Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy [the dot read aloud .TXT] 📗
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belief, and not the divine arbitrament, which brings the
physical organism under the yoke of disease.
Ignorance the sign of error
555:6 An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian
Science: “I like your explanations of truth, but I do
not comprehend what you say about error.” 555:9 This is the nature of error. The mark of ignorance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor
can be understood. Error would have itself received as 555:12 mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth; but
Christian Science attributes to error neither entity nor
power, because error is neither mind nor the outcome of 555:15 Mind.
The origin of divinity
Searching for the origin of man, who is the reflection
of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self-555:18 existent and eternal. Only impotent error
would seek to unite Spirit with matter, good
with evil, immortality with mortality, and call this 555:21 sham unity man, as if man were the offspring of both
Mind and matter, of both Deity and humanity. Creation rests on a spiritual basis. We lose our standard of 555:24 perfection and set aside the proper conception of Deity,
when we admit that the perfect is the author of aught
that can become imperfect, that God bestows the power 555:27 to sin, or that Truth confers the ability to err. Our
great example, Jesus, could restore the individualized
manifestation of existence, which seemed to vanish in 555:30 death. Knowing that God was the Life of man, Jesus
was able to present himself unchanged after the crucifixion. Truth fosters the idea of Truth, and not the be-556:1 lief in illusion or error. That which is real, is sustained
by Spirit.
Genera classified
556:3 Vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata are mortal and material concepts classified, and are supposed to
possess life and mind. These false beliefs 556:6 will disappear, when the radiation of Spirit
destroys forever all belief in intelligent matter. Then
will the new heaven and new earth appear, for the for-556:9 mer things will have passed away.
The Christian’s privilege
Mortal belief infolds the conditions of sin. Mortal
belief dies to live again in renewed forms, only to go out 556:12 at last forever; for life everlasting is not to be
gained by dying. Christian Science may absorb the attention of sage and philosopher, but 556:15 the Christian alone can fathom it. It is made known
most fully to him who understands best the divine Life.
Did the origin and the enlightenment of the race come 556:18 from the deep sleep which fell upon Adam? Sleep is
darkness, but God’s creative mandate was, “Let there be
light.” In sleep, cause and effect are mere illusions. 556:21 They seem to be something, but are not. Oblivion and
dreams, not realities, come with sleep. Even so goes on
the Adam-belief, of which mortal and material life is the 556:24 dream.
Ontology versus physiology
Ontology receives less attention than physiology. Why?
Because mortal mind must waken to spiritual 556:27 life before it cares to solve the problem of
being, hence the author’s experience; but when
that awakening comes, existence will be on a new stand-556:30 point.
It is related that a father plunged his infant babe, only
a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and 557:1 repeated this operation daily, until the child could remain
under water twenty minutes, moving and playing with-557:3 out harm, like a fish. Parents should remember this
and learn how to develop their children properly on dry
land.
The curse removed
557:6 Mind controls the birth-throes in the lower realms of
nature, where parturition is without suffering. Vegetables, minerals, and many animals suffer no 557:9 pain in multiplying; but human propagation
has its suffering because it is a false belief. Christian Science reveals harmony as proportionately increasing as the 557:12 line of creation rises towards spiritual man, - towards
enlarged understanding and intelligence; but in the line
of the corporeal senses, the less a mortal knows of sin, 557:15 disease, and mortality, the better for him, - the less pain
and sorrow are his. When the mist of mortal mind evaporates, the curse will be removed which says to woman, 557:18 “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” Divine
Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of
Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as 557:21 never dying, but as coexistent with his creator.
Popular theology takes up the history of man as if he
began materially right, but immediately fell into mental 557:24 sin; whereas revealed religion proclaims the Science of
Mind and its formations as being in accordance with
the first chapter of the Old Testament, when God, Mind, 557:27 spake and it was done.
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of
this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein:
for the time is at hand. - REVELATION.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of
our God, in the mountain of His holiness. - PSALMS.
558:1 ST. JOHN writes, in the tenth chapter of his book of
Revelation: -
558:3 And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven,
clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and
his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of 558:6 fire: and he had in his hand a little book open: and he
set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the
earth.
The new Evangel
558:9 This angel or message which comes from God, clothed
with a cloud, prefigures divine Science. To mortal sense
Science seems at first obscure, abstract, and 558:12 dark; but a bright promise crowns its brow.
