Sickness of the Soul - Rev.M.D.Rogers

The soul has its diseases, as well as the body, and corresponding in all respects to those of the body. there are spiritual heats and spiritual chills---spiritual fevers and violent spiritual inflammations. There are spiritual palsies and spiritual lamenesses. There is spiritual jaundice which discolours the whole mind, and induces us to distort and disfigure everything which prejudice has led us to dislike. There is spiritual consumption--a wearing and wasting down of our strength, until our life is all gone. We have been living in bad air, and our lungs have got out of order. Our spiritual blood is not purified, and the whole tissues of our souls become weak, We become spiritually lean and feeble, expectorating the very substance of our lungs. Our flesh wastes away, our skin is scrofulous, and a settled low fever wastes us and we become almost sleepless, until we pine and fade away. In other words, from heedless indifference to the evil customs and impious maxims of bad society, the atmosphere of our souls is poisoned, and all our thoughts are corrupted and vile; we gradually lose all pure, tender, holy, virtuous, and manly feeling, we reject all rational remonstrance, until we lose the very faculty of noble or heavenly thought, and die to all that is good. Or, it may be, a spiritual abscess has formed, a large boil increasing from time to time,---some settled envy or constant fretfulness, or rooted malice, or lasting discontent. Our self-love has taken some offence against God or against man, and we dwell upon it, feed it, recur to it again and again; words, looks, every act of the offending individual, or the abhorred condition, all are construed by the unhappy one bad feeling we have cherished ; and the swollen sinfulness attracts our spiritual life; turns it into grim dislike, ever growing, and incapacitates us for loving work and holy states. We grieve, we hate, we gather malice, we sink in moody misery, and after years of self-inflicted anguish die.

These soul sicknesses are often alluded to or described in the Word, All spiritual evil is a disease of the soul. The world is a great hospital. None are quite without disease. If we could but realise the truth, it would help us often, both in our own cases, and in those of others. We should seek help from the Great Physician, and we should often pity others, as weak sufferers, whom now we harshly condemn. The Word affords abundant recognition of these spiritual ailments. How frequently do we read in the Psalms plaintive prayers for the soul to be healed of its sorrows. "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak : O Lord heal me, for my bones are vexed" (Ps. vi. 2). "I said, Lord be merciful unto me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee" (Ps. xli. 4). How soothing is the beautiful language of the 103rd Psalm : "Bless the Lord, O Iny soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases (1-3). The name of Saviour, one of the dearest names of our Lord, means Healer, Giver of spiritual health. Salvation means health. Health of the body is the type taken to be an image of a true, heavenly, and happy state of the soul. "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins" (Matt, 1, 21).