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

reproduces the multitudinous forms of Mind and governs the mul-507:18 tiplication of the compound idea man. The

tree and herb do not yield fruit because of any propagating power of their own, but because they reflect the Mind 507:21 which includes all. A material world implies a mortal

mind and man a creator. The scientific divine creation

declares immortal Mind and the universe created by God.

 

Ever-appearing creation

507:24 Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the mental molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all

expresses Science and art throughout His 507:27 creation, and the immortality of man and the

universe. Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. 507:30 Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas material. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall 508:1 to the level of a human or material belief, called mortal

man. But the seed is in itself, only as the divine Mind 508:3 is All and reproduces all - as Mind is the multiplier,

and Mind’s infinite idea, man and the universe, is the

product. The only intelligence or substance of a thought, 508:6 a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it. Mind is the

Soul of all. Mind is Life, Truth, and Love which governs all.

508:9 Genesis i. 12. And the earth brought forth grass, and

herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding

fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw 508:12 that it was good.

 

Mind’s pure thought

 

God determines the gender of His own ideas. Gender is mental, not material. The seed within itself is 508:15 the pure thought emanating from divine

Mind. The feminine gender is not yet expressed in the text. Gender means simply kind or sort, 508:18 and does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or

femininity. The word is not confined to sexuality, and

grammars always recognize a neuter gender, neither 508:21 male nor female. The Mind or intelligence of production names the female gender last in the ascending order

of creation. The intelligent individual idea, be it male 508:24 or female, rising from the lesser to the greater, unfolds

the infinitude of Love.

 

Genesis i. 13. And the evening and the morning were 508:27 the third day.

 

Rising to the light

 

The third stage in the order of Christian Science is an

important one to the human thought, letting in the light 509:1 of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to

the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of 509:3 all, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent

upon no material organization. Our Master

reappeared to his students, - to their apprehension he 509:6 rose from the grave, - on the third day of his ascending

thought, and so presented to them the certain sense of

eternal Life.

509:9 Genesis i. 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the

firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night;

and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, 509:12 and years.

 

Rarefaction of thought

 

Spirit creates no other than heavenly or celestial bodies,

but the stellar universe is no more celestial than our earth. 509:15 This text gives the idea of the rarefaction of

thought as it ascends higher. God forms and

peoples the universe. The light of spiritual understand-509:18 ing gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulae indicate the immensity of space.

 

Divine nature appearing

 

So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances 509:21 are no more contingent now on time or material structure than they were when “the morning stars

sang together.” Mind made the “plant of 509:24 the field before it was in the earth.” The periods of

spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind’s

creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness 509:27 - yea, the divine nature - appear in man and the universe never to disappear.

 

Spiritual ideas apprehended

 

Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind 509:30 and its ideas, Jesus rebuked the material thought of his

fellow-countrymen: “Ye can discern the face of the 510:1 sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?”

How much more should we seek to apprehend the spirit-510:3 ual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects

of sense! To discern the rhythm of Spirit

and to be holy, thought must be purely spiritual.

510:6 Genesis i. 15. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it

was so.

510:9 Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose

“light shall we see light;” and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn 510:12 away from a false material sense.

 

Genesis i. 16. And God made two great lights; the

greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the 510:15 night: He made the stars also.

 

Geology a failure

 

The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul outside the body, giving existence and intelligence to the 510:18 universe. Love alone can impart the limitless idea of infinite Mind. Geology has never

explained the earth’s formations; it cannot explain them. 510:21 There is no Scriptural allusion to solar light until time has

been already divided into evening and morning; and the

allusion to fluids (Genesis i. 2) indicates a supposed for-510:24 mation of matter by the resolving of fluids into solids,

analogous to the suppositional resolving of thoughts into

material things.

