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Section 3—The Christian Physician and His Work
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own self do anything. Regard yourself as an instrument in God’s
hands, and let His mind, His peace, His grace, rule in heart and life.
Be God’s thread to work out His design. You can never handle
yourself. You can never place yourself in position with any success.
You must work as an agent cooperating with God. “Work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which wor-
keth in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” Here are
the combined elements, God and the human agent, both working
harmoniously.—
Letter 97, 1894
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Hiding Self in Christ
Dr. John Cheyne, while he rose to a high point in his profession,
did not forget his obligations to God. He once wrote to a friend,
“You may wish to know the condition of my mind. I am humbled
in the dust by the thought that there is not one action of my busy
life which will bear the eye of a holy God. But when I reflect on
the invitation of the Redeemer, ‘Come unto Me,’ and that I have
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accepted this invitation; and, moreover, that my conscience testifies
that I earnestly desire to have my will in all things conformed to the
will of God, I have peace; I have the promised rest promised by Him
in whom was found no guile.”
Before his death this eminent physician ordered a column to be
erected near the spot where his body was to lie, on which were to
be inscribed these texts, as voices from eternity: “God so loved the
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “Come unto
Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man
shall see the Lord.”
And while Dr. Cheyne thus strove, even from the tomb, to
beckon sinners to the Saviour and to glory, he concealed his own
name, withholding it from the column entirely. He was not less
careful to say, as speaking to the passerby, “The name and profession
and age of him whose body lies beneath are of little consequence,
but it may be of great importance to you to know that by the grace
of God he was brought to look to the Lord Jesus as the only Saviour
of sinners, and that this looking unto Jesus gave peace to his soul.”