20. The passages between inverted commas may be found in Gordon, op. cit., pp. 29, 31, 33, 34.

21. Science et Réligion, p. 189.

22. We say two; for a third, suggested as a possible alternative by John Lightfoot (Works, 8 vols. ed., vol. III, p. 316), does not appear to us possible, viz., that the reference is to a common Jewish custom of anointing, in connection with the use of charms, to heal the sick. Lightfoot quotes the Jerusalem Talmud (Skab., fol. 14, col. 3): “A man that one charmeth, he putteth oil upon his head and charmeth.” His comment is: “Now, this being a common, wretched custom, to anoint some that were sick, and to use charming with the anointing—this apostle, seeing anointing was an ordinary and good physic, and the good use of it not to be extinguished for that abuse—directs them better: namely, to get the elders or ministers of the church to come to the sick and to add to the medicinal anointing of him their godly and fervent prayers for him, far more available and comfortable than all charming and enchanting, as well as far more warrantable and Christian.”

23. Oil was a remedy in constant use, notably for wounds (Isaiah 1: 6; Luke 10: 34), but also for the most extended variety of diseases. Its medicinal qualities are commended by Philo (Som. M., 1, 666), Pliny (N. H., 23: 34-50), and Galen (Med. Temp., Bk. IT). Compare the note of J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of James, 1892, p. 158. John Lightfoot gives (vol. III, p. 315) some apposite passages from the Talmud. His comment seems to be thoroughly justified (p. 316): “Now if we take the apostle’s counsel to be referring to this medicinal practice, we may construe it that he would have this physical administration to be improved to the best advantage; namely that, whereas anointing with oil was ordinarily used to the sick, by way of physic—he adviseth that they should send for the elders of the church to do it; not that the anointing was any more in their hands than in another’s, as to the thing itself, for it was still but a physical application—but that they with the applying of this corporeal physic, might also pray with and for the patient, and supply the spiritual physic of good admonition and comforts to him. Which is much the same as if in our nation, where this physical anointing is not so in use, a sick person should send for the minister at taking of any physic, that he might pray with him, and counsel and comfort him.”

