Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

to physical 105:18 offences, these words of Judge Parmenter of

Boston will become historic: “I see no reason

why metaphysics is not as important to medicine as to 105:21 mechanics or mathematics.”

 

Evil let loose

 

Whoever uses his developed mental powers like an escaped felon to commit fresh atrocities as opportunity oc-105:24 curs is never safe. God will arrest him. Divine justice will manacle him. His sins will

be millstones about his neck, weighing him down to the 105:27 depths of ignominy and death. The aggravation of error foretells its doom, and confirms the ancient axiom:

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

 

The misuse of mental power

105:30 The distance from ordinary medical practice to Christian Science is full many a league

in the line of light; but to go in healing from the use of 106:1 inanimate drugs to the criminal misuse of human will-power, is to drop from the platform of common manhood 106:3 into the very mire of iniquity, to work against the free

course of honesty and justice, and to push vainly against

the current running heavenward.

 

Proper self-government

106:6 Like our nation, Christian Science has its Declaration

of Independence. God has endowed man with inalienable rights, among which are self-government, 106:9 reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by

his Maker, divine Truth and Love.

106:12 Man’s rights are invaded when the divine order is interfered with, and the mental trespasser incurs the divine

penalty due this crime.

 

Right methods

106:15 Let this age, which sits in judgment on Christian

Science, sanction only such methods as are demonstrable

in Truth and known by their fruit, and classify 106:18 all others as did St. Paul in his great epistle

to the Galatians, when he wrote as follows:

 

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are 106:21 these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,

strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, 106:24 revellings and such like: of the which I tell you before,

as I have also told you in time past, that they which do

such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But 106:27 the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,

gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against

such there is no law.”

 

CHAPTER VI - SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, MEDICINE

 

But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached

of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither

was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. - PAUL.

 

The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman

took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole

was leavened. - JESUS.

 

Christian Science discovered

107:1 In the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or

divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and 107:3 named my discovery Christian Science. God

had been graciously preparing me during many

years for the reception of this final revelation of the ab-107:6 solute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.

 

Mission of Christian Science

 

This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of

Immanuel, “God with us,” - the sovereign ever-pres- 107:9 ence, delivering the children of men from

every ill “that flesh is heir to.” Through

Christian Science, religion and medicine are 107:12 inspired with a diviner nature and essence; fresh pinions

are given to faith and understanding, and thoughts acquaint themselves intelligently with God.

 

Discontent with life

107:15 Feeling so perpetually the false consciousness that life

inheres in the body, yet remembering that in

reality God is our Life, we may well tremble 107:18 in the prospect of those days in which we must say, “I

have no pleasure in them.”

108:1 Whence came to me this heavenly conviction, - a conviction antagonistic to the testimony of the physical senses? 108:3 According to St. Paul, it was “the gift of the grace of

God given unto me by the effectual working of His power.”

It was the divine law of Life and Love, unfolding to me 108:6 the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity

of all material things; and that immortal cravings, “the 108:9 price of learning love,” establish the truism that the

only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot

suffer.

 

Demonstrable evidence

108:12 My conclusions were reached by allowing the evidence

of this revelation to multiply with mathematical certainty

and the lesser demonstration to prove the 108:15 greater, as the product of three multiplied by

three, equalling nine, proves conclusively that three times

three duodecillions must be nine duodecillions, - not 108:18 a fraction more, not a unit less.

 

Light shining in darkness

 

When apparently near the confines of mortal existence,

standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, 108:21 I learned these truths in divine Science: that

all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and

that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-108:24 present; that the opposite of Truth, - called error, sin,

sickness, disease, death, - is the false testimony of false

material sense, of mind in matter; that this false sense 108:27 evolves, in belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which

this same so-called mind names matter thereby shutting

out the true sense of Spirit.

 

New lines of thought

108:30 My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed

mind produces all the organism and action of

the mortal body, set my thoughts to work in new channels, 109:1 and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that

Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in 109:3 Mind-science.

 

Scientific evidence

 

Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that Mind

is All-in-all, that the only realities are the divine Mind 109:6 and idea. This great fact is not, however, seen

to be supported by sensible evidence, until its

divine Principle is demonstrated by healing the sick and 109:9 thus proved absolute and divine. This proof once seen,

no other conclusion can be reached.

