Part 2 The Sick One Whom Jesus Loves
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But is it true that God, by setting you aside from active engagements, has set you aside from all duty and labor? We think not. Is it too much to say, that He is now summoning you, though to a more limited and obscure, yet to a higher and holier, because more self-denying and God-glorifying, sphere of duty? Your present loss of health has brought with it its high and appropriate duties, obligations, and employments. It bears an especial message from God to you, and through you to others. Contemplate the work to be done in your own soul, and the testimony through this which you are to bear to the power of Divine grace, to the sustaining energy of the gospel, and to the character of God, and I ask if the lone chamber of sickness has not its especial and appropriate duties, responsibilities, and work; equally as difficult, as honorable, and as remunerative as any which attach to the sphere of activity, or to the season of health? You are called upon now to glorify God in a passive rather than in an active consecration to His service. Graces hitherto perhaps dormant, or but feebly brought into play, are now to be developed and exercised to their utmost capacity. Patience is to be cultivated, resignation is to be exhibited, faith is to be exercised, love is to be tried, and example is to be set- and are not these great, holy, and sublime achievements?
Who will affirm that there is no sermon to be preached from that solitary couch, that sick-bed- yes, and it may be more solemn, more searching, more full of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, than the pulpit ever preached. The Church and the world have now the testimony of one passing through the present and personal experience of what he speaks. A sick room is not the place for theorizing and experimentizing upon truth and eternity. All transpiring there, is stern reality. The dust of human applause is laid, the breath of adulation is hushed, the flush of excitement has faded, and the delirium of an admiring throng has passed away- the artificial gives place to the real. All is as substantial and solemn as eternity.
Deem not yourself a useless cumberer because sickness has incapacitated you for active labor. God has but changed your sphere of duty, transferring you, doubtless, to one more glorifying to Himself. What though your cherished hopes are blighted, what though your fond plans are frustrated, what though your brilliant prospects are darkened, what though your years of hard, ambitious study seem for nothing, and the honors won by unwearied application and midnight toil, are withering and drooping upon your brow? God is summoning you to a profounder study, to more splendid achievements, and to a more verdant and deathless reward.
Do you think that your life has been alla blank? Was Kirke White's? was Spencer's? was Brainerd Taylor's? and a thousand more, whose brilliant career was darkened, and whose opening prospects of eminence and of usefulness were suddenly arrested by sickness, and speedily closed by death? Oh no! Though dead, they still live, and speak, and influence. And who can tell for what nobler purpose and higher employment in heaven the severe mental and moral discipline through which they passed, was designed by God to fit them? No, it is impossible that the past, its toil and sacrifice, can be a blank in your history, or that its literary and spiritual acquisitions are utterly fruitless and lost. To say nothing of the pleasures which you have derived in your mental discursions through the glowing fields of literature and of science, of the high gratification you have felt in converse with ancient authors, and of the feeling of ecstatic delight which has thrilled your soul, when, with the Grecian philosopher, you shouted your "Eureka! Eureka!" over some deep mystery unraveled, or some profound problem solved.
What is a still more consolatory reflection, you have been cultivating those mental powers with which God has endowed you, in the precise way which His wisdom ordained, and which His providence marked out. The future, now mournfully realized, of disappointed ambition, of blighted hope, and of withered expectation, your Heavenly Father studiously concealed from your view, that nothing might suppress your ardor or daunt your zeal in its high and brilliant career of investigation and of thought. And which, let me ask you, would from your bed of sickness be the most painful and humiliating retrospect- the years spent in mental dissipation and wasted time, or the years which you have devoted to those acquisitions which expanded your mind, and enriched it with thoughts, which now shed an intellectual luster upon your pallid countenance, and supply material for pleasing reflection in the weary hours of sickness and of solitude?
But there is a view of your present trial even more soothing and consolatory than this. It is the thought that your heavenly Father- to whom, in youth, and, perhaps, by renewed dedication in riper years, you gave yourself in solemn covenant, to use you and to dispose of you as best promoted His glory- is dealing with you now; that His wisdom is infallible, His love immutable, and that all His thoughts towards you are precious thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Receive, then, with meekness your Heavenly Father's dispensation, which, while it has set you apart from the Lord's work, has set you apart more exclusively and entirely for the Lord Himself. Your great desire has been to glorify Him; leave Him to select the means which may best advance it. You have thought of health and activity, of life and usefulness, of being a champion for the truth, a herald of salvation to the ignorant and the lost, a leader in some high and laborious path of Christian enterprise- but He has ordained it otherwise. And now, by sickness and suffering, by silence and solitude, He is giving you other work to perform, which shall not the less secure your usefulness and promote His glory. Oh take this cup of trembling from His hands and say,
"My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home on life's rough way
Oh teach me from my heart to say,
Your will be done."