24. The sacrament of extreme unction, grounded on this text on the understanding that the anointing was intended in a ceremonial sense, has oddly enough (since the primary promise of the text is bodily healing) become in the church of Rome, the sacrament of the dying. According to the Council of Trent (14th session) it is to be esteemed as totius Christiane vite consummativum; according to Thomas Aquinas, it is the ultimum et quodammodo consummativum totius spiritualis curationis (Cont. Gent., 14,. 73). It is according to the Council of Trent to be given especially to those who seem to be in peril of death, unde et sacramentum exeuntium nuncupatur. Its effects are described (reversing the implications of the passage in James) as primarily spiritual healing, and only secondarily and solely in subordination to the spiritual healing, bodily healing. Bodily healing, therefore, only very occasionally results from it. As J. B. Heinrich explains (Dogmatische Theologie, X, 1904, p. 225): “Since it is generally more profitable, and more in accordance with the divine dispositions, for Christians in articulo or periculo mortis to take the last step, than to resume the battle of life again for a time, there ordinarily follows no healing.” See in general the exposition of the doctrine by Heinrich as cited, pp. 197 fi. The popular expositions follow the scientific, but often with some ameliorations. Extreme Unction,” we read in one of the most widely used manuals for the instruction of English Catholics, “was instituted by our Lord to strengthen the dying, in their passage out of this world into another” (A Manual of Instructions in Christian Doctrine, published by the St. Anselm’s Society, London, and having the imprimatur of Cardinals Wiseman and Manning, p. 363). Even in this Manual, however, the provision of the passage in St. James is not wholly forgotten. We read (p. 365): “If God sees it expedient, this sacrament restores bodily health… Some persons are anxious to put off the reception of Extreme Unction to the last moment, because they seem to regard it as a prelude to certain death; while in truth, if it had been received earlier it might have led to their recovery. It cannot be doubted that miraculous cures are sometimes effected by Extreme Unction; but the beneficial effects which it generally exercises on bodily health are produced in an indirect way. The grace of the sacrament soothes the soul, lessens the fear of death, and brings on such calm and peace of mind as often to lead to the restoration of health. If God be pleased to work a direct miracle it is never too late for Him to do so; but if the sacrament is to act as a natural remedy, indirectly restoring health in the way just explained, it must be received in due time, otherwise, like ordinary remedies, it will not produce its effects.” In a similar spirit Deharbe’s Catechism (4 Full Catechism of the Catholic Religion, translated from the German of the Reverend Joseph Deharbe, S.J.,… revised, enlarged, and edited by the Right Reverend P. N. Lynch, D.D., bishop of Charleston, 1891, pp. 296, 297), after declaring that Extreme Unction “often relieves the pains of the sick person, and sometimes restores him even to health, if it be expedient for the salvation of his soul,” asks: ‘“Is it not unreasonable for a person, from fear of death, to defer, or even neglect, the receiving of Extreme Unction until he is moribund?”’ and replies: Certainly; for (1) Extreme Unction has been instituted even for the health of the body; (2) The sick person will recover more probably, if he employs in time the remedy ordained by God, than if he waits until he cannot recover except by a miracle; and (3) If his sickness be mortal what should he wish for more earnestly than to die happy, which this holy sacrament gives him grace to do?” As many of those sick persons who were anointed by the Apostles were healed,” we read in The Catechumen by J. G. Wenham, 1892, p. 358, “so this is often the effect of this sacrament now—that those that receive it obtain fresh force and vigor, and recover from their illness.” Although, therefore, Extreme Unction is “given to us in preparation for death,” it is ordinarily explained, in deference to its biblical foundation-passage, as (as Bellarimine puts it, following the language of the Council of Trent) “also assisting in the recovery of bodily health, if that should be useful to the health of the soul.” Father W. Humphrey, S.J., The One Mediator, ed. 2, 1894, chap. vii, explains the matter more strictly in accordance with the authoritative declaration of Trent thus: “Hence one end, and that the principal end, of this sacrament is to strengthen and to comfort the dying man… Another and a secondary end of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction is proximately to dispose and prepare the parting soul for the new life in which it is about to enter… There is a third and a contingent end of Extreme Unction, and that is the bodily healing of the sick man under certain conditions.” On the origin of this teaching and the history of the rite of Extreme Unction, see Father F. W. Puller, The Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition, London, Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1904; and cf. Percy Dearmer, Body and Soul? 1912, pp. 217 fi. The movement forming nowadays in the Anglican churches, with a view to “the restoration to the Church of the Scriptural Practice of Divine Healing,” also bases the “office” of anointing, which it proposes, on James 5: 14, 15. See, for example, F. W. Puller, Anointing of the Sick, 1904, chap. 1x; Percy Dearmer, Body and Soul? 1912, esp. chap. xxix, with Appendix 111; Henry B. Wilson, B.D., The Revival of the Gift of Healing, Milwaukee, The Young Churchman Company, 1914. Mr. Wilson is the director of the “Society of the Nazarene,” and writes in its interest, printing also suitable prayers and an office for the anointing of the sick. His contention is that the gift of healing was never withdrawn from the church, and that the church must recover “her therapeutic ministry’’ by means of this formal ritual act. See also Mr. Wilson’s later book, Does Christ Still Heal? New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1917.

25. It is sometimes suggested that a miraculous healing is promised indeed, but that this promise applied only to those miraculous days, and is no longer to be claimed. Even J. B. Mayor, The Epistle of St. James,! 1892, p. 218, appears to lean to this view; and it seems to have never been without advocates among leading Protestants. Luther writes to the Elector of Brandenburg, December 4, 1530 (Miss Currie’s translation of Luther’s Letters, p. 378): “For Christ did not make anointing with oil a Sacrament, nor do St. James’s words apply to the present day. For in those days the sick were often cured through a miracle and the earnest prayer of faith, as we see in James and Mark 6.” Thorndike (Works, vol. VI, p. 63, Oxford edition) writes: This is laid aside in all the reformed churches upon presumption of common sense, that the reason is no longer in force, being ordained, as you see, to restore health by the grace of miracles that no more exist.” J. A. Hessey (Sunday, 1860, p. 42) agrees with Thorndike. Nevertheless the view will scarcely approve itself.

26. Op. cit.,p. 277. Thisis the way the common sense of Martin Luther met the question of the use of remedies in disease: “Our burgomaster asked me whether it was against God’s will to use medicine, for Carlstadt publicly preached that the sick should not use drugs, but should only pray to God that His will be done. In reply I asked the burgomaster if he ate when he was hungry, and when he answered in the affirmative, I said, ‘ You may then use medicine, which is God’s creature as much as food, drink, and other bodily necessities.”’—(The Life and Letters of Martin Luther. By Preserved Smith, Ph.D. 1911, pp. 327-328.)

27. “Je le pansay et Dieu le guarit,” quoted by A. T. Schofield, The Force of Mind, 1908, p. 176.

