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

and the superabundance of being is on the side 201:12 of God, good.

 

The uses of truth

 

We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be

emptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when 201:15 the winds of God blow, we shall not hug our

tatters close about us.

 

The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour 201:18 in truth through flood-tides of Love. Christian perfection is won on no other basis.

 

Grafting holiness upon unholiness, supposing that sin 202:1 can be forgiven when it is not forsaken, is as foolish as

straining out gnats and swallowing camels. 202:3 The scientific unity which exists between God and man

must be wrought out in life-practice, and God’s will must

be universally done.

 

Divine study

202:6 If men would bring to bear upon the study of the

Science of Mind half the faith they bestow upon the so-called pains and pleasures of material sense, 202:9 they would not go on from bad to worse,

until disciplined by the prison and the scaffold; but

the whole human family would be redeemed through 202:12 the merits of Christ, - through the perception and acceptance of Truth. For this glorious result Christian

Science lights the torch of spiritual understanding.

 

Harmonious life-work

202:15 Outside of this Science all is mutable; but immortal

man, in accord with the divine Principle of His being,

God, neither sins, suffers, nor dies. The days 202:18 of our pilgrimage will multiply instead of diminish, when God’s kingdom comes on earth; for the

true way leads to life instead of to death, and earthly 202:21 experience discloses the finity of error and the infinite

capacities of Truth, in which God gives man dominion

over all the earth.

 

Belief and practice

202:24 Our beliefs about a Supreme Being contradict the

practice growing out of them. Error abounds where

Truth should “much more abound.” We

202:27 admit that God has almighty power, is “a

very present help in trouble;” and yet we rely on a drug

or hypnotism to heal disease, as if senseless matter or err-202:30 ing mortal mind had more power than omnipotent Spirit.

 

Sure reward of righteousness

 

Common opinion admits that a man may take cold in

the act of doing good, and that this cold may produce 203:1 fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear

the law of Love, and check the reward for do-203:3 ing good. In the Science of Christianity, Mind

- omnipotence - has all-power, assigns sure

rewards to righteousness, and shows that matter can 203:6 neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy.

 

Our belief and understanding

 

If God were understood instead of being merely believed, this understanding would establish health. The 203:9 accusation of the rabbis, “He made himself

the Son of God,” was really the justification

of Jesus, for to the Christian the only true 203:12 spirit is Godlike. This thought incites to a more exalted

worship and self-abnegation. Spiritual perception brings

out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught 203:15 but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in

deed and in truth.

 

Suicide and sin

 

We are prone to believe either in more than one Su-203:18 preme Ruler or in some power less than God. We imagine that Mind can be imprisoned in a sensuous body.

When the material body has gone to ruin, when evil has 203:21 overtaxed the belief of life in matter and destroyed it,

then mortals believe that the deathless Principle, or

Soul, escapes from matter and lives on; but this is not 203:24 true. Death is not a stepping-stone to life, immortality,

and bliss. The so-called sinner is a suicide.

Sin kills the sinner and will continue to kill 203:27 him so long as he sins. The foam and fury of illegitimate living and of fearful and doleful dying should

disappear on the shore of time; then the waves of sin, 203:30 sorrow, and death beat in vain.

 

God, divine good, does not kill a man in order to give

him eternal Life, for God alone is man’s life. God is at 204:1 once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil

that dies; good dies not.

 

Spirit the only intelligence and substance 204:3 All forms of error support the false conclusions that

there is more than one Life; that material history is as

real and living as spiritual history; that mortal 204:6 error is as conclusively mental as immortal

Truth; and that there are two separate, antagonistic entities and beings, two powers, - namely, 204:9 Spirit and matter, - resulting in a third person (mortal

man) who carries out the delusions of sin, sickness, and

death.

204:12 The first power is admitted to be good, an intelligence or

Mind called God. The so-called second power, evil, is the

unlikeness of good. It cannot therefore be mind, though 204:15 so called. The third power, mortal man, is a supposed

mixture of the first and second antagonistic powers, intelligence and non-intelligence, of Spirit and matter.

 

Unscientific theories

204:18 Such theories are evidently erroneous. They can never

stand the test of Science. Judging them by their fruits,

they are corrupt. When will the ages under-204:21 stand the Ego, and realize only one God, one

Mind or intelligence?

 

False and self-assertive theories have given sinners the 204:24 notion that they can create what God cannot, - namely,

sinful mortals in God’s image, thus usurping the name

without the nature of the image or reflection of divine 204:27 Mind; but in Science it can never be said that man

has a mind of his own, distinct from God, the all

Mind.