 

Spiritual subdivision

510:27 Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love,

and not a vitalizing property of matter. Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shin-510:30 ing by its own light and governing the universe, including 511:1 man, in perfect harmony. This Mind forms ideas, its

own images, subdivides and radiates their borrowed light, 511:3 intelligence, and so explains the Scripture phrase, “whose

seed is in itself.” Thus God’s ideas “multiply and replenish the earth.” The divine Mind supports the sub-511:6 limity, magnitude, and infinitude of spiritual creation.

 

Genesis i. 17, 18. And God set them in the firmament of

the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over 511:9 the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the

darkness: and God saw that it was good.

 

Darkness scattered

 

In divine Science, which is the seal of Deity and has 511:12 the impress of heaven, God is revealed as infinite light. In the eternal Mind, no night is

there.

511:15 Genesis i. 19. And the evening and the morning were

the fourth day.

 

The changing glow and full effulgence of God’s infi-511:18 nite ideas, images, mark the periods of progress.

 

Genesis i. 20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth

abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl 511:21 that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of

heaven.

 

Soaring aspirations

 

To mortal mind, the universe is liquid, solid, and aeri-511:24 form. Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand

for solid and grand ideas. Animals and mortals metaphorically present the gradation of 511:27 mortal thought, rising in the scale of intelligence, taking

form in masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. The

fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament 512:1 of heaven, correspond to aspirations soaring beyond and

above corporeality to the understanding of the incorporeal 512:3 and divine Principle, Love.

 

Genesis i. 21. And God created great whales, and every

living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth 512:6 abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after

his kind: and God saw that it was good.

 

Seraphic symbols

 

Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, 512:9 and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These angels of His presence, which have the holiest

charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of 512:12 Mind, and consequently reproduce their own characteristics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do

know that their natures are allied to God’s nature; and 512:15 spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet

subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.

 

Genesis i. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruit-512:18 ful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let

fowl multiply in the earth.

 

Multiplication of pure ideas

 

Spirit blesses the multiplication of its own pure and 512:21 perfect ideas. From the infinite elements of the one

Mind emanate all form, color, quality, and

quantity, and these are mental, both primarily 512:24 and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only

through the spiritual senses. Mortal mind inverts the true

likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its 512:27 own misconceptions. Ignorant of the origin and operations of mortal mind, - that is, ignorant of itself, - this

so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and claims 512:30 God as their author; albeit God is ignorant of the ex-513:1 istence of both this mortal mentality, so-called, and its

claim, for the claim usurps the deific prerogatives and is 513:3 an attempted infringement on infinity.

 

Genesis i. 23. And the evening and the morning were

the fifth day.

 

Spiritual spheres

513:6 Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of

Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings. To

material sense, this divine universe is dim and 513:9 distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight;

but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light.

In the record, time is not yet measured by solar revolutions, 513:12 and the motions and reflections of deific power cannot be

apprehended until divine Science becomes the interpreter.

 

Genesis i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth 513:15 the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing,

and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

 

Continuity of thoughts

 

Spirit diversifies, classifies, and individualizes all 513:18 thoughts, which are as eternal as the Mind

conceiving them; but the intelligence, existence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, 513:21 who is the divinely creative Principle thereof.

 

Genesis i. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after

his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that 513:24 creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that

it was good.

 

God’s thoughts are spiritual realities

 

God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are 513:27 spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind - being non-existent and consequently not within the range of im-514:1 mortal existence - could not by simulating deific power

invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate per-514:3 sons or things upon its own plane, since nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive

infinity, in which and of which God is the 514:6 sole creator. Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the

realm of Mind. Mind’s infinite ideas run and dis—

port themselves. In humility they climb the heights of 514:9 holiness.

 

Qualities of thought

 

Moral courage is “the lion of the tribe of Juda,” the

king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in 514:12 the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open

field, or rests in “green pastures, … beside

the still waters.” In the figurative transmission from the 514:15 divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and

perseverance are likened to “the cattle upon a thousand

hills.” They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and 514:18 keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit. The individuality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the 514:21 millennial estate pictured by Isaiah: -

 

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,

And the leopard shall lie