The Christian doctrine of health : a handbook on the relation of bodily to spiritual and moral health / by the author of "Pro Christo et ecclesia."

  • Dougall, L. (Lily), 1858-1923.
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Christian doctrine of health : a handbook on the relation of bodily to spiritual and moral health / by the author of "Pro Christo et ecclesia.". Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/220 (page 16)
    TRADITIONAL TEACHING AS TO DISEASE A. The main trend of traditional Christian teaching from the end of the first, or what may be called the Apostolic, age of the Church to the present time, has been that disease and all other misfortunes are more especially the will of God. This is in flagrant con¬ tradiction to the teaching of the Gospels, in which God is clearly portrayed as a Father who cherishes His children, as nature in its beneficent aspect cherishes the birds and flowers, and who makes their physical as well as their moral welfare His especial care. Both the Protestant and Catholic view of spiritual healing has been that it has only taken place as a sign or mark of some extraordinary degree of holiness in the healer— the Protestant limiting such miracles of healing to the Apostolic age, the Catholic admitting their survival, but only as rare instances of man’s spiritual favour with the Almighty. The tradition common to both has long been that disease, like other misfortunes, is for the most part God’s will, and— 1. Is used bv God as a scourge to punish the wicked. This doctrine is evidently taken over from the Old Testament, in which numerous instances