By Martin Knapp

            The Double Book. The Bible is a double blessing. The Old Testament precedes and paves the way for the New. It is the trunk of the tree of which the New is the blossom and the fruit. The Old was perfect as far as it went, but is incomplete without the New. Both are incited by the Holy Ghost, and both were essential to the salvation of the race, and the true Christian never gets beyond either, and it is a mistake to minify one at the expense of the other. The Double Cure is as reasonable as the double Book. One is a distinct as the other, and the fact of the double Book should silence all objections to a double blessing.

      The double dispensations. The Old shadows the first work; the New the second. Both were divine and perfect in their spheres, and, like the two books, the one prepared the way for the other.

            People who are skeptical of a Double Cure are met by the stern fact of a double dispensation. One is just as reasonable as the other. Both are of God, and it is not the mission of mortals to demand of their Maker "why thus?"

            Double authorship. (Heb. 13:12; 1 Pet. 1:2.) Salvation in these verses is attributed in the first to Jesus, and in the second to the Holy Spirit. Under God the Father they each have their part in the Double Cure. There would be less said against the Double Cure if its critics would look through the fog which blinds their vision to the double authorship of it. Such, sooner or later, must see that they have been fighting against God, who, through his Son, provides the atoning blood, an through his Spirit the refining fire.

            The double nature. (Rom. 1:3, 4.) Jesus possessed a double nature -- human and divine. All the reasons why, we can not see. We know the fact. His humanity was the setting from which shone His divinity. This was essential to His mission as a Savior. This illustrates the fact of the double work. If a double work is unreasonable, then must be a double nature. If it is absurd that there should be a second work to perfect man's salvation, then it is absurd that the Son of God was not incarnated from Eternity.

            The double baptism. (Matt. 3:11.) First, water baptism unto repentance and regeneration; second, the baptism of fire unto entire sanctification. The first was administered by John upon all who would repent and believe in Jesus; the second is by Jesus upon all believers who will consecrate and believe for it. Water cleanses and renews, and is an emblem of life. Fire permeates and melts and burns up the dross.

            Bodily resurrection and healing. (John 11.) Physical death is one of the most forceful types Scripture gives of the sinner's state. (Eph. 5:14.) Men are by nature dead in trespasses and sin, so dead that they are unmoved by their own condition, by God's warnings, and all the fire-alarm bells of time and eternity; so dead that though Christ may bleed and friends may weep over them, they hear and heed it not; so dead that no power but that of Omnipotence can ever resurrect them. This God does at conversion through the resurrecting power of the new birth. Yet after life is imparted, mighty miracle that this is, still, until the Double Cure has been wrought, they are hindered by a spiritual disease, different phases of which are typified by the different diseases mentioned in the New Testament.

            The leper and the Double Cure. (Matt. 8:2.) The leper did not come to Jesus for life, for he had that, but for healing. Leprosy unfitted him for life's duties and employments, and only God could cure. He asked, believed, and received the blessing sought. The believer seeking complete cleansing, like the leper, has life, but is suffering from a loathsome and fatal disease that none but Christ can cure. When he comes to Jesus confessing his need and trusting Him to cleanse, immediately he is made every whit whole. Then he knows by experience the reality and blessedness of the Double Cure.

            Spiritual palsy and the Double Cure. (Matt. 9:2.) Palsy typifies the paralyzing power of inbred sin. Spiritual palsy is a prevalent and crippling disease. All who have not the Double Cure are afflicted by it in some of its forms. It sometimes affects the hand, so that it is slow to write for holiness; sometimes the tongue, so that it does not always and everywhere speak as it should for God; sometimes the limbs, so that they are clumsy to carry the body into all places where Jesus would have it go; and often the eyes and ears, so that they can not see and hear clearly the teachings of the Word on this and kindred themes. The Double Cure is the only remedy. As the scribes and Pharisees opposed Jesus and derided the miracle, so some of their brethren today treat the Holy Ghost and the Double Cure.

