Christian Science will have a fair fight. Sickness has been combated for centuries by doctors using material remedies ”

“ At no distant day, Christian healing will rank far in advance of allopathy and homœopathy; for Truth must ultimately succeed where error fails.
Mind governs all. That we exist in God, perfect, there is no doubt, for the conceptions of Life, Truth, and Love must be perfect; and with that basic truth we conquer sickness, sin, and death. Frequently it requires time to overcome the patient's faith in drugs and material hygiene; but when once convinced of the uselessness of such material methods, the gain is rapid. ”

“ Shortly before the beginning of the Christian era there were some indications that healing was to be freed from the bondage of religion, but the influence of Jesus' healing upon Christians, and the overwhelming influence of Christianity upon the whole world, delayed this movement, so that it did not again become prominent until the sixteenth 5 century. About this time, when therapeutics as a science began to shake off the shackles of religion and superstition, another startling innovation was noticeable, viz., the division of mental healing into religious and non-religious healing. ”

“ We find in this view of the Bible the power fully developed to heal the sick. It is not faith-cure, but it is an acknowledgment of certain Christian and scientific laws, and to work a cure the practitioner must understand these laws aright. The patient may gain a better understanding than the Church has had in the past. All churches have prayed for the cure of disease, but they have not done so in an intelligent manner, understanding and demonstrating the Christ-healing. ”

“ The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master's first article of faith propounded to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why How healing was lost has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed. ”

“ The demonstration which Jesus gave of Truth and Love, by casting out error and healing the sick, completed Healing lost. his earthly mission; but in the Christian Church this demonstration of healing was early lost, about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient school of philosophy ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of Truth and Love. ”

“ I have seen subjects of spiritualist healers, mesmeric and magnetic healers, Roman Catholic and Russo-Greek miracles, and of the most conspicuous "faith-healers" and "mind-curers" in this country, and find no reason to believe that one has been more or less successful than others.
A very important question is whether their limitations are the same. The limitations must have respect to what and how they heal, and the permanence of the cure. ”

“ Gifts of Healing were extremely common, not only in S. Paul's time, but, as is illustrated in Justin Martyr's list, in the next century also, and indeed throughout Christian history, down to our own day, as I have shown elsewhere. It is the power of curing diseases of the body through the spiritual agency of the mind. ”

“ A variety of faith-healing has been practiced in the Roman Catholic Church for hundreds of years. There is plenty of testimony, as good as the Christian Scientists can furnish, that persons have been healed by the aid of the prayers of priests and bishops, by touching the bones or other relics of saints, or by bathing in the water of sacred springs. ”

“ Do you believe, then, that your soul is receiving healing at Christ’s hand from the eternal wounds which with men are incurable, the wounds of the passions of sin, for the sake of which healing the Lord also came hither, that He might now cure the souls of the faithful of those incurable wounds, and cleanse them from the foulness of the leprosy of evil,—He, the only true physician and healer? ”

“ To another is given, by the Spirit, the gift of healing. Some may say that the gift of healing was only intended for ancient times, to establish the Gospel; that the people in those days needed some miraculous power and evidence to convince them of the truth of the Gospel; but I find that the gift of healing was given for the benefit of all who had faith to be healed. This was the way that the Lord administered in ancient times, and there is just as much necessity in our day that the sick should be healed, as there was eighteen centuries ago ”

“ It is but fair to presume from the accounts that we have that in the early Church of the Disciples, and for well on to two hundred years after Jesus' time, the healing of the sick and the afflicted went hand in hand with the preaching and the teaching of the Kingdom. There are those who believe that it never should have been abandoned. As a well-known writer has said: "Healing is the outward and practical attestation of the power and genuineness of spiritual religion, and ought not to have dropped out of the Church." ”

“ There is healing in Christ for all that need it, whether for soul or body. Christ hath still a power over bodily diseases, and heals his people that need healing. Sometimes he sees that we need the sickness for the good of our souls, more than the healing for the ease of our bodies, and then we must be willing for a season, because there is need, to be in heaviness; but, when he sees that we need healing, we shall have it. Death is his servant, to heal the saints of all diseases. ”

“ If I were healed, I might not keep saved." My brother showed me that God was just as willing to heal me as he was to heal anybody else, and that it was both my duty and privilege to trust God for my healing. "Look over your consecration," said he "and see if you are willing to be healed for God's glory alone."
I thought the matter over for some days. One day I prayed for my healing until I thought I could claim it by faith; but I soon found that the work was not done. Upon waking a few mornings later, I said to myself, "I am going to let the Lord heal me today if he will." ”

“ Christianity, but from a desire thoroughly to examine the facts, would say that even those who are engaged in the healing of numbers of sick persons, do not attain their object—the cure of the body—without divine help ”

