Chapter 1
What It Is Not
It is not bodily healing. Valuable as physical health is, spiritual health is much more so. Many have the “Double Cure” which have not sound bodies, and many have sound bodies who are leagues from any spiritual cure. While the Double Cure does not antagonize faith healing as taught in the Bible, yet it treats a loftier theme. It is not fanaticism. Fanaticism is “wild and extravagant notions of religion.” The Double Cure is a name of the New Testament remedy for sin, and is as far from fanaticism as food is from poison.
It does not offer freedom from human infirmities. That is the work not of present but of post-mortem redemption. Here Jesus is “touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” The “Spirit helpeth our infirmities;” so that like Paul though not yet freed from them yet we can “glory” in them. Today grace softens them, in the tomorrow of eternity they will be forever banished.
It is not exemption from mistakes. As it does not cure physical nor mental infirmities, neither does it save from the errors which flow from their possession. Defective powers may lead to defective acts — sins of ignorance, not of intent.
It does not bestow Adamic, angelic, resurrection, nor divine perfection, yet it does impart perfect soul-health. No more, no less.
It does not exempt from temptation. To be is to be tempted. Temptation is a part of the program of probation. God will have a tried people. Jesus was tempted, and the servant is not above his Lord. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation.” (James 1:12.) It puts man not where the tempter can not reach him, but where he is strong to resist him. It does not kill the devil, but conquers him. A strong, healthy soldier is more likely to win than an invalid.
It does not destroy humanity. The physical functions which God has implanted for high and holy purposes, like the sexual, for food, and others, are not eradicated but controlled and held in their proper spheres. Paul referred to them and not to inbred sin when he said, “I keep under my body and bring it into subjection.” (1 Cor. 9:27.) The Double Cure eliminates carnality, purifies, elevates, and controls humanity.
It does not mean an experience where one “can not sin;” No one can commit a known sin and at the same time remain a child of God. (1 John 3:9.) All may sin; none need to sin. Perfect health does not exempt from the liability of disease, nor the Double Cure from the liability of a spiritual relapse. As seen it neither kills the devil nor destroys man’s freedom, nor does it make a mere machine of him. Hence it is folly to claim that any state of grace makes it impossible to commit sin. “Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” (Mark 14:38.) “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12.)
Nor does it mean simply reformation. It includes it but is deeper. It does not mean simply to lay aside bad habits and unscriptural practices, like giving up tobacco and whisky, and laying aside jewelry and worldly attire. It goes deeper and so transforms the soul and captivates the will that everything contrary to God’s will is abandoned and abhorred. You can not stop a saloon by tearing down the signboards, nor reform a peacock by pulling the feathers out of its tail. Both instances demand an internal work. Get the saloon-man right and his business is abandoned and his sign goes down. Get the strut out of the peacock and down goes its tail. Get sin out of the inside and properly instructed, the whole outside will conform to the law of right and the teachings of the Word.
It locates sin in the soul, not in the corporeal body. The words “flesh” and “body” are used in Scripture to mean man’s unsanctified, carnal spiritual nature. The hand or foot of a man can no more sin than the house he lives in or the dagger he strikes with. It is as ridiculous to talk of sin being in the material flesh as it would be to locate it in one’s boots or coat or carriage. When the law hangs Winchesters for murder and cuts off the hand for forgery, it will then be time to talk about sin being located in muscle, blood, and bones.
It is not “cranktification.” This is a state which people get into by opposing the Double Cure or refusing to accept of it. This fully cranktifies people. The cure fully sanctifies them. That is the difference.
Nor does the Double Cure mean conversion. It includes it but is much more than it. One is the impartation of spiritual life, the other the expulsion of spiritual disease, and the soul health which follows.
Nor does it mean consecration. Consecration is the act which places the spiritual patient fully and unreservedly into the bands of the Soul-healer. The cure is the act which heals. “Consecration,” as some one has said, “is the thing you do just before you are fully sanctified.”
It is not growth in grace. The Double Cure is weeding and watering the soul-garden. Growth is the result of the act. The garden grew with the weeds and without the water, but it needed to be less the one and plus the other. The truly converted soul grows notwithstanding the weeds of depravity, the doubts, fears, and tempers which, like weeds, mar its beauty and hinder its development. It grows without the fullness of the Spirit which the Double Cure brings, but how much faster when the weeds are out and the cloudbursts of salvation showers fall. The Double Cure is not growth, but it is the great inspiration of it.
Nor is it simply doing. It puts people where they can most effectively do, but there is as much difference between it and doing as between work and taking medicine, or health and harvesting. Millions worn, tired and sick spiritually, are working themselves to death instead of taking the Double Cure, which would rest their weariness, heal their spiritual disease, and enable them to exult in such newfound health and strength as would fit them to “do exploits,” “mount up with wings as eagles, run and not weary, walk and not faint.”
It is not maturity. It is a soul cure and tonic. Spiritual maturity is the result of it and the spiritual growth which it facilitates, just as good health speeds the development of a child into healthful manhood.
The Double Cure should not be confounded with any of the things above mentioned.
What it is will, by God’s help, be more fully shown in the following chapter.
May the Holy Spirit take these things of God and make them plain to all who read.
Savior of the sin-sick soul, Give me grace to make me whole, Finish Thy great work of grace, Cut it short in righteousness.
Speak the second time “be clean!” Take away my inbred sin; Every stumbling-block remove, Cast it out by perfect love. –Sel.