"Though dark my path, or sad my lot,
Let me be still and murmur not,
But breathe the prayer, divinely taught,
Your will be done."
"Should pining sickness waste away
My life in premature decay,
May I with meek submission say,
Your will be done."
"If You should call me to resign
What most I prize- it never was mine,
I only yield You what was Thine.
Your will be done."
"Control my will from day to day,
Blend it with Yours, and take away
All that now makes it hard to say,
Your will be done."
"And when on earth I breathe no more
The prayer often mixed with tears before,
I'll sing upon a happier shore,
Your will be done."
But let us not lose sight of the Physician of the patient. "The whole need not a physician, but those who are sick." That Physician is He who spoke these words. The power of the Son of God over the moral and physical diseases of men, prove Him to be just the Physician which our circumstances require. Do we need skill? He possesses it. Sympathy? He has it. Patience, tenderness, perseverance? all belong to Jesus. Wonderful Physician! No disease can baffle You, for You are Divine. No suffering can fail to move You, for You are human. Are your deep anxieties awakened, my reader, on behalf of some loved object, now pining in sickness, perhaps, to all appearance, in circumstances of extreme danger? In simple faith call in the aid of this Physician. Let the prayer of Moses for Miriam be yours, presented with the faith, and urged with the importunity, of the Syrophoenician mother, "Heal her now, O Lord, I beseech you." "I will come and heal her," will be His reply. Deem not the case beyond His skill. Thus reasoned the sister of Lazarus: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother had not died. But I know that even now, whatever you will ask of God, God will give it you." Go in prayer and faith, and lay your sick one at His feet. Jesus is with you. One word from Him, and the disease shall vanish; one touch of His hand, and health shall be restored. He who raised Lazarus from the grave, can bring back from its brink the dear one around whose fast waning life the veins of your heart are entwined. Ask believingly, ask submissively, ask importunately, and then leave the result with Him.
Christian sufferer! you marvel why the Lord keeps you so long upon the couch of solitariness, and upon the bed of languishing- why the "earthly house of this tabernacle," should be taken down by continued and pining sickness, the corrodings of disease, and the gradual decay of strength. Hush every reasoning, anxious, doubtful thought. Your Heavenly Father has so ordained it. He who built the house, and whose the house is, has a right to remove it by what process He sees fit. The mystery of His present conduct will, before long, be all explained. Yes, faith and love can even explain it now, "Even so, Father, for so it seems good in your sight!" Yours is an honorable and a responsible post. God has still a work for you to do. You have been waiting year by year in the quietness of holy submission the summons to depart. But God has lengthened out your period of weariness and of suffering, for the work is not yet done in you and by you, to effect which this sickness was sent. Oh what a witness for God may you now be! What a testimony for Christ may you now bear! What sermons- converting the careless, confirming the wavering, restoring the wandering, comforting the timid, may your conversation and your example now preach from that sick bed! And oh, for what higher degrees of glory may God, through this protracted illness, be preparing you!
That there are degrees of glory in heaven, as there are degrees of suffering in hell, and degrees of grace on earth, admits of not a doubt. "As one star differs from another star in glory," so does one glorified saint differ from another. Will there be the absence in heaven of that wondrous variety of proportion which throws such a charm and beauty around the beings and the scenery of earth? Doubtless not. Superior grace below, is preparing for superior glory above. And the higher our attainments in holiness here, the loftier our summit of blessedness hereafter. For these high degrees of heavenly happiness, your present and lengthened sickness may, by God's grace, be preparing you. Sanctified by the Spirit of holiness, the slow fire is but the more perfectly refining; and the more complete the refinement on earth, the more perfectly will the sanctified soul mirror forth the Divine Sun in heaven. Be, then, your beautiful patience of spirit- meek and patient sufferer- increasingly that of the Psalmist, "I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child."
Has the Lord recently recovered you from sickness? Then see that He receives much glory from your recovery. Let your life, which He has anew snatched from the grave, be anew consecrated to His service. Preserve in constant and grateful remembrance the hallowed seclusion, the sacred impressions, the solemn transactions of the sick chamber. "Vow, and pay your vows unto the Lord."Be doubly guarded against that which, previously to your illness, deadened the life of God in your soul. It is not seemly for a Christian to emerge from the solemnities and retirement of sickness, light, trifling, and earthly. We look for it far otherwise. We expect to see the froth of vain conversation subsided, the dust of earth blown away, the clinging attachment to objects of senseweakened; and in their place, sobriety of spirit heavenliness of deportment, and weanedness from earth. Let these Christian traits be yours, beloved reader. Let it appear by your increased spiritual-mindedness, that you have risen from the bed of sickness, and come forth from the place of solitude, like the "bridegroom coming out of his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race."
