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 medicines.” Jer. 46.11. “A merry heart doeth good like medicine” (margin, to a medicine, showing that the merry heart is better than the medicine). Prov. 17.22. “And the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.” Ezek. 46.12. This latter references does not mean any material remedy but is prophetical of the tree of life and divine healing. See Rev. 22.2. Thus we see the word of God places no intrinsic value upon medicine.

Q. Is not the ministry of physicians for the body designed of God, the same as the ministry of the gospel for the soul?

A. No. The greater portion of the physicians of the land are ungodly people, many of them professed infidels, and were never designed of God to administer drugs and poisons to anyone; much less to the people of God, whose bodies are the sacred temples of the Holy Spirit. The true ministers of the gospel are the ministers for soul and body. “And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing everywhere.” Luke 9.6. “And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming his word with signs following.” Mark 16.20.

Q. But is not the ministry of physicians recognized in the Bible?

A. Yes. Let us read how it recognizes them. “But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.” Job 13.4. “And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.” II. Chron. 16.12. “And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.” Mark 5.26. These scriptures show that the Bible gives no very favorable recognition of physicians.

Q. Was not anointing with oil the mode of doctoring in Bible times?

A. No. While some kinds of oil may have some medical value for some kinds of diseases, it was not at all designed for any such use in connection with the prayer of faith in healing the sick, If anointing was the mode of doctoring, the church would have had no need of instruction in this respect; for it would have been a common practice everywhere by the doctors, and had this been the mind of the apostle, then he would have assigned the work of anointing to the doctors, “Elders are not Masseurs.”