Doctor of the Church

“ It is only in exceptional cases that the Church gives a public approbation to an individual Theologian, and this is done by canonization or by the still further honour of conferring on him the title of Doctor of the Church. When we speak of an Approved Author, we mean one who is held in general esteem on account of his learning and the Catholic spirit of his teaching. ”

“ On the one hand, in those passages of Scripture which have not as yet received a certain and definitive interpretation, such labors may, in the sweetly ordered providence of God, serve as a preparation for bringing to maturity the judgment of the Church. In passages already defined, a private doctor may do work equally valuable, either by setting them forth more clearly to the commonalty of the faithful, or more learnedly before the learned, or by defending them more powerfully from adversaries. ”

“ He’s a doctor—physics the people as well as preaches to them, you see, and that’s the kind of Christianity that appeals to untutored savages like his flock and mine. Well, I asked the bishop if he could send us up a man like that, and his chaplain answered that I was evidently not aware that the Church’s care was for men’s souls, not their bodies. ”

“ In the same way, when there is a suspicion or fairly clear evidence that health is being undermined by some evil habit, the sympathetic clergyman, who knows the patient well, can do far more for him than the most skilled doctor who has probably only seen him once or twice. Why any clergyman should want to babble about a special ‘gift of healing’ in dealing with these most distressing cases, considering what the evidence on the subject of a ‘gift of healing’ is, I cannot conceive. ”

“ If this is a general truth, with what special force must it not apply to the ministers of a religion the paramount and ceaseless aim of which is to make men holy, so that at times it has almost seemed as though the Church were indifferent as to whether they are learned or beautiful or strong? She pronounces no man a doctor unless he be also a saint ”

“ In fact none can doubt that the minister of religion can bring a power to bear on the mind of a patient, which the doctor cannot.
Whatever his own personal belief may be, the medical man can of course only view religion from a philosophic or ethical stand-point. It is difficult for him to concern himself with dogma. The clergyman can help by administering suggestions of hope and encouragement. ”

“ And the great recompense of which the Angelic Doctor speaks, will be given also to priests and pastors of souls who, within the bounds of prudence, which is to be their constant guide, shall employ the means presented to them by their holy ministry to make the religious state admired, sought after, and beloved. ”

“ So I come back to the Bishop of Birmingham’s wise eirenicon.
It is a great pity that the work of the cleric and the work of the doctor should ever clash; for they are ordained (the Prayer-book again) for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other. Only, if they are to be friends in ministering to the sick and the dying, they must be friends always. If, in social life, they do not get on well together, they will not work together well in the sick-room. If the doctor makes stupid jokes against religion, and the cleric doses his parishioners with quack medicines ”

“ Thomas strange inhale the perfume of piety, candor, and grace, which some religious boarding- schools breathe out at the close of a scholastic year; if they could get a close view of the supernatural loveliness which the solitude of a monastery sheds in a few months over these young souls, they would, with the holy doctor, acknowledge that " it is good for a man to bear the yoke of the Lord from his tenderest years." ”

“ In him the poor always find a kind and sympathizing friend, who dispenses medicine to them gratuitously as well as his best skill. In religion the doctor holds all the doctrines of the second reformation, and believes the Presbyterian form of church government scriptural. ”

“ It must not be expected by our friends that there will follow this new appointment a rapid and spasmodic enlargement of the Church work, or that the first few months will add largely to the small list of Congregational churches in the South. The Doctor is too wise and experienced a field-marshal to design or desire any such sudden and apparent gain. ”

“ According to it the assembly did debate, and agree anent the duty of pastors. At our first coming, we found them in a very sharp debate anent the office of doctors. The Independent men, whereof there are some ten or eleven in the synod, many of them very able men, as Thomas Goodwin, Nye, Burroughs, Bridges, Carter, Caryl, Phillips, Sterry, were for the divine institution of a doctor in every congregation as well as a pastor. ”

“ The Doctor sets it out as an extraordinary presumption in such a man as I am, to pretend to give advice to young divines, when it is so sufficiently done already by the offices of our church, the charges, instructions and exhortations of our bishops at their visitation, and so many excellent ordination and visitation sermons, p. ”

“ A doctor has in some sort a priesthood of his own. Admitted at all hours to the most secret intimacy of families, he knows, guesses, and is able to effect much. Like the priest, in short, he has the ear of the sick and the dying. ”

“ The professions should be cordial allies, but the church-going, Bible-reading physician ought to know a great deal more of the subjects included under the general name of theology than the clergyman can be expected to know of medicine. To say, as has been said not long since, that a young divinity student is as competent to deal with the latter as an old physician is to meddle with the former, suggests the idea that wisdom is not an heirloom in the family of the one who says it. ”

“ It is beyond question that a faithful priest is, in his degree, a mirror of Christ, and helps men to see Him more clearly. But it is also true--and a truth worth underlining in these days--that the Doctor, too, is a symbol of what Christ means to be to men--nay, more, that there are respects in which the figure of a beloved physician of to-day comes nearer to the reality of the living human Christ than any other calling in the world. ”

“ Many excellent men, seeing how the healing of disease was an integral part of our Lord’s mission, and of the mission of His apostles, have wished that it should likewise form an integral part of the mission of the Church: that the clergy should as much as possible be physicians ”