28. The New Church Review, vol. XV, 1908, pp. 415 f.

29. For example Percy Dearmer, Body and Soul,’ 1912, pp. 174 f., calmly sets the “nature miracles” aside as “quite exceptional occurrences,” and declares that it may be safely assumed that “it was not to such exceptional occurrences that Christ was here referring.” On the basis of Mark 6: 7; Luke 9: 1, 10: 1, and the nature of the miracles recorded in Acts, he asserts that it must have been clearly understood that Christ did not commission His disciples to exercise authority over the powers of nature.” Meanwhile, on his own showing, the greatest “works” which Christ did were these ‘““nature miracles’; and it remains inexplicable how Faith-Healings in His disciples can have been declared by Him to be greater than they.

30. So, for example, Luthardt, Godet, Westcott and Milligan and Moulton; see especially the discussion in W. Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly High- Priesthood of Our Lord, 1892, pp. 250 ff.

31. Op. cit, pp. 16 fi.

31. P. 103.

33. As cited.

34. A very little consideration will suffice to show that these attempts so to state the doctrine of the atonement as to obtain from it a basis on which a doctrine of Faith-Healing can be erected, betray us into a long series of serious errors. They imply, for example, that, Christ having borne our sicknesses as our substitute, Christians are not to bear them, and accordingly all sickness should be banished from the Christian world; Christians are not to be cured of sickness, but ought not to get sick. They imply further, that, this being so, the presence of sickness is not only a proof of sin, but argues the absence of the faith which unites us to Christ, our Substitute, that is saving faith; so that no sick person can be a saved mah. They imply still further that, as sickness and inward corruption are alike effects of sin, and we must contend that sickness, because it is an effect of sin, is removed completely and immediately by the atoning act of Christ, taking away sin, so must also inward corruption be wholly and at once removed; no Christian can be a sinner. Thus we have full-blown ‘Perfectionism.” Stanton writes: ‘“In so far as the soul may be delivered from sin during life, the body may be delivered from sickness and disease, the fruit of sin’; “in short, if the full deliverance of the soul from sin may be at any time reached on this side of death, so may the body be freed from disease.” Perfectionism and Faith-Healing, on this ground, stand or fall together. We wonder why, in his reasoning, Stanton leaves believers subject to death. The reasoning which proves so much too much, proves, of course, nothing at all.

35. Gordon remarks: It is obvious that our Redeemer cannot forgive and eradicate sin without in the same act disentangling the roots which sin has struck into our mortal bodies.” Are these three terms synonymous: forgive sin, eradicate sin, disentangle the roots of sin? And are the forgiveness of sin, the disentangling of the roots of sin, the eradication of sin, all accomplished in one “act”? There is through all this reasoning a hopeless confusion of the steps of the process of salvation and of the relations of the several steps to one another. If we lay down the proposition that our salvation is completed in a single act, in all its relations—why, then, of course, we are not in process of salvation, but we are already wholly saved.

36. Gordon, 0p. cit., p. 18.

37. The New Church Review, vol. XV, 1908, p. 414.

38. Here is, however, one illustration. Doctor Alfred T. Scho-field (4 Study of Faith-Healing, 1872, p. 38) relates the following incident. “Knowing a Christian doctor, favorable to faith-healing, I asked him if he could tell me any genuine cures of organic disease. But he only shook his head… The principal case at the faith-healing centre near him was that of a woman who was really dying and had continual fits, and who, the doctor said, was indubitably cured by faith. Here, then, was an authenticated case at last of some sort. This woman gave great testimony as to her cure at various meetings, but as she had been my friend’s patient, he was able to tell me the secret of it. God had cured her by saving her soul, and thus delivering her from the love and constant excessive use of strong drink that had been the sole cause of her illness and fits, and that the doctor had told her would end her life!” The annals of faith-healing are rich in such instances. Doctor Schofield records a touching instance (p. 42) of a young woman who, by trusting in the Lord, was freed from a nervous terror of the sea, and gradually from other disabilities.

39. Literature and Dogma, chap. v. Arnold bases really on the notion that all illness is due to sin and that the proper method of attacking it is, therefore, by “moral therapeutics.” Christ as the source of happiness and calm cured diseases by eliminating their moral cause; hence what we call His miracles, which were, of course, no miracles but the most natural effects in the world; miracles do not happen.”

40. P.i62,

41. ‘P.1g2,

42. Cf. W. W. Patton, Prayer and Its Remarkable Answers; Being a Statement of Facts in the Light of Reason and Revelation, ed.