204:30 The belief that God lives in matter is pantheistic. The

error, which says that Soul is in body, Mind is in matter,

and good is in evil, must unsay it and cease from such 205:1 utterances; else God will continue to be hidden from humanity, and mortals will sin without knowing that they 205:3 are sinning, will lean on matter instead of Spirit, stumble

with lameness, drop with drunkenness, consume with dis—

case, - all because of their blindness, their false sense 205:6 concerning God and man.

 

Creation perfect

 

When will the error of believing that there is life in

matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of 205:9 God, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has neither intelligence, life,

nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific 205:12 source of all suffering? God created all through Mind,

and made all perfect and eternal. Where then is the

necessity for recreation or procreation?

 

Perceiving the divine image

205:15 Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter

can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear

glimpses of God only as the mists disperse, 205:18 or as they melt into such thinness that we perceive the divine image in some word or deed

which indicates the true idea, - the supremacy and real-205:21 ity of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil.

 

Redemption from selfishness

 

When we realize that there is one Mind, the divine law

of loving our neighbor as ourselves is unfolded; 205:24 whereas a belief in many ruling minds hinders

man’s normal drift towards the one Mind, one

God, and leads human thought into opposite channels 205:27 where selfishness reigns.

 

Selfishness tips the beam of human existence towards

the side of error, not towards Truth. Denial of the one-205:30 ness of Mind throws our weight into the scale, not of

Spirit, God, good, but of matter.

 

When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, 206:1 we can have no other Mind but His, - no other Love,

wisdom, or Truth, no other sense of Life, and no con-206:3 sciousness of the existence of matter or error.

 

Will-power unrighteous

 

The power of the human will should be exercised only

in subordination to Truth; else it will misguide the judg-206:6 ment and free the lower propensities. It is the

province of spiritual sense to govern man.

Material, erring, human thought acts injuriously both 206:9 upon the body and through it.

 

Will-power is capable of all evil. It can never heal

the sick, for it is the prayer of the unrighteous; while 206:12 the exercise of the sentiments - hope, faith, love - is the

prayer of the righteous. This prayer, governed by Science

instead of the senses, heals the sick.

206:15 In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that

whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with

the loaves and the fishes, - Spirit, not matter, being the 206:18 source of supply.

 

Birth and death unreal

 

Does God send sickness, giving the mother her child

for the brief space of a few years and then taking it away 206:21 by death? Is God creating anew what He

has already created? The Scriptures are definite on this point, declaring that His work was/ finished/, 206:24 nothing is new to God, and that it was good.

 

Can there be any birth or death for man, the spiritual

image and likeness of God? Instead of God sending 206:27 sickness and death, He destroys them, and brings to light

immortality. Omnipotent and infinite Mind made all

and includes all. This Mind does not make mistakes 206:30 and subsequently correct them. God does not cause man

to sin, to be sick, or to die.

 

No evil in Spirit

 

There are evil beliefs, often called evil spirits; but 207:1 these evils are not Spirit, for there is no evil in Spirit.

Because God is Spirit, evil becomes more apparent and 207:3 obnoxious proportionately as we advance spiritually, until it disappears from our lives.

This fact proves our position, for every scientific state-207:6 ment in Christianity has its proof. Error of statement

leads to error in action.

 

Subordination of evil

 

God is not the creator of an evil mind. Indeed, evil 207:9 is not Mind. We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence. Evil is not

supreme; good is not helpless; nor are the 207:12 so-called laws of matter primary, and the law of Spirit

secondary. Without this lesson, we lose sight of the perfect Father, or the divine Principle of man.

 

Evident impossibilities

207:15 Body is not first and Soul last, nor is evil mightier than

good. The Science of being repudiates self-evident impossibilities, such as the amalgama-207:18 tion of Truth and error in cause or effect. Science separates the tares and wheat in time of harvest.

 

One primal cause

 

There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can 207:21 be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no

reality in aught which does not proceed from

this great and only cause. Sin, sickness, dis-207:24 ease, and death belong not to the Science of being. They

are the errors, which presuppose the absence of Truth,

Life, or Love.

207:27 The spiritual reality is the scientific fact in all things.

The spiritual fact, repeated in the action of man and the

whole universe, is harmonious and is the ideal of Truth. 207:30 Spiritual facts are not inverted; the opposite discord,

which bears no resemblance to spirituality, is not real.

The only evidence of this inversion is obtained from 208:1 suppositional error, which affords no proof of God,

Spirit, or of the spiritual creation. Material sense de-208:3 fines all things materially, and has a finite sense of the

infinite.

 

Seemingly independent authority

 

The Scriptures say, “In Him we live, and move, and 208:6 have our being.” What then is this seeming power, independent of God, which causes disease and

cures it? What is it but an error of belief, - 208:9 a law of mortal mind, wrong in every sense,

embracing sin, sickness, and