Faith healing

“ 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 ”

“ The grace of healing is distinguished from the general working of miracles because it has a special reason for inducing one to the faith, since a man is all the more ready to believe when he has received the gift of bodily health through the virtue of faith. ”

“ Faith cure, the other form of mental healing, has such a variety of forms that it is practically impossible to describe a typical one. Faith in some power, or, what amounts to the same thing, the uncritical reception of suggestions concerning the cure, is the common factor in all forms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are no words assuring him of healing. God is invoked, and then His power flows through the hands of the suppliant. So with all our work for men in bringing the better cure with which we are entrusted, we are but channels of the blessing, pipes through which the water of life is brought to thirsty lips. Therefore prayer must precede and accompany all Christian efforts to communicate the healing of the Gospel; and the most gifted are but, like Paul, 'ministers through whom' faith and salvation come. ”

“ Eleven hundred written testimonies to cases of healing in direct answer to prayer at the Baptist Temple have been carefully examined and the trustworthy testimonies tabulated. Those "years of healing" to which reference is so often made were years of prayer and years of faith. After deducting all the questionable cases, and after a wide allowance for the naturally health-giving and health-preserving power, the normal human belief is that there remains an overwhelmingly convincing amount of evidence that healing is directly brought about by sincere prayer. ”

“ No doubt simple faith healing has played its part—but that part is very subsidiary; the strongest influence has been that exercised by the movement of the water itself, suggesting as it does the idea of spontaneous life. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Healing Faith.
Much has been said and written on the subject of healing faith. God has said much on that subject for our benefit. “The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” Many scriptures might be introduced bearing upon this subject; but the statement above so clear, and emphatic, will suffice. Genuine faith is begotten of the spirit. It is not born of simple desire. ”

“ Used in this sense faith healing is indistinguishable from much of savage leech-craft, which seeks to cure disease by expelling the evil spirit in some portion of the body. Although it is usually present, faith in the medicine man is not essential for the efficacy of the method. ”

“ When the potentialities of mental and spiritual treatment are more fully realized, the healing art will be transformed and ennobled and its efficacy immeasurably increased. And when this new knowledge and power in the healer are combined with lively faith and hope on the part of the patient, wonderful results may be looked for.
In God must be our trust. There is no God but Him, the Healer, the Knower, the Helper.... Nothing in earth or heaven is outside the grasp of God. ”

“ They that believe shall in Him find the healing power. Their faith leads them to Him, where the healing power is applied, as the look brought the Israelites to the healing power of God. Our obedience that brings us to Christ is the outgrowth of our faith, just as their look was the outgrowth of theirs. There is no healing virtue in the one nor the other, but they were and are necessary to bring the believer where the healing virtue is. ”

“ We read that at a certain time and place Jesus "could there do no mighty work" because of the people's unbelief. [684] Modern revelation specifies that faith to be healed is one of the gifts of the Spirit, analogous to the manifestations of faith in the work of healing others through the exercize of the power of the Holy Priesthood. ”

“ There is no one thing that is emphasized so much in the Bible, and especially in Christ's teachings as faith. Every benefit, every healing depends for its efficacy on the sufferer's faith. In all of His healing this one condition of faith was imperative—"According to thy faith be it unto thee." ”

“ Without faith in our wholeness we are not, and cannot be, whole. Without faith in the healing power of Divine chemistry no healing is possible either by patient or healer. The patient may not always have a conscious faith, but the healer has, and a similar faith is aroused in the patient later, as he begins to feel the divine healing power operating and working like a leaven in his nature. ”

“ Jesus in His healing ministry always emphasized the place of faith in the cure of the body. "Thy faith hath made thee whole," is a frequent word on His lips, and ever since His day people have been rediscovering the truth that faith, even in the absence of a worthy object, does often make whole. ”

“ I cannot finish my little book of ideals without writing some things that are in my mind about cure by faith or by prayer. It is a subject that I approach with hesitation because of the danger of misunderstanding. No subject is more difficult and none is more important for the invalid to understand. We hear a great deal about the wonderful cures of Christian Science or of similar agencies, and we all know of people who have been restored to usefulness by such means. Has the healing of Christ again become possible on earth? ”

“ Many have, however, written that if that condition of faith could be secured in the doctor, nurse, and family, that spirit of hope would be naturally aroused in the patient and aid greatly in the recovery. But the men who pray can say with greater confidence that in every case it was, at least, God working with man. ”