Cherish in your heart and perpetuate in your life a grateful sense and remembrance of the Lord's mercy in your recovery. He it was who healed you. He gave the skill, and blessed the means, and rebuked the disease. You were brought low, and He helped you. A monument of His sparing mercy, may you be a monument of His sanctifying grace. Let the life which He has 'redeemed from destruction,' be as a pleasant psalm to the Lord. "O Lord my God, I cried unto you, and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from the grave; you have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, O you saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness; for his anger endures but a night: in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise to you, and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto you forever." "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies."
Go, with lowly and adoring spirit, to the house of the Lord, saying, "I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people." There lay yourself, a living sacrifice, upon the altar of your living High Priest- a renewed consecration to God.
"Here in Your courts I leave my vow,
And Your rich grace record;
Witness you saints who hear me now,
If I forsake the Lord."
You who visit sick and dying beds, tread solemn and important ground. You have need to visit much the throne of grace for the wisdom and the grace which such a sphere of labor requires. Remember that you are brought in contact with those with whom God is especially dealing. Your advantages for instruction and impression are great. Sickness has given a distaste for the world; God's judgment has perhaps aroused the conscience, and his dealings have made the heart soft. Your first step will be to ascertain, as far as it is possible, the real state of the soul. What medical man would attempt to prescribe for his patient without first thoroughly ascertaining the nature of the disease, its symptoms, phases, and the course of treatment demanded?
But your post is infinitely more important and responsible than his, whose only office is to heal the body. Having learned this, you will then be prepared to bring the grand remedy contained in the gospel of Jesus to bear upon the case. Let your unfoldings of that remedy be scriptural, simple, and appropriate. You will present such statements of divine truth as the nature of the case requires, making prominent the two great ingredients in your Divine recipe- the fall in the first Adam- the recovery in the second Adam; out of self, into Christ. Before the truly awakened, yet anxious, restless soul, you will array all the precious promises and gracious invitations of the Gospel, so amply provided for such. You will lay peculiar stress upon the finished work of Jesus, and the perfect freeness of the remedy which he has provided; especially holding up to view the great and glorious fact, that Christ died for the ungodly. You will explain faith to be the one simple channel through which flow pardon and peace to the soul- "believing in the Lord Jesus Christ;" while you unfold his richness to meet all the necessities of his own beloved and called people. But the Spirit of truth will be your Teacher and your Guide. Looking up to Him, and leaning upon Christ, your labor in this peculiarly difficult, trying, and important sphere of Christian exertion will not be in vain in the Lord.
Nor would I fail to remind the Christian physician, should the eye of such an one light upon this page, of the peculiar advantages which he possesses of uniting the healing of bodily disease with a deep solicitude for the spiritual welfare of the sick. The example of our adorable Lord, our great model in all things, presents a beautiful and instructive illustration of this union. Immediately preceding His magnificent sermon on the mount, it is narrated of Him, "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of diseases among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought unto him all sick people who were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those who were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatics, and those who had the palsy: and he healed them."
Molding his Christianity and shaping his professional career after this illustrious example, doubly and immensely useful may the pious physician be. Let no delicacy of feeling lest you should invade the sacred functions of the Christian ministry- let no dread of being singular, nor fear of man, dissuade you from a work which God has so providentially placed in your hands. Some of the most illustrious names in the history of medical science have been identified with the profession and propagation of Christianity. Bateman and Hamilton, Hervey and Sydenham, Boerhaave and Mason Good, were Christian physicians. Illustrious as they were in the annals of science, still more honored and distinguished were they as men of whom it is their highest eulogy, that while they healed the bodily malady of the sick, they administered to the 'mind diseased,' and both in their professional and private life, walked with God.
And, oh, if but one soul is, by your instrumentality, brought to Christ- if one, wounded by the serpent, is led to raise his eye of faith, even in the agonies of death, and fix it upon the Savior- slain and lifted up for sinners the chief, the vilest- that were a blessing and a reward before which all the honors of your professional skill and reputation droop and die. Christian physician! be faithful to souls, be faithful to your high trust, be faithful to God.
The subject of Christian Missions, in connection with the medical profession, is becoming one of deepening interest and importance. It is found that a practical acquaintance with the art of healing, clothes the missionary of the Cross with an importance in the estimation of the heathen, and places in his hands an influence over their minds, superior to all other laborers in the field. The healing of the body opens an avenue to the healing of the soul. Confidence and gratitude, and even affection, are inspired within the 'savage breast,' and these prepare the way for the Gospel message. The human physician thus becomes the herald of the Divine; and the balm which he administers to the physical malady, is but the introduction to the 'balm of Gilead,' of which the diseased and deathless mind so deeply stands in need. The question of duty with pious medical men, as to their personal consecration to the missionary work, viewed in this point of light, is worthy of their most solemn and prayerful consideration.
