Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy [the dot read aloud .TXT] 📗

resemble a pupil in 329:18 addition, who attempts to solve a problem of Euclid, and

denies the rule of the problem because he fails in his first

effort.

 

Error destroyed, not pardoned

329:21 There is no hypocrisy in Science. Principle is imperative. You cannot mock it by human will. Science is a

divine demand, not a human. Always right, 329:24 its divine Principle never repents, but maintains the claim of Truth by quenching error.

The pardon of divine mercy is the destruction of error. If 329:27 men understood their real spiritual source to be all blessedness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual

and be at peace; but the deeper the error into which mor-329:30 tal mind is plunged, the more intense the opposition to

spirituality, till error yields to Truth.

 

The hopeful outlook

 

Human resistance to divine Science weakens in pro-330:1 portion as mortals give up error for Truth and the understanding of being supersedes mere belief. Until the 330:3 author of this book learned the vastness of

Christian Science, the fixedness of mortal illusions, and the human hatred of Truth, she cherished 330:6 sanguine hopes that Christian Science would meet with

immiediate and universal acceptance.

 

When the following platform is understood and the 330:9 letter and the spirit bear witness, the infallibility of divine

metaphysics will be demonstrated.

 

The deific supremacy

 

I. God is infinite, the only Life, substance, Spirit, or 330:12 Soul, the only intelligence of the universe, including man.

Eye hath neither seen God nor His image and

likeness. Neither God nor the perfect man 330:15 can be discerned by the material senses. The individuality of Spirit, or the infinite, is unknown, and thus a

knowledge of it is left either to human conjecture or to the 330:18 revelation of divine Science.

 

The deific definitions

 

II. God is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, -

Life, Truth, Love. Spirit is divine Principle, and divine 330:21 Principle is Love, and Love is Mind, and

Mind is not both good and bad, for God is

Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, be-330:24 cause there is one God.

 

Evil obsolete

 

III. The notion that both evil and good are real is a

delusion of material sense, which Science annihilates. 330:27 Evil is nothing, no thing, mind, nor power.

As manifested by mankind it stands for a lie,

nothing claiming to be something, - for lust, dishonesty, 330:30 selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate, theft, adultery,

murder, dementia, insanity, inanity, devil, hell, with all

the etceteras that word includes.

 

Life the creator

331:1 IV. God is divine Life, and Life is no more confined

to the forms which reflect it than substance is in its 331:3 shadow. If life were in mortal man or material things, it would be subject to their limitations and would end in death. Life is Mind, the creator 331:6 reflected in His creations. If He dwelt within what He

creates, God would not be reflected but absorbed, and the

Science of being would be forever lost through a mortal 331:9 sense, which falsely testifies to a beginning and an

end.

 

Allness of Spirit

 

V. The Scriptures imply that God is All-in-all. From 331:12 this it follows that nothing possesses reality nor existence

except the divine Mind and His ideas. The

Scriptures also declare that God is Spirit. 331:15 Therefore in Spirit all is harmony, and there can be no

discord; all is Life, and there is no death. Everything

in God’s universe expresses Him.

 

The universal cause

331:18 VI. God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and

there is no other self-existence. He is all-331:21 inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real

and eternal and by nothing else. He fills all space, and

it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and in-331:24 dividuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all

is Spirit and spiritual.

 

Divine trinity

 

VII. Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person 331:27 called God, - that is, the triply divine Principle, Love.

They represent a trinity in unity, three in

one, - the same in essence, though multi-331:30 form in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual idea of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter.

These three express in divine Science the threefold, essen-332:1 tial nature of the infinite. They also indicate the divine

Principle of scientific being, the intelligent relation of God 332:3 to man and the universe.

 

Father-Mother

 

VIII. Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which indicates His tender relationship to His spiritual creation. 332:6 As the apostle expressed it in words which he

quoted with approbation from a classic poet:

“For we are also His offspring.”

 

The Son of God

332:9 IX. Jesus was born of Mary. Christ is the true idea

voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ 332:12 is incorporeal, spiritual, - yea, the divine

image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses;

the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and 332:15 casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death. As

Paul says: “There is one God, and one mediator between

God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The corporeal 332:18 man Jesus was human.

 

Holy Ghost or Comforter

 

X. Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that Christ

is the divine idea of God - the Holy Ghost, 332:21 or Comforter, revealing the divine Principle,

Love, and leading into all truth.

 

Christ Jesus

 

XI. Jesus was the son of a virgin. He was appointed 332:24 to speak God’s word and to appear to mortals in such

a form of humanity as they could understand

as well as perceive. Mary’s conception of 332:27 him was spiritual, for only purity could reflect Truth

and Love, which were plainly incarnate in the good and

pure Christ Jesus. He expressed the highest type of 332:30 divinity, which a fleshly form could express in that age.

