The Gospels never speak of disease or death as necessities; never as the will of God.  It is Satan, not God, who binds the woman with a spirit of infirmity.  It is not the will of our Father in heaven that one little one should perish.  Indeed, we do not sufficiently appreciate the abhorrence with which the whole of Scripture speaks of disease and death:  because we are in the habit of interpreting many texts which speak of the disease and death of the body in this life as if they referred to the punishment and death of the soul in the world to come.  We have a perfect right to do that; for Scripture tells us that there is a mysterious analogy and likeness between the life of the body and that of the soul, and therefore between the death of the body and that of the soul:  but we must not forget, in the secondary and higher spiritual interpretation of such texts, their primary and physical meaning, which is this—­that disease and death are uniformly throughout Scripture held up to the abhorrence of man.

Moreover—­and this is noteworthy—­the Gospels, and indeed all Scripture, very seldom palliate the misery of disease, by drawing from it those moral lessons which we ourselves do.  I say very seldom.  The Bible does so here and there, to tell us that we may do so likewise.  And we may thank God heartily that the Bible does so.  It would be a miserable world, if all that the clergyman or the friend might say by the sick-bed were, ’This is an inevitable evil, like hail and thunder.  You must bear it if you can:  and if not, then not.’  A miserable world, if he could not say with full belief; ’"My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him.  For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”  Thou knowest not now why thou art afflicted; perhaps thou wilt never know in this life.  But a day will come when thou wilt know:  when thou wilt find that this sickness came to thee at the exact right time, in the exact right way; when thou wilt find that God has been keeping thee in the secret place of His presence from the provoking of men, and hiding thee privately in His tabernacle from the spite of tongues; when thou wilt discover that thou hast been learning precious lessons for thy immortal spirit, while thou didst seem to thyself merely tossing with clouded intellect on a bed of useless pain; when thou wilt find that God was nearest to thee, at the very moment when He seemed to have left thee most utterly.’

Thank God, we can say that, and more; and we will say it.  But we must bear in mind, that the Gospels, which are the very parts of Scripture which speak most concerning disease, omit almost entirely that cheering and comforting view of it.