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It has certainly been a polarizing year. However, it's good to remember that our times are not unprecedented (a word that's being thrown around a lot these days). There have been difficult decisions to make this year. Things have been complicated. But these are the same sorts of difficult and complicated decisions that people have had to make for centuries. Take the Covid vaccine for example. In the late 1700s, the smallpox vaccine was the subject of similar controversy. There were staunch smallpox vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. Jonathan Edwards, the famous pastor and theologian, died in 1758 from an experimental smallpox vaccine. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington made the smallpox vaccine mandatory for all the soldiers in his army. Opinions varied widely about the safety and desirability of such vaccines.
Rev. John Newton was asked by a fellow minister to help advise a lady in his congregation who wanted to know whether it was her Christian duty to receive the vaccine. Newton's response is an example of his godly wisdom as he points the question away from the vaccine per se, and toward the real question of trust in God. If you want the short version of the answer, he says that whether you get the vaccine or not is a matter of individual conscience, but that the bigger issue is whether you are trusting your health to God and His providence. His entire response is worth reading though, and is absolutely relevant to our times today:
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Dear Sir,
It seems I must write something about the small pox, but I know not well what: having [not] had it myself I cannot judge how I should feel if I were actually exposed to it. I am not a professed advocate for inoculation; but if a person who fears the Lord should tell me, "I think I can do it in faith looking upon it as a salutary expedient, which he in his providence has discovered, and which therefore appears my duty to have recourse to so that my mind does not hesitate with respect to the lawfulness, nor am I anxious about the event; being satisfied that whether I live or die, I am in that path in which I can cheerfully expect his blessing," I do not know that I could offer a word by way of dissuasion.
If another person should say, "My times are in the Lord's hands: I am now in health and am not willing to bring upon myself a disorder, the consequences of which I cannot possibly foresee. If I am to have the small pox, I believe he is the best judge of the season and manner in which I shall be visited, so as may be most for his glory and my own good; and therefore I choose to wait his appointment, and not to rush upon even the possibility of danger without a call. If the very hairs of my head are numbered, I have no reason to fear that, supposing I receive the small pox in a natural way, I shall have a single pimple more than he sees expedient; and why should I wish to have one less? Nay, admitting, which however is not always the case, that inoculation might exempt me from some pain and inconvenience, and lessen the apparent danger, might it not likewise, upon that very account, prevent my receiving some of those sweet consolations which I humbly hope my gracious Lord would afford me, if it were his pleasure to call me to a sharp trial? Perhaps the chief design of this trying hour if it comes may be to show me more of his wisdom, power, and love, than I have ever yet experienced. If I could devise a mean to avoid the trouble, I know not how great a loser I may be in point of grace and comfort. Nor am I afraid of my face; it is now as the Lord has made it, and it will be so after the small pox. If it pleases him, I hope it will please me. In short, though I do not censure others, yet, as to myself, inoculation is what I dare not venture upon. If I did venture, and the issue should not be favourable, I should blame myself for having attempted to take the management out of the Lord's hands into my own, which I never did yet in other matters, without finding I am no more able than I am worthy to choose for myself. Besides, at the best, inoculation would only secure me from one of the innumerable natural evils the flesh is heir to; I should still be as liable as I am at present to a putrid fever, a bilious cholic, an inflammation in the bowels, or in the brain, and a thousand formidable diseases which are hovering round me, and only wait his permission to cut me off in a few days or hours: and therefore I am determined, by his grace, to resign myself to his disposal. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord (for his mercies are great), and not into the hands of men."
If a person should talk to me in this strain, most certainly I could not say, "Notwithstanding all this your safest way is to be inoculated."
We preach and hear, and I hope we know something of faith, as enabling us to intrust the Lord with our souls: I wish we had all more faith to intrust him with our bodies, our health, our provision, and our temporal comforts likewise. The former should seem to require the strongest faith of the two."
It seems I must write something about the small pox, but I know not well what: having [not] had it myself I cannot judge how I should feel if I were actually exposed to it. I am not a professed advocate for inoculation; but if a person who fears the Lord should tell me, "I think I can do it in faith looking upon it as a salutary expedient, which he in his providence has discovered, and which therefore appears my duty to have recourse to so that my mind does not hesitate with respect to the lawfulness, nor am I anxious about the event; being satisfied that whether I live or die, I am in that path in which I can cheerfully expect his blessing," I do not know that I could offer a word by way of dissuasion.
If another person should say, "My times are in the Lord's hands: I am now in health and am not willing to bring upon myself a disorder, the consequences of which I cannot possibly foresee. If I am to have the small pox, I believe he is the best judge of the season and manner in which I shall be visited, so as may be most for his glory and my own good; and therefore I choose to wait his appointment, and not to rush upon even the possibility of danger without a call. If the very hairs of my head are numbered, I have no reason to fear that, supposing I receive the small pox in a natural way, I shall have a single pimple more than he sees expedient; and why should I wish to have one less? Nay, admitting, which however is not always the case, that inoculation might exempt me from some pain and inconvenience, and lessen the apparent danger, might it not likewise, upon that very account, prevent my receiving some of those sweet consolations which I humbly hope my gracious Lord would afford me, if it were his pleasure to call me to a sharp trial? Perhaps the chief design of this trying hour if it comes may be to show me more of his wisdom, power, and love, than I have ever yet experienced. If I could devise a mean to avoid the trouble, I know not how great a loser I may be in point of grace and comfort. Nor am I afraid of my face; it is now as the Lord has made it, and it will be so after the small pox. If it pleases him, I hope it will please me. In short, though I do not censure others, yet, as to myself, inoculation is what I dare not venture upon. If I did venture, and the issue should not be favourable, I should blame myself for having attempted to take the management out of the Lord's hands into my own, which I never did yet in other matters, without finding I am no more able than I am worthy to choose for myself. Besides, at the best, inoculation would only secure me from one of the innumerable natural evils the flesh is heir to; I should still be as liable as I am at present to a putrid fever, a bilious cholic, an inflammation in the bowels, or in the brain, and a thousand formidable diseases which are hovering round me, and only wait his permission to cut me off in a few days or hours: and therefore I am determined, by his grace, to resign myself to his disposal. Let me fall into the hands of the Lord (for his mercies are great), and not into the hands of men."
If a person should talk to me in this strain, most certainly I could not say, "Notwithstanding all this your safest way is to be inoculated."
We preach and hear, and I hope we know something of faith, as enabling us to intrust the Lord with our souls: I wish we had all more faith to intrust him with our bodies, our health, our provision, and our temporal comforts likewise. The former should seem to require the strongest faith of the two."
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