3. His conviction that disease and suffering were not part of the right and natural order of things. This feature is seen in all His actions, but found its clearest expression in the case of the woman who could in no wise lift up herself (Lk 13"-"j (see Impotence). ' Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath ? ' In addition to our Lord's antagonism to the pedantry and inliu- manity of His critics, the underlying note is heard that humanity ought not to be held in bonds of sickness and infirmity. Disease and sufi'ering and untimely death are not part of tlie natural, i.e. the right and Divine, order of things. And all the power of rijihtis on the side of those who labour to set man free aii.l to i-nalile Iiim to stand erect in body, mind, and soul before (Jod and his fellows.
4. A clear feature in our Lonl's healings was i/i* sense of the need of dealing with the sin vhich often lay at the root of the sichness and injirmity. Jesus very carefully guards against the unwarranted assumption made by the'friends of Job, and by the disciples (Jn 9=), that sin was the secret cause of all suttering and pain. Other and Diviner reasons might account for much of the depriva- tion f",!'! trouble of man (Jn 9-'). But in two cases (Mk 2'-'", Jn 5>^) He not obscurely marks the sin as the deepest cause of the weakness (see artt. } AKALY.sis and Impotence). Sin is the violation of the whole nature of man, body, mind, soul, as well as disobedience to tlie Holy \\i\\ of tiod. It
depresses the springs of personal vitality, and there- fore continually makes for sickness and feebleness of body.
5. Faith was required on the jmrt of the one to he liealed. Faith must be clearly distinguished from mental assent and from credulity; which vainly arrogate to themselves that august word. Faitli, as Jesus conceived it, was the noblest actiiaty of man's being, the triumphant assertion of the essential and Divine part of his nature against all that dwarfs, disfigures, and oppresses it, and this faith our Lord most keenly desired to see. The absence of it, even the fear of its absence, chilled and dismayed His spirit (Jn 4^", Mk 9~-3 KV). He marks faith as the truly favourable condition for His healing power to be efficacious (Mt <i-\ Mk 10^-, Lk n'" 18", Jn ^\ Apparent exceptions to this connexion between healing and faith ni.ay be traced in Mt 9'-s 12«-", Lk 13""" U'-^ ooso-si, but in all these cases the details are not reported, the fact of the healing being in these instances less prominent than other features of the narrative, such as the controversy of Jesus with the cold critics in the synagogue, and the personal characteristics of the Saviour in His beneficent action with respect to Malchus. It has also been thought that demoniacs as such were incapacitated from the exercise of faith in Jesus. But while this is in part true, it is significant that our Lord does in these instances seek to gain access to the true personality and to set it free from the oppres- sion of all alien powers (see LUNATIC).
6. Jesus laboured to produce this faith. — Not only does He ask for it as a condition of healing, but He spends Himself in the effort to evoke it. His careful treatment of the blind man (Mk 8~"'<'), the deaf and dumb (Mk 7^'""), the blind and im- potent (Jn 9'-' and 5«) is best understood as the effort of our Lord to produce the essential condi- tions of receiving His healing ^•irtue. In each case the means used, as well as the words spoken, are adapted to the particular case. We have not one set of means used indiscriminately. The ears and the tongue of the deaf-mute are touched, the blind man in one case is led out of the town, saliva is ajiplied to his eyes, and the touch of the Lord's hand ; in the other the eyes are anointed and the patient is sent to a distant pool in the exercise of faith. The labour is to set free the patient from all unnatural conditions of mind and spirit and from hopelessness, which is the most unnatural of all to men to whom God is so near.
This effort in Jesus produced weariness. It involved a deep expenditure of nervous, physical, and spiritual energy, and often in the Gospels we read of the spent, tired worker seeking refresh- ment in rest and in solitude, and most of all in fellowship with God, ' He went out into the mountain to pray' (Mt 14=», Mk 6^«, Lk 6'-).
7. Several of our Lord's cures were tcroughf while He was at a distance from the patient : the Syro-Phoenician's daughter (Mt 15-'-=", Mk 7""'°), the nobleman's .son (Jn 4**"°^), and the centurion's servant (Mt 8="", Lk 7'-'"). Difficulty is felt by many on the ground that the power of a unique personality which they acknowledge in Jesus could not be active in these cases. Dr. Abbott discusses the third instance (Kernel and Husk, Letter 18), and, excluding any ' bond fide miracle,' he inclines to regard the story as due to an exag- geration or to the influence of the knowledge of his friend's intercession with Jesus, 'with a senti- mental reserve in favour of brain-wave sympathy.' Since the time Dr. Abbott wrote, telepathy has become a recognized fact in psychical research, and we have no need to deny its possible action in these cases. But the explanation given of all His works by our Lord goes beneath all such conjee-