(e) Look, finally, at that grand distinctive hope which sustains the Christian amidst the deaths, and funerals, and pains, and partings, and sufferings of this world. That hope is the resurrection of the flesh after death. Our bodies shall live again. The grave cannot hold them. We part from those who fall asleep in Jesus in the blessed confidence that we shall meet and see them again, better, stronger, more beautiful than they ever were upon earth. For ever let us thank God that the glorious gospel which we profess to believe makes provision for our bodies as well as our souls.

But, after all, the importance which Christianity attaches to the body is not one whir greater than that which is continually attached to it by the children of this world. It is easy to sneer at the simple facts and doctrines of Christianity, and to talk great swelling words about” mind,” and “thought,” and “intellect,” and “reason.” But there is no getting over the broad fact that it is the body and not the mind, and the wants of the body, by which the world is governed.

Statesmen and politicians know this full well, and often to their cost. Their tenure of office depends in great measure on the contentment of the people. And who does not know that nothing creates popular discontent so much as high prices of corn, and general dearness of food for the body?

Merchants and ship-owners, of all men in the world, ought to know the importance of the body. Corn, and meat, and sugar, and tea, to feed the body,—cotton and wool to clothe the body,—what are these but the very articles which create the main portion of the commerce, and carrying trade, and business of a nation?

It would be waste of time to multiply arguments on this subject. In the face of such facts as these, it is the highest wisdom, both in the Church and the State, never to forget the importance of the body. To promote cleanliness, and temperance, and social purity,—to aim at the highest standard of sanitary arrangements, and to encourage every movement which can increase the health and longevity of a people,—to provide as far as possible good air, good water, good dwellings, and cheap food for every man, woman, and child in the land,—these are objects which deserve the best attention both of the Christian and the man of the world.

There is a mine of deep truth in the saying, “Sanitas sanitatum: omnia sanitas.” Whatever students and bookworms and philosophers may please to say, there is an indissoluble connection between the bodies and minds and souls of mankind. You cannot separate them. Not one of the three can be safely neglected. The Church, which only cares for saving souls, and the State, which only cares for educating minds, are both making a vast mistake. Happy is that country where body, soul, and mind are all cared for, and a continual effort made to provide for the health of all three.

II. The other remark which I wish to make is this: Observe the honour which our Lord Jesus Christ has put on the medical profession.

It is a noteworthy fact, to begin with, that one of the four men whom our Lord chose to write the Gospels was a “physician.” Not only does ecclesiastical history, with almost entire harmony, tell us this, but there is strong internal evidence in St. Luke’s writings to confirm it. An ingenious writer has lately published a book which proves that many Greek phrases and expressions used in the third Gospel and the Acts are thoroughly medical, and such as a physician of that age would use in describing the symptoms of disease, or of returning health. In short, there is little room for doubt that out of the twenty-seven books which make up the little volume of the New Testament, two of the longest come from the pen of a medical man.

But, after all, there is another fact of even deeper significance which demands attention. I refer to the very large number of the cases of sickness and disease which our Lord Jesus Christ was pleased to heal during the period of His earthly ministry. No doubt, if He had thought fit, He could have shown His Divine power, and proved His Divine mission, by miracles like the plagues of Egypt, by calling fire from heaven like Elijah, by causing the earth to open and swallow up His enemies, as Dathan and Abiram were swallowed up in the wilderness. But He did not do so. The great majority of His wondrous works were works of mercy wrought on the suffering bodies of men and women. To cure the leprous, the dropsical, the palsied, the fevered, the lame, the blind, was the continual labour of love of Him who was “God manifest in the flesh.” To use the deep and mysterious words quoted from Isaiah by St. Matthew, ” Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17).

Now why was this? Why did our Lord adopt this line of action, and habitually condescend to devote time and attention to the humbling and often loathsome ills to which flesh is heir? Partly, I believe, to remind us that He came to remedy the fall of man; and that of all the consequences of the fall, none cause so much trouble, and affect all ranks and classes of society so thoroughly, as sickness. But partly also, I believe, to teach Christians in every age, that to minister to the sick is eminently a work of mercy according to Christ’s mind. He that endeavours to check disease, to alleviate suffering, to lessen pain, to help the self-curative powers of nature, and to lengthen life, may surely take comfort in the thought, that, however much he may fail, he is at any rate walking in the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth. Next to the office of him who ministers to men’s souls, there is none really more useful and honourable than that of him who ministers to the soul’s frail tabernacle —the body.

