My absence from home during the month of August accounts for the delay in publishing the following very respectful communication. I can not pronounce it "a crank's opinion," for it has none of the self-conceit always characteristic of a crank. It is evidently the serious expression of real convictions, and it deserves kindly consideration: [346]

CINCINNATI, O., Aug. 2, 1898.      

      BRO. MCGARVEY:--The article in last week's Standard, on divine healing, touches upon a subject in which I have recently become interested, and I am constrained to ask space in your columns for just a little of what you may term a crank's opinion. I am a member of--and love, as much as it is possible for a true Christian to love a church--dear old Central of this city.

      I said I have recently, etc., but ever since I have been old enough to read the New Testament with any understanding, I have felt that if Christians would put themselves in the same attitude toward Christ as did those who came to him for healing when he was on earth in the flesh, it could not be otherwise than that he would answer their petitions as he did then.

      Are we not told in the Word that "he is the same yesterday, to-day and forever"? "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name," etc. (John 14:13-16). Again: "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church: and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up" (Jas. 5:14, 15). Nowhere in the Word can I find a promise that God will bless "means."

      There is a mission in this city where divine healing is taught as a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ; but not by "divine healers," for they teach that God, and God only, is the healer. Nor do they teach that divine healing is the most important part of the gospel. Over and over again do they urge their hearers to seek first the divine Healer, the God of love and wisdom and might; to repent and restore, as far as it is possible to do so, before they expect him to answer their prayers. I have not witnessed any healings through their prayers, but have heard probably a dozen or more testimonies from those whom I could not consider other than reliable witnesses; and my faith has been so strengthened by their teaching that I have received several direct and immediate answers to my own prayers, notably one, when I was the victim of an accident, the result of which all, who have had experience in such, say is necessarily very painful. Of course, I know that it would have been, was, in fact, until I lifted my heart in a prayer that I could not have put into words, but which the Father understood and answered. While my friends marveled at the "wonderful" fact that I did not suffer, if I tell them it was the result of answer to prayer, [347] that God did it, they look at me as if they think me crazy. Why is it that so few Christians really believe that the sincere prayer of faith is answered, for that is just what it all amounts to? Truly, we Christians need teaching.

G. T. S.      

      The writer's mind is evidently controlled by the one consideration set forth in her second paragraph, where she says: "Ever since I have been old enough to read the New Testament with any understanding, I have felt that if Christians would put themselves in the same attitude toward Christ as did those who came to him for healing when he was on earth in the flesh, it could not be otherwise than that he would answer their petitions as he did then." This feeling rests with her on the fact that Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and upon his promises to answer prayer. It is a feeling quite common with readers of the New Testament who have not learned to discriminate between the miraculous and the providential.

      The fact that Christ is an unchangeable being is sufficient proof that he will always act on the same unchangeable principles, but not that he will always act in the same way. It is proof that he will always have compassion on the sick, but not that he will always restore them to health in this world. Furthermore, the fact that he healed the very few sick who were in all Palestine, and none outside that little district, if we except the Canaanite woman's daughter, by a touch or a word, is no ground for supposing that he will now heal all in the whole world who will call upon him, and thus put an end to disease and death so far as his kingdom extends. He never proposed to interfere in this way with his Father's decree, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return."

      It is true that Christ promised to answer prayer, and [348] that some of his utterances on this subject are so unlimited in their terms as to have the appearance of being unlimited in reality; but we must remember that one of the apostles was afflicted with a malady which was so painful and irritating that he called it a messenger of Satan to buffet him, yet his earnest prayers to Christ for healing left him still in his affliction. These promises are to be construed in a general and not in a universal sense. The same is true in the matter of life and death. Christ delivered Peter out of the hand of Herod when all the world would have said it was impossible, and when the church, though they prayed for him, prayed not for his deliverance, but for the steadfastness of his faith in the death which appeared inevitable; but when the elder James was taken by the same Herod a few days earlier, though he doubtless was also a subject of the prayers of the church, Christ permitted Herod to cut off his head. A miracle was wrought in the one instance for special reasons. In the other the ordinary course of providence prevailed. So also in the martyrdom of Stephen, and of many other saints, both male and female. Ordinarily the servants of God are exposed to disease and death, precisely as other men are; but when Christ desires that a man shall live, all the men on earth can not kill him.

yet it is not in the prayers of the servant to determine the hour, but in the inscrutable will of the Master.

      It is true, also, that in the passage which our sister cites from the apostle James, sick disciples were directed to send for the elders of the church, that they might pray over them, anoint them with oil, and raise them up; but every reader of the New Testament should know that [349] this was written when many, elders of churches possessed the miraculous power of healing, which was imparted to them by the imposition of the hands of all apostle. To argue from this that elders of the church, or anybody else, can do the same in the present day, is to leave out of view the one thing that enabled them to do it then; that is, the imposition of apostolic hands with prayer for this gift.

      The practical working of this precept of James, even in the apostolic age, is modified by actual facts which are too often overlooked. Paul had the power to heal by a word or a touch, and he used it on proper occasions; but on one of his journeys through the province of Asia he left Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Tim. 4:20). On another occasion, Epaphroditus was sick "nigh unto death." He had been sent to Rome by the brethren of Philippi to minister to Paul's wants as a prisoner, and he incurred this sickness in consequence of the journey. Paul was, therefore, doubly sorrowful at the prospect of his death; but he did not heal him. He did not anoint him with oil, nor raise him up (Phil. 2:25, 30). Again, Timothy was an invalid from some disease of the stomach; yet Paul neither healed him nor told him to pray for healing, but advised him to take a little wine as a tonic. These facts show plainly that the precept of James was exceptional and temporary, even in the age of the apostles, and that the later practice of Paul is to be looked upon as the permanent order of the kingdom of Christ.

      Finally, there is a negative evidence on this subject which in itself is conclusive: unlike these modern advocates of "divine healing," the apostles were never known to go about exhorting people to come forward for the healing, of the body. They effected miraculous cures in [350] a few instances, as a sign to the unbelievers," but they never proclaimed, either to saints or sinners, that the healing of all diseases was a part of the gospel which they were sent to preach. These so-called faith-cure churches, therefore, and the preachers who officiate in them as "divine healers," or what not, are not modeled after the apostolic type, but are misleading the people by humbuggery. Fortunately for the people, the great majority of them have too much good sense to be humbugged by a device so transparent.

[SEBC 346-351]