and who had been a sufferer for thirty-eight years. He said, in a striking manner, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."[1] Do not these express words of our Saviour testify that there is, in many cases at least, a direct connection between sin and bodily disease, like that of cause and effect, showing that in such cases, physical evil is immediately derived from moral evil? That this connection does not show itself in all instances, and that it is not always the case that bad men are diseased and good men healthy—is indeed true; and some of the reasons assignable for these variations from the general rule have been already stated. But these occasional variations, as before remarked, do not affect at all the general fact of the connection between physical and moral disease, nor the truth of the principle that all disease in the human race sprang originally from sin on the part of man, and that such state of disease is continually maintained and aggravated by man's continued sinfulness.
Reviewing, then, the facts and considerations which have been presented in this Section, going to show that disorder of body sprang from disorder of mind,—disease from sin,—and connecting this truth with the great principle sought to be demonstrated in the preceding Chapter, that man, not God, is the author of sin or moral evil,—we at once perceive the justness of the conclusion which it was our chief purpose to draw,—namely, that the wide-spread sorrow and suffering consequent upon bodily disease and sickness, which we see around us in the world, is not to be ascribed to God, but altogether to man himself. Our kind Lord above,
- ↑ John v. 14.
