Isaiah: "The whole head," says he, "is sick and the whole heart faint: from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores."[1] The prophet is here describing the corrupt moral state of the Jewish nation, and he pictures it by the figure of a human body, full of corruption and loathsomeness, and diseased from head to foot. And such, no doubt, in the Divine sight, appears the spirit of man, when filled with wickedness and moral corruption: and what is true of a single individual, must be the case also with a whole nation and people in a similar state. Is it any wonder, then, when the spirit is in such a state of moral disorder, that the body, which has its life from the spirit, should be filled with impurity and disease also? and that, when a whole people or all mankind is in such a state, pestilences should break out and ravage whole countries and go through the world? Let not men, then, (as they are too apt to do) ascribe these scourges of humanity to the Hand of their Heavenly Father above, who is Love and Goodness itself,—who is a Saviour, not a destroyer,—but to their own state of corruption and sin, which is the sole cause of their suffering.
That there is a direct connection between sin and disease, was very plainly declared by our Lord Himself, in His treatment of the sick, when upon earth. To the man, "sick of the palsy," brought to Him "lying on a bed," He said first, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee:" and afterwards He told him to take up his bed, and go to his house.[2] So to the one whom He cured at the Pool of Bethesda,
