Читать книгу Medicine and the Church. Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick онлайн

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Spiritual Healing has been hailed with enthusiasm by certain members of the Church of England, under the impression that it constitutes a resumption of the early powers of Christianity as evidenced in the miracles of healing ascribed to Christ and His Apostles. A theological discussion as to the possibility of miracles occurring at the present day is outside the scope of this article, but it would be well to define the standpoint from which the medical man approaches all investigations connected with disease.

The researches of scientists are conducted by the methods of observation, experiment, and induction; it is the medical man’s duty to observe symptoms, to experiment as to their cause, to investigate possible remedies, and to apply these to the relief or cure of disease. In recent times much has been done towards elucidating the influences of mind upon body and its diseases; but so far questions connected with the Spirit have been regarded as outside the scope of medicine.

The minister of religion, on the other hand, has been content hitherto to leave questions of physical health to be dealt with by the doctor; he has not interfered to any extent in mental questions, and his chief concern has been with what is called the ‘Spirit.’ It would seem a little difficult to define the attributes of Spirit, or to draw a sharp line of division between spirit and mind; but, however this may be, spirit has usually been considered as opposed to matter, and no influence over the material diseases of the body has been ascribed to it. Whatever views the Church may have held as to the miracles of healing mentioned in the New Testament, she has to some extent kept them in the background; and it is possible that they might have remained there, but for the success obtained by certain irrational cults that have sprung into being, with the object apparently of abolishing both parson and doctor. The foundation on which all these sects are based would seem to be a passage in the Epistle of St. James, chap. v. verses 14, 15, which reads as follows: ‘Is any sick among you? 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.’