In the books of the Old and New Testaments we find beautifully described the great causes of pestilence inducing their effects in regular succession and with absolute certainty. The books of God, in tracing the hand of Omnipotence through the medium of secondary causes, producing effects punitive of guilty mortals, attribute all diseases to the immediate interposition of Divine Providence:
“Pestis et ira Deûm Stygiis sese extulit undis.”
And why?—Because God is the first great cause, the original creator of all things, the preserver and governor of all things in heaven and on the earth, and likewise the sole disposer of the elements.
Seeing, therefore, that our Creator, while possessing the sovereignty of the universe, may employ what agents he pleases for the execution of his purposes, we, in investigating the causes of all distempers, without in the slightest degree impugning their divine origin, can perceive that the Almighty Disposer of events effected his purposes by the employment of natural means;—further, in expounding the causes of disease, as existing in natural and common things, and modification of beings and things of this natural world, we can do equal homage to the Almighty’s wisdom and goodness, omnipotence, justice, mercy, judgment, and providence, as we can in displaying them as immediately inflicted on guilty man. Yea, more glorious do the attributes of the Most High appear in the sublime mysteries of nature!
To particularize: when the governors of the five cities, Gath, Ekron, Askelon, Gaza, and Ashdod, met for the purpose of contriving to rid themselves of the ark which the Philistines had captured from the Hebrews, it would appear that they were cognizant of the natural means adopted by the Almighty to effect his purposes, although they, in their impiety, doubted the divine origin of their affliction by pestilence. Overlooking the omnipotence and all-wise direction of their Creator, they exhorted the people to bear patiently that which had befallen them, and to believe in no other causes of the pestilence which was effecting their destruction than those springing from the operations of nature, which at certain revolutions of time produce such mutations in the bodies of men, in the earth, in plants, and in all things grown out of the earth, as to excite disease.
With reference to elemental disturbance, the prophet Amos (ch. iv. vss. 8 and 9) first describes the occurrence of a great drought, then the generation of insects—the palmer-worm and the canker-worm, which destroyed all foliage and herbage: vegetables, orchards, and olive-yards, all fell a sacrifice, and induced a grievous famine, succeeded by a dire pestilence.
Habakkuk, in his prayer, (chap. iii.) makes allusion to a great pestilence preceded by earthquakes and great commotions of the elements; the sun and moon standing still in their habitations, the mountains trembling, and the waters overflowing, causing famine and pestilence, to the destruction of 14,000 persons.
Again, in the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, which contains the promised cursings and blessings of the Almighty on his people, we have a proverbial figure of speech, expressively illustrative of the natural means employed by our Creator in effecting his purposes: “And thy heaven shall be brass, and the earth iron;” the one denoting a drought, during which the heavens will yield no rain, inferring also extreme heat; the other, the unproductiveness of the earth, yielding no fruit,—the effects of such drought being to induce famine, and ultimately disease. The experience of our own times exemplifies in the fullest manner the concurrence, from physical causes, of famine with pestilence—facts which the prophets of old always connected, viz., the sword, famine, and pestilence, as being three evils which generally accompanied or followed each other; and we cannot conceive a doubt as to the association not being accidental, especially of the two latter, but arising from their dependence upon similar atmospheric phenomena.
Jeremiah (chap, iv., vss. 11 and 13), in describing the approach of the armies of Babylon, compares them to the drying, parching, scorching, and blasting winds of Egypt, Africa, Arabia, and Asia, which wither and destroy the fruit of the earth, melting and oppressing all living creatures; and he likens them to clouds of dust and whirlwinds traversing those pestiferous countries of the East, where the heat and drought, the dews and damps, heavy rains, the cold north winds of winter and spring, succeeded by the suffocating heats of summer and autumn, generate pestilence and cutaneous diseases.
In turning to the history of Egypt,—to this day a hot-bed of pestilence,—we have graphically pictured a series of events occurring and ending in the production of pestilential disease. The waters of the rivers were first turned red, the fish died, and stank therein, causing putrefaction of their bodies, while the waters became unfit for use, either by men or beasts: secondly, swarms of frogs infected the land, penetrating into the very houses; these were succeeded by a host of insects, lice, flies, &c.: thirdly, the beasts of the field suffered from murrain; and finally, man suffered from boils, blains, &c. If we look into the topography of Egypt, we shall find abundant causes to account for its great and continued insalubrity;—the whole country lies near the tropic of Cancer; it is bounded towards the east by the Red Sea, on the west by the deserts of Libya, on the north by the Mediterranean, and on the south by Abyssinia or Upper Ethiopia. All the lower country is encompassed by the arms of the Nile, and is inundated annually by that father of rivers, when it overflows: it rises twenty-four feet in perpendicular height at the medium increase of four inches daily, and it continues from the end of June to the beginning of September, when it begins gradually to subside. The inhabitants sow their corn and vegetables in October and November, immediately after the retiring of the waters; their harvest-time is in March and April. Volney observes that the surface of the land successively assumes the appearance of an ocean of fresh water, of a miry morass, of a green level plain, and of a parched desert of sand and dust, and all in such rapid succession that it can never be otherwise than insalubrious.