“ Whether the disease be light or severe, whether there be a contact of bodies or not, whether a personal connection be established between the sick person and the healer or not, this healing takes place through the power of the Holy Spirit. ”

“ Jesus was wooing men to accept King and kingdom. To-day, as in all Church time, bodily healing is a privilege for those who can take it, and a gift for the rare few who can be entrusted with it. In these Gospel pages it was freely bestowed on multitudes, and the gift exercised with power by many. ”

“ Does not your conscience tell you that you have been wounded by sin? Now, let me tell you how you may find healing.
And, first, you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; you must believe that he died for sinners, and that he is willing to save all who ask him for pardon and mercy.
Then you must be sorry for and leave off your sins, praying to God to help you to amend. A child who says that he repents, and then goes and sins just as readily as before, is like a wounded man who, when the surgeon has dressed the injured place, tears off the bandage and will not let it heal. ”

“ Our faith, repentance and baptism bring us to Christ; then He, as the Great Physician, heals our sin-sick soul. There is no healing virtue in these things that bring us to Him; but they are conditions of our healing because they are means of our reaching the Physician.
The remedy for sin is the Physician's own blood. That is the only thing in the universe of God that can heal the disease of sin, and remove the ruinous consequences. "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses from all sin." The blood of animal sacrifices could not take away sin. ”

“ Thus there are limitations to the field of operation of Spiritual Healing.
In view, however, of the hopes raised amongst many good Christians that the Church may take part once more in healing the sick, everyone would wish to avoid offending the susceptibilities of enthusiastic and religious people. Still it is by members of the Church that the question of Spiritual Healing has been brought forward, so that it should be for the Church to define her meaning and wishes. In the nature of things it seems impossible to define ‘Spirit’ ”

“ The pains of sinful sense are less harmful than its pleasures. Belief in material suffering causes mortals to retreat from their error, to flee from body to Spirit, and to appeal to divine sources outside of themselves.
The Bible contains the recipe for all healing. “The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The leaves of healing Sin and sickness are both healed by the same Principle. The tree is typical of man's divine Principle, which is equal to every emergency, offering full salvation from sin, sickness, and death. ”

“ The word is enough; but here the word is spoken, not as if to the disease, but to the sufferer; and in His obedience he receives strength to obey. Tell a palsied man to rise and walk when his disease is that he cannot! But if he believes that Christ has power to heal, he will try to do as he is bid; and, as he tries, the paralysis steals out of the long-unused limbs. Jesus makes us able to do what He bids us do. The condition of healing is faith, and the test of faith is obedience. We do not get strength till we put ourselves into the attitude of obedience. The cure was immediate ”

“ To meet this difficulty, it will be well that prayer for our own relief should be as much as possible silent prayer. We shall285 concentrate our attention on God’s love and power, as revealed in Christ, just spread out our trouble before Him, and resolve to trust Him to the uttermost. The suggestion thus conveyed to our own subconscious life will be charged with God’s grace; if physical healing results, the restored health will be transformed by dedication to God’s service ”

“ All true healing comes from God! There are two causes for sickness, one is material, the other spiritual. If the sickness is of the body, a material remedy is needed, if of the soul, a spiritual remedy.
If the heavenly benediction be upon us while we are being healed then only can we be made whole, for medicine is but the outward and visible means through which we obtain the heavenly healing. Unless the spirit be healed, the cure of the body is worth nothing. All is in the hands of God, and without Him there can be no health in us! ”

“ In this matter of healing, then, as in all the miracles, we find Jesus doing the works of the Father. God is our Saviour: the Son of God comes healing the sick—doing that, I repeat, before our eyes, which the Father, for his own reasons, some of which I think I can see well enough, does from behind the veil of his creation and its laws. The cure comes by law, comes by the physician who brings the law to bear upon us ”

“ We know well how many cases there are in our various hospitals and infirmaries, that have baffled all the skill of diagnosis and treatment that has been vouched to the world up to the present time. Is it rational to believe that such cases will be healed by a glance, or a touch, or a word of any merely human person, however holy, who is manifestly ignorant of any ordinary scientific knowledge? No, Spiritual Healing as a cult, as a part of the sacramental life of the Church, will cease to exist, but all that has come out of it will be quickened and strengthened. ”

“ Faith healing still played a large part in the cure of Middle Age maladies, and so deeply-rooted was the idea that prayer and intercession, combined with a concoction of herbs from the monastery gardens, would heal the sick, that it was deemed a want of faith to employ other remedies. "It is better," they said, "to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men," a beneficial reflection, when one considers for a moment what the "hands of men" meant. ”