20, 1885, pp. 214 fi., drawing on the booklet, Dorothea Triidel, or the Prayer of Faith, 1865, and (pp. 237 ff.) Doctor Charles Cullis’s report of a visit to Mannedorf.

43. Doctor A. T. Schofield, op. cit., pp. 23 ff., who gives an interesting account of a visit which he made to Zeller’s House at Mannedorf. He found that very many came there for rest and quiet, and many grew no better while there, but rather worse. He could not, on inquiry at the House or from the physicians in the town, assure himself of the cure there of any truly organic disease; and came away with the conviction that “the bulk at any rate of the cases benefited are clearly mental, nervous, and hysterical” (p. 28).

44. Christian Thought, February, 1890, p. 289. Another eminent physician, J. M. Charcot (The New Review, 1893, vol. VIII, p- 19), writes: “On the other hand, the domain of faith-healing is limited; to produce its effects it must be applied to those cases which demand for their cure no intervention beyond the power which the mind has over the body—cases which Hack Tuke (Zlus-trations of the Influence of the Mind upon the Body in Health and Disease, designed to elucidate the Action of the Imagination, London: Churchill, 1872) has analyzed so admirably in his remarkable work. No intervention can make it pass these bounds, for we are powerless against natural laws. For example, no instance can be found amongst the records sacred to so-called miraculous cures where the faith-cure has availed to restore an amputated limb. On the other hand, there are hundreds of recorded cases of the cure of paralysis, but I think these have all partaken of the nature of those which Professor Russell Reynolds has classified under the heading of paralysis dependent on idea (Remarks on Paralysis and other Disorders of Motion and Sensation Dependent on Idea..’ in British Medical Journal, November, 1869).”

45. They are sufficiently illustrated by J. M. Buckley, Faith-Healing, Christian Science, and Kindred Phenomena, 1892. To the account of Faith-Healing by the Mormons, which he gives on pp. 35 ff., add what is said of this practice among the Mormons by Florence A. Merriam, My Summer in a Mormon Village, pp. 115 fi.: “To an outsider, one of the most appalling features of Mormonism is the rooted opposition of the people to Medical Science, their distrust of skilled physicians, and their faith in the Biblical ceremonial of anointing or laying on of hands…”” She gives some instructive instances. Cf. also W. A. Hammond, Spiritualism and Kindred Phenomena.

46. Buckley, as cited, p. 3; The Century Magazine, vol. X, p. 222.

47. Buckley, op. cit., p. 27; The Century Magazine, vol. X, p. 230.

48. Buckley, Faith-Healing, p. 25; The Century Magazine, vol. X, p. 220.

49. Op. cil., p. 25.

50. Buckley, 0p. cit, p. 9. Cf. A. T. Schofield, The Force of Mind, 1908, pp. 256 ff. “Phantom Tumors,” says Doctor J. R. Gasquet (The Dublin Review, October, 1804, pp. 355, 356), “deceive even the elect.” See also Doctor Fowler’s paper, “Neurotic Tumors of the Breast,” read before the New York Neurological Society, Tuesday, January 7, 1890, in the Medical Record, February 19, 1890, p. 179, and f. Charcot’s remarks on it, op. cit., p. 29. Doctor Fowler’s tumors were actual, not ‘“phantom,” neurotic tumors, and yet, on being subjected to a course of treatment, “in which, so to speak, the psychical element was made the chief point, vanished as if by magic.”

51. Reynolds, 0p. cit., pp. 325-326.

52. “Doctor Cabot’s figures,” derived from a comparison of a test series of instances of clinical diagnoses with post-mortem findings, have become famous. In this test ‘““the average percentage of correctness of these diagnoses in these cases, taken as a whole, was 47.3. In 1913 the Committee of Inquiry into the Department of Health, Charities and Bellevue and Allied Hospitals in the City of New York compared the autopsy findings in Bellevue Hospital with the clinical diagnoses, and the comparison revealed the fact that clinical diagnoses were confirmed in only 52.3 per cent of the cases.” Cf. the remarks of Doctor Schofield, op. cit., pp. 39-40, on the difficulties which come to physicians in connection with cases of alleged faith-cure. In examining into a case of reputed tumor healed at once on faith, he wrote to the physicians who had charge of the case and learned that it never was of muchimportance, and that it had not disappeared after its alleged cure. But one of the physicians added: “I am sorry I am not able to answer your question more satisfactorily. As a Christian, I am greatly interested in faith-healing,” but have come to the conclusion that it is wiser for me not to examine patients, or pronounce on their condition, when they state that the Lord has healed them, for I feel it too solemn a thing to shake a person’s faith by too critical pathological knowledge.”