 

Solitary research

 

For three years after my discovery, I sought the solu-109:12 tion of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to dis-109:15 covering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, and

buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew

the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, 109:18 and that cures were produced in primitive Christian

healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the

Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute 109:21 conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine 109:24 power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth, the

prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled:

“Unto us a child is born, … and his name shall be 109:27 called Wonderful.”

 

Jesus once said of his lessons: “My doctrine is not

mine, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, 109:30 he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or

whether I speak of myself.” (John vii. 16,17.)

 

God’s allness learned

 

The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omni-110:1 presence, omniscience, - Spirit possessing all power,

filling all space, constituting all Science, - contradict 110:3 forever the belief that matter can be actual.

These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God’s creation, 110:6 in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.

 

Thus it was that I beheld, as never before, the awful 110:9 unreality called evil. The equipollence of God brought

to light another glorious proposition, - man’s perfectibility and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on 110:12 earth.

 

Scriptural foundations

 

In following these leadings of scientific revelation,

the Bible was my only textbook. The Scriptures were 110:15 illumined; reason and revelation were reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian

Science was demonstrated. No human pen nor tongue 110:18 taught me the Science contained in this book, SCIENCE

AND HEALTH; and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it. This book may be distorted by shallow criti-110:21 cism or by careless or malicious students, and its ideas

may be temporarily abused and misrepresented; but the

Science and truth therein will forever remain to be dis-110:24 cerned and demonstrated.

 

The demonstration lost and found

 

Jesus demonstrated the power of Christian Science to

heal mortal minds and bodies. But this power was lost 110:27 sight of, and must again be spiritually discerned, taught, and demonstrated according

to Christ’s command, with “signs following.” 110:30 Its Science must be apprehended by as many as believe

on Christ and spiritually understand Truth.

 

Mystical antagonists

 

No analogy exists between the vague hypotheses of 111:1 agnosticism, pantheism, theosophy, spiritualism, or

millenarianism and the demonstrable truths of Chris-111:3 tian Science; and I find the will, or sensuous

reason of the human mind, to be opposed to

the divine Mind as expressed through divine Science.

 

Optical illustration of Science

111:6 Christian Science is natural, but not physical. The

Science of God and man is no more supernatural than

is the science of numbers, though departing 111:9 from the realm of the physical, as the Science

of God, Spirit, must, some may deny its right to

the name of Science. The Principle of divine metaphysics 111:12 is God; the practice of divine metaphysics is the utiliza—

tion of the power of Truth over error; its rules demonstrate its Science. Divine metaphysics reverses perverted 111:15 and physical hypotheses as to Deity, even as the explanation of optics rejects the incidental or inverted

image and shows what this inverted image is meant to 111:18 represent.

 

Pertinent proposal

 

A prize of one hundred pounds, offered in Oxford University, England, for the best essay on Natural Science, 111:21 - an essay calculated to offset the tendency of

the age to attribute physical effects to physical

causes rather than to a final spiritual cause, - is one of 111:24 many incidents which show that Christian Science meets

a yearning of the human race for spirituality.

 

Confirmatory tests

 

After a lengthy examination of my discovery and its 111:27 demonstration in healing the sick, this fact became evident to me, - that Mind governs the body,

not partially but wholly. I submitted my 111:30 metaphysical system of treating disease to the broadest practical tests. Since then this system has gradually

gained ground, and has proved itself, whenever scien-112:1 tifically employed, to be the most effective curative agent

in medical practice.

 

One school of Truth

112:3 Is there more than one school of Christian Science?

Christian Science is demonstrable. There can, therefore, be but one method in its teaching. Those who de-112:6 part from this method forfeit their claims to

belong to its school, and they become adherents of the Socratic, the Platonic, the Spencerian, or some 112:9 other school. By this is meant that they adopt and adhere to some particular system of human opinions. Although these opinions may have occasional gleams of 112:12 divinity, borrowed from that truly divine Science which

eschews man-made systems, they nevertheless remain

wholly human in their origin and tendency and are not 112:15 scientifically Christian.

 

Unchanging Principle

 

From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one

Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude 112:18 come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are “the

same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;” for thus are 112:21 the divine Principle of healing and the Christ-idea characterized in the epistle to the Hebrews.

 

On sandy foundations

 

Any theory of Christian Science, which departs from 112:24 what has already been stated and proved to be true, affords