The following remarks by a distinguished Christian physician are so singularly appropriate, and withal so excellent and eloquent, that I am happy to strengthen my appeal by their quotation. Alluding to the duty of pious medical men, he says, "And responsibility stops not at themselves. Having become Christians, they find it at once their privilege and their duty to become Christianizers too. A privilege- for thus only can they satisfy that burning desire which else consumes them- to make known and convey to others the blessings they have themselves received. And a solemn duty, inasmuch as God has given to them, more than to perhaps any other class of men, many and invaluable opportunities of advancing His glory, and doing His will, in the salvation of lost souls- perishing and yet immortal. It is commonly said that 'man's extremity is God's opportunity.' The heart is soft in sickness, and impressible; and the soul awakened, seeks earnestly for hope and comfort then.
The faithful pastor is perhaps little less successful in turning souls to Christ, by his ministrations in the sick-room, than by those of the pulpit; and the faithful physician, too, can look back with thankfulness to many happy times, when with one hand he healed and soothed the body, and with the other guided the soul heavenward and home. Conversion may come mysteriously and softly as the breeze- no man knowing where it comes or where it goes. At other times it is dated back to special providences in perils and escape. But, oh! how often is it referred, with adoring gratitude, to some lingering disease or sudden and sore sickness! It is in the fear of death and judgment that conscience regains its power, and speaks for God. Memory upbraids and conviction grows deeper and darker; but memory alone will never bring peace. News, good news, is eagerly sought- news of hope and salvation. Then is the sowing time, while the earth is soft and open, and watered by the tears of penitence. Then is it that the smitten patient clings with child-like confidence to the physician; and, hanging life upon his looks and lips, implores his aid. Then is it that he, sad and sorrowful, his best skill baffled, and himself bereft of all hope of cure, yet rejoices in being able to say- 'One thing more I can do. It is the sure prescription: believe and live!' Then is it that in the deep furrow of affliction, the good seed may be by his hand hopefully laid. Nourished by the dews of the Holy Spirit, and warmed by the rays of God's love, it takes deep root, springs up, and bears fruit, to the praise and glory of His name." -Professor Miller of Edinburgh.
Let the Christian invalid be cheered with the prospect of before long arriving at that land the inhabitants of which shall no more say, I am sick. It is the land of light and love, of rest and holiness. The moment the spirit is 'absent from the body and present with the Lord,' it treads those balmy shores where health breathes in the air, flows in the waters, and sparkles in the sunbeams. There is no sickness in heaven, for "the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity," and this accounts for the absence of all physical malady. There is no sickness in heaven, because there is no sin. But the more full enjoyment of this blessing is reserved for the new earth, upon which the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, will dwell. Then it is that, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
Christian sufferer! you are nearing this land- a few more days of languishing and pain, a few more nights of weary wakefulness, and you are there! Do you see through the chinks of the, "earthly house of this tabernacle," "a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens?" Do you see the "city which has foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God?" It has "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine on it for the glory of God does enlighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. . . The gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there is no night there."
Soon you will exchange this hospital for your Father's house, and as you cross the threshold, the last pang is inflicted, the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear is brushed from your eye. Then, at the resurrection of the just, comes the new body. "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." All this blessedness and glory JESUS has procured for you. All this blessedness and glory awaits you. And into its full possession and experience Jesus will soon bring you. Animated with such a prospect, and cheered with such a hope, patiently endure the prolonged sickness, the protracted suffering, exclaiming in the spirit and language of Jesus, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, your will be done!"
"Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers."
"When languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
It is sweet to look beyond our cage,
And long to fly away."
"Sweet to look inward and attend
The whispers of His love;
Sweet to look upward to the place
Where Jesus pleads above."
"Sweet to look back and see my name
In life's fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward and behold
Eternal joys my own."
"Sweet to reflect how grace divine
My sins on Jesus laid;
Sweet to remember that His blood
My debt of sufferings paid."
"Sweet on His righteousness to stand,
Which saves from second death;
Sweet to experience, day by day,
His Spirit's quickening breath."
"Sweet on His faithfulness to rest,
Whose love can never end;
Sweet on His covenant of grace
For all things to depend."
"Sweet in the confidence of faith
To trust His firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in His hand,
And know no will but His."
"Sweet to rejoice in lively hope
That, when my change shall come,
Angels will hover round my bed,
And waft my spirit home."
"There shall my disimprisoned soul
Behold Him and adore;
Be with His likeness satisfied,
And grieve and sin no more."
"Shall see Him wear that very flesh
On which my guilt was lain;
His love intense, His merit fresh,
As though but newly slain."
"If such the views which grace unfolds,
Weak as it is below;
What rapture must the church above
In Jesus' presence know!"
"If such the sweetness of the stream,
What must the fountain be;
Where saints and angels draw their bliss
Immediately from Thee!"
"O may the unction of these truths
Forever with me stay;
Till from her sinful cage dismissed,
My spirit flies away."
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