When understood, it is Truth’s prism and praise. When
you look it fairly in the face, you can heal by its means, 558:15 and it has for you a light above the sun, for God “is the
light thereof.” Its feet are pillars of fire, foundations
of Truth and Love. It brings the baptism of the Holy 558:18 Ghost, whose flames of Truth were prophetically described by John the Baptist as consuming error.
Truth’s volume
559:1 This angel had in his hand “a little book,” open for
all to read and understand. Did this same book contain 559:3 the revelation of divine Science, the “right
foot” or dominant power of which was upon
the sea, - upon elementary, latent error, the source of 559:6 all error’s visible forms? The angel’s left foot was upon
the earth; that is, a secondary power was exercised upon
visible error and audible sin. The “still, small voice” 559:9 of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean
to the globe’s remotest bound. The inaudible voice of
Truth is, to the human mind, “as when a lion roareth.” 559:12 It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear. It
arouses the “seven thunders” of evil, and stirs their latent
forces to utter the full diapason of secret tones. Then is 559:15 the power of Truth demonstrated, - made manifest in
the destruction of error. Then will a voice from harmony
cry: “Go and take the little book… . Take it, and eat 559:18 it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in
thy mouth sweet as honey.” Mortals, obey the heavenly
evangel. Take divine Science. Read this book from 559:21 beginning to end. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed
sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not
over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. When you 559:24 approach nearer and nearer to this divine Principle, when
you eat the divine body of this Principle, - thus partaking of the nature, or primal elements, of Truth and Love, 559:27 - do not be surprised nor discontented because you must
share the hemlock cup and eat the bitter herbs; for the
Israelites of old at the Paschal meal thus prefigured this 559:30 perilous passage out of bondage into the El Dorado of faith
and hope.
To-day’s lesson
The twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse, or Revela-560:1 tion of St. John, has a special suggestiveness in connection with the nineteenth century. In the opening of the 560:3 sixth seal, typical of six thousand years since
Adam, the distinctive feature has reference
to the present age.
560:6 Revelation xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in
heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve 560:9 stars.
True estimate of God’s messenger
Heaven represents harmony, and divine Science interprets the Principle of heavenly harmony. The great 560:12 miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and
the grand necessity of existence is to gain the
true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of 560:15 heaven in man. This goal is never reached while we
hate our neighbor or entertain a false estimate of anyone whom God has appointed to voice His Word. Again, 560:18 without a correct sense of its highest visible idea, we can
never understand the divine Principle. The botanist must
know the genus and species of a plant in order to classify 560:21 it correctly. As it is with things, so is it with persons.
Persecution harmful
Abuse of the motives and religion of St. Paul hid from
view the apostle’s character, which made him equal to 560:24 his great mission. Persecution of all who have
spoken something new and better of God has
not only obscured the light of the ages, but has been fatal 560:27 to the persecutors. Why? Because it has hid from
them the true idea which has been presented. To misunderstand Paul, was to be ignorant of the divine idea he 560:30 taught. Ignorance of the divine idea betrays at once a
greater ignorance of the divine Principle of the idea - igno-561:1 rance of Truth and Love. The understanding of Truth
and Love, the Principle which works out the ends of eternal 561:3 good and destroys both faith in evil and the practice of
evil, leads to the discernment of the divine idea.
Espousals supernal
Agassiz, through his microscope, saw the sun in an 561:6 egg at a point of so-called embryonic life. Because of
his more spiritual vision, St. John saw an
“angel standing in the sun.” The Revelator 561:9 beheld the spiritual idea from the mount of vision.
Purity was the symbol of Life and Love. The Revelator
saw also the spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light, a 561:12 bride coming down from heaven, wedded to the Lamb
of Love. To John, “the bride” and “the Lamb” represented the correlation of divine Principle and spiritual idea, 561:15 God and His Christ, bringing harmony to earth.
Divinity and humanity
John saw the human and divine coincidence, shown in
the man Jesus, as divinity embracing humanity in Life 561:18 and its demonstration, - reducing to human
perception and understanding the Life which
is God. In divine revelation, material and corporeal self-561:21 hood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.
Spiritual sunlight
The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man,
the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence 561:24 of God and man as the divine Principle and
divine idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit
by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance 561:27 of spiritual Truth, and matter is put under her feet. The
light portrayed is really neither solar nor lunar, but spiritual Life, which is “the light
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