53. Op. cit., p- 138.

54. Buckley, op. cit., pp. 54-55; The Century Magazine, vol. XI, p- 784.

55. These citations are taken from L. T. Townsend, Faith Work,

Christian Science and Other Cures, pp. 160 fi., where the matter is discussed at large.

56. P. 100.

57. Pp. 197-108.

58. Cf. G. M. Pachtler, Biographische Notizen iiber… Prinzen Alexander, Augsburg, 1850; S. Brunner, Aus dem Nachlisse des Fiirsten… Hohenlohe, Regensburg, 1851; F. N. Baur, 4 Short and Faithful Description of the Remarkable Occurrences and Benevolent Holy Conduct of… Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe… during his residence of Twenty-five Days in the City of Wiirzburg…, London, 1822; John Badeley, Authentic Narrative of the Extrcor-dinary Cure performed by Prince Hohenlohe, London, n. d.; James Doyle, Miracles said to have been wrought by Prince Hohenlohe on Miss Lalor in Ireland, London, 1823.

59. Cf. J. F. Maguire, Father Matthew, 1864.

60. The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 113, note; Blum-hardt is spoken of by James as a singularly pure, simple and nonfanatical character,” who “in this part of his work followed no previous example.” His life was written by F. Ziindel, Pfarrer J. C. Blumhardt, 1887; see a short notice with Bibliography, in Te New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, sub. nom. (II, 206).

61. See The New Schaff-Herzog, sub. nom., and sub. voc., ‘ Christian and Missionary Alliance.”

62. See C. W. Heisler, “Denver’s Messiah Craze,” in The Independent, October 3, 1895; Henry Kingman, “Franz Schlatter and his Power over Disease,” in The Congregationalist, November 1, 1895. The New York daily press for the late summer and early autumn of 1916 (e. g., The Evening Sun for September 28) tells of the sordid final stages of Schlatter’s “practice.”

63. There are articles on Dowie and on the Christian Catholic Apostolic Church in Zion in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, to the latter of which a full Bibliography is attached. To this Bibliography we may add Annie L. Muzzie, One Man’s Mission. True or False?” in The Independent, September 17, 1896; “New Sects and Old,” chap. xm of “Religious Life in America,” by E. H. Abbott, Outlook, September 15, 1902, and afterwards published in book form; James Orr, “Dowie and Mrs. Eddy,” London Quarterly Review, April, 1904.

64. See an analysis of Dowie’s healing work in American Journal of Psychology, X, pp. 442, 465.

65. The literature of Faith-Healing is very extensive. We mention only, along with Doctor Gordon’s Ministry of Healing, among its advocates: George Morris, Our Lord’s Permanent Healing Office in His Church; W. E. Boardman, The Great Physician; The Lord That Healeth Thee, 1881; and Faith Work under Doctor Cullis in Boston; A. B. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, 1884; The Holy Spirit or Power from on High, 1899; and Discovery of Divine Healing, 1902. The doctrines involved are discussed by A. A. Hodge, Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, 1887, pp. 107-116; cf. also A. F. Schauffler, The Century Magazine, December, 188s, pp. 274 fi. The whole question is admirably canvassed in L. T. Townsend, Faith Work, Christian Science and Other Cures, 1885; J. M. Buckley, Faith-Healing, Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena, 1892; A. T. Schofield, A Study of Faith-Healing, 1892; W. S. Plummer Bryan, Prayer and the Healing of Disease, 1896; W. R. Hall, “Divine Healing or Faith-cure,” Lutheran Quarterly, New Series, vol. XXVII (1897), pp. 263-276. The literatures attached to the articles, “Faith-healing,”” in Hastings’s Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, and “Psychotherapy,” in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, will suggest the works on the action of the mind on the body. P. Dearmer’s Body and Soul. An Inquiry into the effects of Religion upon Health, with a Description of Christian Work of Healing from the New Testament to the Present Day, 1909 (goth ed., 1912), deserves perhaps special mention, as presenting the matter from a high Anglican standpoint, and on the basis of pantheizing theories of being which leave no room for real miracles, whether in the records of the New Testament or in the healings of subsequent times. See also J. M. Char-cot, “The Faith-cure,” in The New Review, VIII (1893), pp. 18-31, which discusses the matter, however, with Lourdes particularly in mind.

---

← Notes to Lecture IV · Contents · Notes to Lecture VI →