Into the real and ideal man the fleshly element cannot

enter. Thus it is that Christ illustrates the coincidence, 333:1 or spiritual agreement, between God and man in His

image.

 

Messiah or Christ

333:3 XII. The word Christ is not properly a synonym for

Jesus, though it is commonly so used. Jesus was a human

name, which belonged to him in common with 333:6 other Hebrew boys and men, for it is identical

with the name Joshua, the renowned Hebrew leader. On

the other hand, Christ is not a name so much as the divine 333:9 title of Jesus. Christ expresses God’s spiritual, eternal

nature. The name is synonymous with Messiah, and alludes to the spirituality which is taught, illustrated, and 333:12 demonstrated in the life of which Christ Jesus was the

embodiment. The proper name of our Master in the

Greek was Jesus the Christ; but Christ Jesus better sig-333:15 nifies the Godlike.

 

The divine Principle and idea

 

XIII. The advent of Jesus of Nazareth marked the

first century of the Christian era, but the Christ is 333:18 without beginning of years or end of days.

Throughout all generations both before and

after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spirit-333:21 ual idea, - the reflection of God, - has come with some

measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive

Christ, Truth. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets 333:24 caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which

baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of

Love. The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and 333:27 ever will be inseparable from the divine Principle, God.

Jesus referred to this unity of his spiritual identity thus:

“Before Abraham was, I am;” “I and my Father are 333:30 one;” “My Father is greater than I.” The one Spirit

includes all identities.

 

Spiritual oneness

 

XIV. By these sayings Jesus meant, not that the hu-334:1 man Jesus was or is eternal, but that the divine idea or

Christ was and is so and therefore antedated Abraham; 334:3 not that the corporeal Jesus was one with the

Father, but that the spiritual idea, Christ,

dwells forever in the bosom of the Father, God, from 334:6 which it illumines heaven and earth; not that the Father

is greater than Spirit, which is God, but greater, infinitely

greater, than the fleshly Jesus, whose earthly career was 334:9 brief.

 

The Son’s duality

 

XV. The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the

so-called personal senses, whereas Jesus appeared as a 334:12 bodily existence. This dual personality of the

unseen and the seen, the spiritual and material, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest 334:15 in flesh, continued until the Master’s ascension, when

the human, material concept, or Jesus, disappeared,

while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in 334:18 the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins

of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before

the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes.

 

Eternity of the Christ

334:21 XVI. This was “the Lamb slain from the foundation

of the world,” - slain, that is, according to the testimony of the corporeal senses, but undying in 334:24 the deific Mind. The Revelator represents the

Son of man as saying (Revelation i. 17, 18): “I am the

first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead 334:27 [not understood]; and, behold, I am alive for evermore,

[Science has explained me].” This is a mystical statement of the eternity of the Christ, and is also a reference 334:30 to the human sense of Jesus crucified.

 

Infinite Spirit

 

XVII. Spirit being God, there is but one Spirit, for

there can be but one infinite and therefore one God. 335:1 There are neither spirits many nor gods many. There

is no evil in Spirit, because God is Spirit. The theory, 335:3 that Spirit is distinct from matter but must

pass through it, or into it, to be individualized,

would reduce God to dependency on matter, and establish 335:6 a basis for pantheism.

 

The only substance

 

XVIII. Spirit, God, has created all in and of Himself. Spirit never created matter. There is nothing in 335:9 Spirit out of which matter could be made,

for, as the Bible declares, without the Logos,

the AEon or Word of God, “was not anything made 335:12 that was made.” Spirit is the only substance, the invisible and indivisible infinite God. Things spiritual and

eternal are substantial. Things material and temporal 335:15 are insubstantial.

 

Soul and Spirit one

 

XIX. Soul and Spirit being one, God and Soul are

one, and this one never included in a limited mind or a 335:18 limited body. Spirit is eternal, divine. Nothing but Spirit, Soul, can evolve Life, for Spirit

is more than all else. Because Soul is immortal, it does 335:21 not exist in mortality. Soul must be incorporeal to be

Spirit, for Spirit is not finite. Only by losing the false

sense of Soul can we gain the eternal unfolding of Life as 335:24 immortality brought to light.

 

The one divine Mind

 

XX. Mind is the divine Principle, Love, and can produce nothing unlike the eternal Father-Mother, God. 335:27 Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable,

immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspiritual can be real, harmonious, or eternal. Sin, sickness, 335:30 and mortality are the suppositional antipodes of Spirit,

and must be contradictions of reality.

 

The divine Ego

 

XXI. The Ego is deathless and limitless, for limits 336:1 would imply and impose ignorance. Mind is the I AM,

or infinity. Mind never enters the finite. Intelligence 336:3 never passes into non-intelligence, or matter.

Good never enters into evil the unlimited into

the limited, the eternal into the temporal, nor the im-336:6 mortal into mortality. The divine Ego, or individuality,

is reflected in all