“ What is the difference between the doctor and the priest, except that one is for your body and one is for your soul? You say you are afraid of the priest; will you not be more ashamed of God, whose servant he is? ”

“ I have proved that a man may be made a minister in general, yea, and sent to exercise it in converting infidels, and baptizing them, before ever he is the pastor of any particular church. To which I add, that in this general ministry, he is a pastor in the universal church, as a licensed physician that hath no hospital or charge, is a physician in the kingdom. ”

“ Then the doctors add: "It is fixed for every one of the faithful that the Roman church is the place which the Lord hath chosen, where the Lord placed the headship of the whole church. And the high priest who presides there is the pope, the true and manifest successor of Peter, and the cardinals are the priests of the tribe of Levi." In this statement, the doctors heap together many things that they do not prove. ”

“ Neither the Pastor Emeritus nor a member of this Church shall teach Roman Catholics Christian Science, except it be with the written consent of the authority of their Church. Choice of patients is left to the wisdom of the practitioner, and Mrs. ”

“ All the professions are timid and expectant agencies. The priest is glad if his prayers or his sermon meet the condition of any soul; if of two, if of ten, 'tis a signal success. But he walked to the church without any assurance that he knew the distemper, or could heal it. The physician prescribes hesitatingly out of his few resources, the same tonic or sedative to this new and peculiar constitution, which he has applied with various success to a hundred men before. If the patient mends, he is glad and surprised. ”

“ No better means of encouraging, fostering, and patronizing medical science could be thought of than to give the prestige and the emoluments of physician to the head of the Church to important makers of medicine in every generation. ”

“ For by thee does our Saviour say to him who is discouraged under the sense of his sins, “Thy sins are forgiven thee: thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” [68] But this peace and haven of tranquillity is the Church of Christ, into which do thou, when thou hast loosed them from their sins, restore them, as being now sound and unblameable, of good hope, diligent, laborious in good works. As a skilful and compassionate physician, heal all such as have wandered in the ways of sin; for “they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. ”

“ The priest effects cures in behalf of the Church and in the name of God by means of prayer, the laying on of hands, exorcism, relics and consecrated natural means, especially water, salt and oil. In doing this he acts as the visible delegate of an [Pg 69] unseen higher physician, the saint ordained of God to be the healer of the sickness. For every affliction has its physician among the ranks of the saints. ”

“ The main function of the minister of religion should be concerned with what is called the spiritual side of man, and not with purely material conditions, such as disease.
(2) If ministers regard the Scriptures as imposing upon them duties in healing the sick, they should be content to be subservient to the physician in material conditions that are not included in their training. ”

“ Strange as it may appear when we recall how much has been said with regard to Papal, and Church, and theological opposition to science, the story that we have just told with regard to the Papal relations to medicine and medical schools must be retold with regard to science in every department, and the scientific studies at the great medieval universities. ”

“ The lines, however, are not strictly drawn between the two professions, because some medical men see no impropriety in asking and encouraging the assistance of the church, while many churchmen deprecate the entrance of the church, as an organized body, into new and untried and disputed fields of activity. ”

“ Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side; and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only recommends. ”

“ Lastly, we shall treat of the chief impediments to entrance into religion, and answer certain questions connected with them. On all these points we shall advance nothing that is not supported by the authority of the most celebrated doctors and theologians of the Church. ”

“ But while the physician, whom we honor and love, is required to make these attainments before he is permitted even to repair "the house I live in," should not he who teaches the master of the house be entitled to a respectable rank in society?
It is common, in the various branches of the Church universal, for men who feel themselves called of God to preach the Gospel to obtain a collegiate education, and then devote several years to professional study, before exercising the functions of the sacred office ”

“ And, again, the rolling-collared clergyman might be expected to say to this or that uneasy listener: “You are longing for a church which will settle your beliefs for you, and relieve you to a great extent from the task, to which you seem to be unequal, of working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Go over the way to Brother C.'s or Brother D.'s; your spine is weak, and they will furnish you a back-board which will keep you straight and make you comfortable.” Patients are not the property of their physicians, nor parishioners of their ministers. ”

“ The section formerly read, “pretended healers,” but was changed to read as follows: “All other professionals who practise the art of healing,” etc.
We thank our heavenly Father for this dignified legal protection and recognition, and look forward to the day, not far distant, when the laws of every State will dignify the ministry of Christ as taught and practised in Christian Science, and as lived by our dear, dear Leader, even as God has dignified, blessed, and prospered it, and her.
With devoted love,⁠
Elizabeth Earl Jones. ”

“ Many physicians know a great deal more about religious matters than they do about medicine. They have read the Bible ten times as much as they ever read any medical author. They have heard scores of sermons for one medical lecture to which they have listened. They often hear much better preaching than the average minister, for he hears himself chiefly, and they hear abler men and a variety of them. They have now and then been distinguished in theology as well as in their own profession. ”

“ A second series of ecclesiastical decrees that are often referred to in the history of medicine are those which concern the relations of the physician and his patient whenever there is danger of death. The Church's duty was to secure the proper dispositions on the part of those who were in danger of death. Physicians sometimes did not let patients and their friends know how serious the illness was and as a consequence patients died without the sacraments and rites of the Church. ”