Boil the juice of ground-ivy with sweet oil and white wine into ointment. Shave the head, anoint it therewith, and chafe it every other day for three weeks. Bruise also the leaves and bind them on the head, and give three spoonfuls of the juice, warm, every morning. This generally cures melancholy. The juice alone taken twice a day will cure.
Or, be electrified. (Tried).
–John Wesley, Primitive Physick, 1747.
We know him for his sermons and his organizational prowess. But in his lifetime, John Wesley’s Primitive Physick; or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases was his most published work.
Holistic Salvation
For Wesley, salvation in Christ has always been about so much more than securing a Get-Outta-Hell-Free Card. In one letter, Wesley wrote:
“It will be a double blessing if you give yourself up to the Great Physician, that He may heal soul and body together. And unquestionably this is His design. He wants to give you . . . both inward and outward health.” (Letter to Alexander Knox, 26 Oct. 1778).
Salvation from a Christ who put on flesh and healed the physically sick ought to foster disciples who practice physical healing in the world today. Many Calvinist Puritans insisted ministers focus on saving the soul (wasting no time on assisting the physical condition). But Arminian clergy such as Wesley insisted that soul and body cannot be divided. Primitive Physick was Wesley’s way of better educating clergy and laity to care for the physical needs as well as the spiritual.
Modern medicine was not yet, well, modern. Wesley kept up with the latest discoveries in healthcare and made this accessible to his audience. He saw a deep connection between doctors and ministers.
The state of the soul can have profound impact on the body, and vice versa.
While many, if not most, illnesses have natural causes, Wesley left room for mental or physical illness that grows when “we are unhinged from our proper centre” (Sermon 83, III.7). And prolonged physical illness often creates spiritual darkness. Faith and prayer can bring strength and peace, which can have a healing effect on the body and mind. But Wesley reminds, “Faith does not overturn the course of nature. Natural causes still produce natural effects” (Sermon 47, III.2). Often, doctor and pastor are both required for true healing.
I owe a great debt of my understanding on this subject (and pretty much all of the citations above) to Dr. Randy Maddox’s article John Wesley on Holistic Health and Healing. In fact, my Wesleyan theology and most of Wesley Bros Comics are shaped by Dr. Maddox. I am humbled and geeked out to share with you that Dr. Maddox wrote the foreword to the upcoming Wesley Bros Comics publication: Submitting to Be More Vile: The Illustrated Adventures of John and Charles Wesley. It’s available October 15, and I’m holding the first book release party at Highland UMC in Raleigh on October 16!
To celebrate the upcoming publication of Submitting to Be More Vile, I am currently running a 20% off orders of $60 or more in the Merch Store. It’s a great time to pre-order liturgical calendars for 2020 and get those decks of Wesley Bros Playing Cards for yourself, your confirmands, or your soon-to-be-ordained friends! Use coupon code: BULKCARDSALE