            Spiritual weakness. (Matt. 9:20-22.) The person here healed had life and strength enough to get to Jesus, and spiritual discernment enough to know her need and plead its cure. She had suffered for many years, and all nostrums having failed and prescriptions proved worthless, she now threw them to the wind, and, in desperation, pressed her way to Jesus, and "touched the hem of His garment." In an instant she was healed and heard from the Master's own lips the welcome words, "Be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole."

            How many believers there are who, like this woman, are weaklings. Inbred sin has exhausted their spiritual energies. They have mourned the fact, and appealed to many spiritual doctors for relief. They have tried Dr. Growth, Dr. Got-it-all-at-Conversion, Dr. Water, Dr. Fire, Dr. Repression, Dr. Imputation, and all of their school, but are "nothing bettered." Finally they have come to Jesus, by faith have appropriated the merits of His cleansing blood, and been made perfectly whole in an instant.

      "O touch the hem of His garment,
      Thou, too, shalt be made whole;
      His cleansing power this very hour
      Will cleanse and heal thy soul."

      As she received complete healing from Jesus by faith and instantaneously, so may all by meeting like conditions secure perfect soul-healing.

            Spiritual blindness and the Double Cure. (Matt. 9:27; Mark 8:22-26; John 9.) The effects of inbred sin upon the spiritual vision is typified by spiritual blindness. "Born blind." (John 9:1.) Likewise carnality, the cause of spiritual blindness, is inherited. All are born into God's kingdom with defective spiritual vision, partially blind to many of the great truths of revelations. They have perfect life but poor vision. As a result of this, many crooked paths, stumble over many things, and frequently have views of God's character, requirements, government, and plan of holiness that are unscriptural and irrational.

            In each instance when Jesus cured spiritual blindness the cure was complete and the patient filled with praises. The opposition and derision of the Pharisees, instead of invalidating the cure, advertised the remedy. Each could say, "one thing I know, whereas I was blind now I see."

            An ounce of experience is worth a ton of empty theory. Witnesses which on every side arise to testify from experience to the reality of the Double Cure, drown the voices of its critics like Niagara would drown the sound of the snapping of popguns.

            Spiritual dumbness and the Double Cure. (Matt. 9:34.) This man had perfect life, but his tongue was tied. There are many tongue-tied Christians, those who do not speak or pray out loud. They say they can not pray aloud nor speak for Christ., The Double Cure emancipates the tongue. Pentecost is God's cure for spiritual dumbness. Multitudes have tested this truth; all may. If the Pharisees attributed the miracle of our Savior to devils, none need marvel if their children ascribe the Double Cure to the imagination or magnetism, or try to reason it away into "airy nothingness."

            Spiritual dropsy and the Double Cure. (Luke 14:14) Dropsy is a figure of spiritual inflation or pride. In regeneration this is kept down, in complete cleansing it is cured. It is another of the many manifestations of inbred sin. It craves position, notice, honors, adornment, and preferment. It overrates self and underrates others and Jesus. In some instances its victim has been like the frog in sop's fable that tried to be as big as an ox, "and swelled and swelled until it burst." It was the source of Lucifer's fall, and is known in common parlance as the "big head." Notice the following facts in regard to the preceding illustrations:

            1. They are not figures of regeneration, for the persons cured were all alive, and resurrection from the dead is the symbol of conversion.

            2. All who came felt their need, deplored it and sought the remedy from Jesus.

            3. They were all completely healed.

            4. They were healed by faith.

            5. They were healed instantaneously.

            6. When healed they possessed a double blessing: (a) life, (b) health.

            7. They gave God the glory and were derided by the Pharisees.

            Each of the seven facts stated is true of all who claim the Double Cure of full salvation.

      O come again to Jesus now
      And test the Double Cure,
      And He will speak the healing word,
      And cleanse and keep thee pure.