Self-Healing
Francis Jacox. Luke 4:22-24 And all bore him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?… In one of his familiar epistles to Rome's greatest orator, then dejected at the loss of Tullia, Sulpicius made this appeal: "Do not forget that you are Cicero; one who has been used always to prescribe for and give advice to others; do not imitate those paltry physicians who pretend to cure other people's diseases, yet are not able to cure their own; but suggest rather to yourself the same lesson which you would give in the same case." Dr. South asks in one of his sermons, adverting to the study of physic, "Do not many shorten their days, and lose their own health, while they are learning to restore it to others?" But the proverb invites to a larger than merely professional application. Selden, in his Table-talk, says, "Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do. But if a physician had the same disease upon him that I have, and he should bid me do one thing, and he do quite another, could I believe him?" The practice of men, says Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Religio Medici," holds not an equal part with, yea, often runs contrary to, their theory: "we naturally know what is good, but naturally pursue what is evil; the rhetoric wherewith I persuade another cannot persuade myself." Byron chuckled crowingly over Beccaria, when he was told in Italy of that philosopher, who had published " such admirable things against the punishment of death," that as soon as his book was out, his servant, "having read it, I presume," stole his watch, and the master while correcting the proofs of a second edition, did all he could to have the man hanged. Angelo, in "Measure for Measure," with all his fair show in the flesh, of superiority to it, was no such perfect practitioner. Rather he was to be consigned to the category of those "ungracious pastors" of whom Ophelia spoke, when she thanked Laertes for his excellent counsel and hoped withal he would abide by it in his own life and conversation. "But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own read." (Francis Jacox.) Parallel Verses KJV: And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? WEB: All testified about him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth, and they said, "Isn't this Joseph's son?"