The Church owes a debt she never can repay to those brave pioneers who have loved not their lives even to the death that it might become established once again as part of the Gospel. And an equal debt is owing to those denominations that have made bold to include a declaration of their faith in Divine healing in their tenets, and then have gone on to teach and practice the thing among their adherents. Not only have we already gained tremendously in these things, but blessed be God the advance continues.
If it be asked wherein this truth has been pushed to an extreme, it might be suggested that in the first place we have erred by refusing any place in our doctrine, or at least a very insufficient place, for the sovereign will of God. To ask for Divine healing without any accompanying “nevertheless not my will but Thine be done” seems to pose an attitude out of keeping with every other right attitude we take in prayer.
And in the second place we seem to have unreasonably refused any place for physical healing to be ministered to us in the will of God except by entirely supernatural and miraculous means. It is necessary to express ourselves with great carefulness on this point, for it touches the devotion and zeal of many choice fellow-believers. Their accepted corollary for their faith in Divine healing seems to have been a firm repudiation of the use of any natural “means” of healing whatsoever as inconsistent with faith. The help of medicine or surgery, and the assistance of doctors or nurses, has been frowned upon and denounced in the strongest terms. Some of these earnest souls have literally died for their faith because they refused to compromise in the matter. Let us honour their magnificent consistency even if we feel compelled to question their sound judgment.
For other of us it seems reasonable to trust God for the healing of our bodies in a way that does not necessarily and arbitrarily rule out any thought of the Divine providence and love being ministered to us through human intermediaries, and by means of naturally acquired skill in the art of healing. Our faith in God in other matters, such as, for instance, provision for all our need, has not precluded us from seeing the hand of our Heavenly Father in the ministry of human channels—even of the ungodly. To demand an absolute miracle every time we fall sick does seem to many of us to border upon presumption.
We can appreciate that in the establishing of a testimony to God’s supernatural healing power for His children, apart from the use of accepted natural means of healing, it has been necessary for some of His children to deliberately refuse all resort to those means. In no other way could such a testimony be demonstrated. But to turn this personal calling into a radical doctrine for the Church is a vastly different and a serious matter. To teach that all Christians who believe that there is a place for Divine healing are backslidden and failing in faith unless they take an extreme attitude against resort to “means” for healing is to place upon the majority of true children of God a yoke they are not able to bear. Multitudes who subscribe to a denominational tenet expressing official belief in Divine healing do, as a matter of fact, have recourse in their times of need for healing and relief from pain to various natural remedies, and to the skill of the medical profession.
pages 27&28
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