“ Faith-healers represent God as interfering constantly, not by cause and effect in the order of nature, but affecting the result directly. That they do not surpass those who are not Christians, but use either false pretenses or natural laws, and that they are inferior in healing power to Christ and the apostles, condemn their pretensions. ”

“ The underlying principle of mind or faith healing is by no means new; it is probably as old as the race. It is the same principle that underlay the sacrificial offering of the ancients, and that underlies the pilgrimages to Lourdes, and the shrine of St. ”

“ Of the two other kinds of healing which are spiritual—that is to say, where the means of cure is a spiritual power—one results from the entire concentration of the mind of a strong person upon a sick person, when the latter expects with all his concentrated faith that a cure will be effected from the spiritual power of the strong person, to such an extent that there will be a cordial connection between the strong person and the invalid. The strong person makes every effort to cure the sick patient, and the sick patient is then sure of receiving a cure. ”

“ Just as mental suggestion has taken the place of tonics, so must spiritual healing take the place of mental suggestion. The spirit is the original manifestation of God in man, and it is on prayer and on faith that the whole science of healing will some day rest. ”

“ Now since mental attitudes so react upon bodily states, whatever strongly controls mental attitudes becomes a very great factor in mental healing. There is a long line of testimony that what may be called the complex of faith does just this with unique power, for faith implies supernatural intervention. ”

“ Certain of the alleged miracles of the New Testament, as the healing of the sick by an act of faith, agree with what we now know to be true. Certain human ailments, mainly diseases of the mind and the nervous system, have in recent times undoubtedly yielded to an act of faith in the supreme efficacy of certain rites, or to an unwonted mental resolution. ”

“ It is plain, at the outset, that our Lord set certain limits to the exercise of His healing activity. What has often been said of miracles in general17 may be said of the miracles of healing. There is a severe economy in the exercise of such supernatural, or extranatural, powers. This is illustrated by our Lord’s apparent reluctance to work miracles when it is not certain that a true faith asks for it.18 In178 other words, the receptivity of men is necessary to the Divine transaction with the sufferer. ”

“ He believed that the devil, not God, sends sickness: God is the great healer. The 278anointing was simply a matter of faith. His formula varied and was very simple, as e. g., "Dear daughter, in Jesus's precious name I anoint thee with this oil of healing for thy maladies. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Teach the meekness and might of “Life hidden with Christ,” and there will be no desire for other healing methods. You render the divine law of healing obscure and void, when you weigh the human in the scale with the divine, or limit, in any direction of thought, the omnipresence and omnipotence of God. ”

“ The struggle for the recovery of invalids goes on, not between material methods, but between mortal The struggle and victory. minds and immortal Mind. The victory will be on the patient's side, only as immortal Mind, through Christian Science, subdues the human belief in disease. Otherwise, it matters not what method one may adopt, whether it is faith in drugs, in hygiene, or in some other minor curative.
Scientific healing has this advantage over other methods, — that in it Truth controls error. From this Advantage and mystery. fact arise its ethical as well as its physical effects. ”

“ Then, like blind Bartimeus, the doubting heart looks up through faith, and your patient rejoices in the gospel of health.
Thus, you see, it is easier to heal the physical than the moral ailment. When divine Truth and Love heal, of sin, the sinner who is at ease in sin, how much more should these heal, of sickness, the sick who are dis-eased, dis-comforted, and who long for relief! ”

“ The soul which can feel and affirm in serene but jubilant confidence, as did the Nazarene: ‘I and my Father are one,’ has no further need of healer, or of healing. This is the whole truth in a nutshell, and other foundation for wholeness can no man lay than this fact of impregnable divine union. Disease can no longer attack one whose feet are planted on this rock, who feels hourly, momently, the influx of the Deific Breath. If one with Omnipotence, how can weariness enter the consciousness, how illness assail that indomitable spark? ”

“ 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 ”

“ XLIII. A Place of Healing for Souls
1.THERE is a wondrous fountain of health — a marvelous place of healing for souls, which derives its efficacy from the precious blood of Jesus Christ; it is the sacrament of Penance. May you ever be filled in an increasing degree with veneration, and, I had almost said, with holy enthusiasm, for this place of healing for souls.
Picture to yourself a man who, having committed a grievous sin, knows nothing of the sacrament of Penance. He looks into himself, is conscious of the magnitude of his transgression, and the wretched state into which he has fallen. ”