Disease Traced to the Early Ages and Its Causes-Religion. [Part II]

I will give some facts that go to show that disease followed some act that was not right according to their laws, for God never made a law. This is the law and the Gospel and all sin is death. The people were taught that God sent their diseases upon them. So by their belief they were made sick and by their belief the priests could pardon their sins and cure them, and their offerings were to pay the priests for curing them. There were those who were not so superstitious as the rest and they were of course called infidels. Show me the Christian who believes that God brought on the gout to Asa or the leprosy to Miriam or the disease on Job. The cure of Naaman, the captain of the host of the king will be found in 2nd Kings: 5^th Chapt. Elisha without prescribing any medicine told the man to wash in the Jordan seven times and he was healed. Elisha would not take pay so his servant followed Naaman and took silver; for that act the prophet said that the leprosy should leave Naaman and cleave unto him and it was so. Here you see a cure made and a disease transferred from one person to another. This was done just according to their belief and the Lord had nothing to do with it, but the people believed that Elisha was a servant of God or a medium. You will find in 2^nd Chron: 26th Chap., a case of King Uzziah who had flourished for a long time and he became great. One day he went into the temple to burn incense and Azariah the high priest followed with four score priests of the Lord. They undertook to stop him and he grew wroth and the leprosy arose on his forehead and he became a leper to the day of his death. This was a case where temper threw his system into a state to be affected by his belief.

I could show hundreds of cases in our days of men dying of heart disease, as it is called, while it is all caused by some mental trouble; but all this goes to show that disease was made by some impression on the mind under a belief that it is God's wrath. Those who were affected did not believe that the priests could cure them except the most superstitious, but they all believed in the disease, so a warfare was kept up between the priests and doctors till Jesus appeared. Then a new philosophy or priesthood sprang up that asked no sacrifices and Jesus said that Aaron's priesthood was like an old garment, and the world required a more perfect mode of curing. The people no longer laid the disease to God but to the spirits of the dead and to the devil who flourished about the time of Jesus, and these took away the credit of diseases which had been rendered to God. The power of the priests was waning; it was like an old garment ready to drop to pieces, for it was founded on their doctrines or religious beliefs. So when they wanted to unite Jesus' doctrine with their own, he told them that would be like putting new wine into old bottles; it would ferment and break them. So his precepts of happiness would not be confined to their bottles or religion, and as the people wanted a new religion that would not lay so many burdens on them, it must be in opposition to all their previous religion.

He said, Come unto me all ye that are sick and bound down by the heavy burdens of the priests and I will give you rest. The rest was health and the sick came and he healed them by the word of his mouth. He said nothing about religion, for his works were in direct opposition to the priests as much as mine are to the medical faculty. At that time, there were medical men and those who cured by the laying on of hands. They were opposed to the priests, and as the latter lost power in curing the people, the diseases took another form. Hell was invented, and a devil to torment the wicked people was introduced.

At the time of Jesus there was a variety of opinions and people were afflicted according to their belief. They believed in a devil and that he entered into animals as well as men, and in this form it was called spirits. Jesus saw that although the Jews had come up from out of the dominion of the priests in regard to curing of disease, the deception had only another form which opened the door to all sorts of quackery, medical and spiritual. There was competition and opposition among the sects. Each was cured according to their belief which was their religion, so all who applied to medical men were not religious but placed more confidence in these than in God. So the medical faculty did not amount to as much as they do now in the religious world. Job gives a true view of the medical faculty, Ch. 13; "Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it. What ye know the same do I know also; I am not inferior unto you. Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God, but ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value, O, that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom."

PPQ To Be Continued