MEMBER 2. Lawful cures, first from God.

Since it has been so clearly demonstrated that all unlawful cures must be refused, it remains to discuss those that may be accepted. These are generally the remedies God has appointed through the powers of stones, herbs, plants, foods and similar things, which physicians prepare and apply for our use through their skill and diligence. They distribute these treasures for our benefit and deserve to be honoured because we need them: they are God's intermediary ministers, to whom we should turn for help in our illnesses.

Yet we must not rely too much, or entirely, on them. “Begin with Jove”: we must begin with prayer and then use medicine—not one without the other, but both together.

To pray alone and reject ordinary means is to behave like the man in Aesop who, when his cart was stuck, lay on his back and cried aloud, “Help, Hercules!” That was of little use unless, as his friend advised him, “you yourself put your strength to the wheels”: he must also whip his horses and put his shoulder to the wheel. God works through means, as Christ cured the blind man with clay and spit.

“We should pray for a sound mind in a sound body.”

As we must pray for health of body and mind, so we must do everything we can to preserve and maintain it. Some kinds of devils can be cast out only by fasting and prayer, and both are necessary, not one without the other. All the medicine we can use, all our skill and outstanding diligence, are useless without calling upon God: “It does no good to promise Craterus enormous mountains of wealth.” It is useless to seek help, to run or ride in search of it, unless God blesses us.

“Sicilian feasts will yield no sweetness, nor will birdsong or the lyre's music [bring back sleep].”

“Neither house and land nor heaps of bronze and gold can drive the fever from their sick owner.”

With house, with land, with money and with gold, The owner's fever will not be controlled.

We must use prayer and medicine together. Then, without doubt, our prayers will be effective and our medicine take effect. This was Hezekiah's practice, in 2 Kings 20, and Luke the Evangelist's; it is also what we are commanded in Colossians 4. This applies to the physician as well as the patient. Hippocrates, though a pagan, required it in a good practitioner, as did Galen in On the Doctrines of Plato and Hippocrates, book 9, chapter 15, and in his treatise Whether Character Follows the Temperament of the Body, chapter 11. He repeatedly urges it, as do many others.

Hyperius, in the first book of On the Reading of Holy Scripture, speaks of the good fortune and success that all physicians desire and hope for in their cures. He tells them that they cannot expect it unless they call upon God with true faith and teach their patients to do the same. Canon 22 of the Lateran Council decreed that they should do so; the Church Fathers have always given the same advice.

“Whatever you undertake,” says Gregory, “let God be your adviser; consult him”—the one “who heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). Otherwise, as the prophet Jeremiah declared against Egypt, “You will use many medicines in vain, for you will not be healed” (46:11).

This is the same advice that Commines, that historian skilled in affairs of state, gives to all Christian princes when describing the disastrous defeat of Charles, Duke of Burgundy. It left Charles profoundly melancholy and sick to the point of death, so that neither medicine nor persuasion could help him. Apparently recognizing Charles's mistake in reversing the proper order, Commines advises all great men in such circumstances to pray first to God with complete humility and repentance, confess their sins, and then use medicine.

This was the very fault for which the prophet rebuked Asa, King of Judah: he relied more on medicine than on God, and the prophet was determined that he should correct it. It is a warning that people of every other rank should also heed. The prophet David observed this precept so carefully that, in his greatest misery and mental distress, he made it his first rule of action.

“When I am weighed down with sorrow, I will think of God” (Psalm 77:3). “Comfort your servant's soul, for I lift up my soul to you” (Psalm 86:4); and in verse 7, “In the day of trouble I will call upon you, for you hear me.” “Save me, O God, by your name,” etc. (Psalm 54:1). See also Psalms 82 and 20. This is the common practice of all good people: when their hearts were brought low with sorrow, “they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress” (Psalm 107:13).

They have succeeded by doing so, as David acknowledges: “You have turned my mourning into joy; you have removed my sackcloth and clothed me in gladness” (Psalm 30:12). He therefore advises everyone else to do the same: “All of you who trust in the Lord, be strong, and he will strengthen your heart” (Psalm 31:24).

Suidas reports, when speaking of Hezekiah, that there was once a great book written by King Solomon, containing remedies for every kind of disease. It was always lying open as people entered the Temple. But Hezekiah, King of Jerusalem, had it removed because their confidence in these remedies made the people complacent and led them to neglect their duty to call upon God and rely on him.

Minucius, that worthy consul of Rome, was so offended with his soldiers that, in a speech, he rebuked their ignorance: in their distress they called upon him more than upon God. This is a common fault throughout the world, and Minucius's speech concerns us all. We rely more on medicine and turn to physicians more often than to God himself.

Those who prescribe are as much at fault as those who seek their help: they think entirely of their profit and often trust their customary prescriptions and medicines more than the one who made them. In this respect, I would urge all patients, in the midst of their melancholy, to remember the words of the son of Sirach, Ecclesiasticus 1:11–12: “The fear of the Lord is glory, gladness and rejoicing. The fear of the Lord makes the heart cheerful and gives gladness, joy and long life.”

I would urge everyone who prescribes medicine to begin “in the name of God,” as Mesue did; to imitate Laelius a Fonte of Gubbio, who always ends his consultations with a prayer for the success of his work; and to remember the words of Crato, one of their predecessors: “Shun greed, and do nothing without prayer and invocation of God”—avoid covetousness, and do nothing without calling upon God.