He that thinks of these things will not wonder that the rise and progress of Christianity in every age has done much for the office of the physician. That nothing was known of medicine or surgery before the Christian era, it would be unfair to say. The names of Podalirius and Machaon in Homer, the better-known, less mythical name of Hippocrates (no mean observer of symptoms), are familiar to students. But it is a certain fact that the sick were never so systematically cared for, and the medical profession so honourably esteemed, as they have been since the Church of Christ leavened the world. The builders of the Parthenon and Colosseum built no infirmaries. You will find no ruins of hospitals at Athens or Rome. The infidel, the sceptic, and the agnostic may sneer at Bible religion if they please, but they cannot get over the fact that medical and surgical knowledge have always advanced side by side with the gospel of Christ. Clever and ingenious as the heathen inhabitants of India, China, and Japan are at this day, it is notorious that their acquaintance with anatomy and materia medica, and their treatment of bodily diseases, are beneath contempt.

Few of us, perhaps, realize what an immense debt we owe in Christian England to the medical profession. How much the comfort of our lives depends on it, and how vastly different is the condition of those whose lot is cast in a heathen country, or an “uncivilized back settlement of a colony! He that has a good servant in his house, and a good doctor within reach, ought to be a thankful man.

Fewer still, I believe, realize what enormous strides medicine and surgery have made in the last two centuries, and are continually making in the present. Of course death still reigns, and will reign until Christ returns in glory. Kings and their subjects, rich and poor, all alike die, and will die until death is swallowed up in victory. And no marvel! The human body is a frail and delicate machine. “Strange that a harp of a thousand strings should keep in tune so long.” But that the duration of life in this age is greatly increased by the advance of medical science, and that many diseases are preventable, manageable, or curable, which were once always thought fatal, are facts entirely beyond dispute. Let any one read Baxter’s semi-medical sermon in the Morning.Exercises, and observe his receipts for hypochondria and dyspepsia, and then say whether he ought not to be thankful that he lives in the nineteenth century. The mere fact that our ancestors knew nothing of quinine, chloroform, vaccination, the carbolic spray, the stethoscope, the laryngoscope, the ophthalmoscope, or the right treatment of the lunatic, the idiot, the deaf and dumb, and the blind, is a fact that speaks volumes to any intelligent mind.

None, perhaps, have such constant opportunities of seeing the value of a medical man’s services as Christian ministers. We meet them in sick-rooms, and by the side of death-beds, and we know the self-denying labour which their profession entails, and the ungrudging and often unpaid attention which the sick almost invariably receive at their hands.

There ought always to be the utmost harmony and friendly feeling between the two professions. The sick-room is the common ground on which they meet. On that ground they can greatly help one another. I think the minister of religion can help the medical man by teaching his patients the paramount importance of obedience to orders, of submission to advice, of attention to rules about diet and sanitary matters, and by encouraging patience and quietness of spirit. I am sure the doctor can help the minister by gently and wisely reminding those whose cases are past recovery, that it is their duty to accept the inevitable, that this life is not all, that they have souls as well as bodies, and that it is wise to look calmly at their latter end, and a world to come, and to prepare to meet God.

There is much in common in the two professions, the one in caring for men’s bodies, and the other in caring for men’s souls. We ministers cannot command success. Too often we visit in vain, exhort in vain, advise in vain, preach in vain. We find that spiritual life and death are in higher hands than ours. The doctor finds that under the most skilful treatment people will die, and we find that under the most faithful teaching many continue unmoved in conscience, and dead in sins. Like the doctor, we often feel our ignorance, cannot diagnose or discern symptoms, and feel doubtful what to say. Both ministers and medical men have great need to be clothed with humility. But I trust, to use the words which were placed on the tomb of Sir Henry Lawrence, we both “try to do our duty,” and persevere. Duties are ours, but events are God’s.

That there never may be wanting in Great Britain a continual supply of able, right-minded, faithful medical men, and that we who minister to the soul, and those who minister to the body, may always work harmoniously together, and help one another, is my earnest prayer.

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Footnotes

1. The substance of this paper was originally delivered as a sermon in Liverpool Cathedral at the opening of the Annual Conference of the British Medical Association in Liverpool, on July 31st, 1883. ↩