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

criticism, sprang

from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they 255:9 afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by

the divine Mind.

 

Finite views of Deity

 

Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to be-255:12 little Deity with human conceptions. In league

with material sense, mortals take limited views

of all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man 255:15 should affirm.

 

The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot be

made the basis of any true idea of the infinite Godhead. 255:18 Eye hath not seen Spirit, nor hath ear heard His voice.

 

No material creation

256:1 Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must

yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of ac-256:3 tion, thought rises from the material sense to

the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All 256:6 things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the

creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and

Mother of the universe, including man.

 

Tritheism impossible

256:9 The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Triunity) suggests polythe—

ism, rather than the one ever-present I AM. 256:12 “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.”

 

No divine corporeality

 

The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed

within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can 256:15 He be understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of

small importance in comparison with the sublime ques-256:18 tion, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?

 

Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, in

the language of Scripture, “doeth according to His will 256:21 in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the

earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him,

What doest Thou?”

256:24 No form nor physical combination is adequate to represent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God

leads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit of 256:27 Christianity.

 

Limitless Mind

 

A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical limita—

tions. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vast-256:30 ness of infinity. A mind originating from a

finite or material source must be limited and

finite. Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the 257:1 infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind. If

Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind; 257:3 and this definition is scientific.

 

Matter is not substance

 

If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit, matter’s

unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce 257:6 substance. The theory that Spirit is not the

only substance and creator is pantheistic het—

erodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is 257:9 the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soul

governed by the body and a mind in matter. This belief is shallow pantheism.

257:12 Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the substance of an idea is very far from being the supposed substance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind 257:15 is not the father of matter. The material senses and

human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into

material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic 257:18 God, instead of infinite Principle, - in other words, divine

Love, - is the father of the rain, “who hath begotten the

drops of dew,” who bringeth “forth Mazzaroth in his sea-257:21 son,” and guideth “Arcturus with his sons.”

 

Inexhaustible divine Love

 

Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thus

proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the 257:24 antipode of Mind. Who hath found finite life

or love sufficient to meet the demands of human

want and woe, - to still the desires, to satisfy the aspira-257:27 tions? Infinite Mind cannot be limited to a finite form,

or Mind would lose its infinite character as inexhaustible

Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth.

 

Infinite physique impossible

257:30 It would require an infinite form to contain infinite

Mind. Indeed, the phrase infinite form involves a contradiction of terms. Finite man cannot be the image and 258:1 likeness of the infinite God. A mortal, corporeal, or

finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of 258:3 limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence

the unsatisfied human craving for something

better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a 258:6 material belief in a physical God and man. The insufficiency of this belief to supply the true idea proves the

falsity of material belief.

 

Infinity’s reflection

258:9 Man is more than a material form with a mind inside,

which must escape from its environments in

order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, 258:12 and this reflection is the true idea of God.

 

God expresses in man the infinite idea forever develop—

ing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from 258:15 a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in

the infinitude of Truth. We know no more of man as

the true divine image and likeness, than we know of 258:18 God.

 

The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea

and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses 258:21 have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. The

human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and 258:24 God.

 

Individual permanency

 

Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual

man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him 258:27 belongs eternal Life. Never born and

never dying, it were impossible for man, under

the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his 258:30 high estate.

 

God’s man discerned

 

Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of

divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the 259:1 generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and

man cannot lose his individuality, for he re-259:3 flects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all

substance.

259:6 In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The

divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who

threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted 259:9 their lives higher than their poor thought-models would

allow, - thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick,

sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of 259:12 scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, - perfect God and perfect man, - as the

basis of thought and demonstration.

 

The divine image not lost

259:15 If man was once perfect but has now lost his perfection,

then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image

of God. The lost image is no image. The 259:18 true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection.

Understanding this, Jesus said: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 259:21 perfect.”

 

Immortal models

 

Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms

its offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works 259:24 spiritually, not materially. Brain or matter

never formed a human concept. Vibration is

not intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal 259:27 ideas, pure, perfect, and enduring, are transmitted by

the divine Mind through divine Science, which corrects

error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine 259:30 concepts, to the end that they may produce harmonious

results.

 

Deducing one’s conclusions as to man from imperfec-260:1 tion instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the

true conception or understanding of man, and make him-260:3 self like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines from

an imperfect model, or the painter can depict the form

and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character 260:6 of Judas.

 

Spiritual discovery

 

The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give

way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through 260:9 many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and

perfect model of God’s creation will finally be seen as 260:12 the only true conception of being.

 

Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good,

and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already 260:15 done; but distrust of one’s ability to gain the goodness

desired and to bring out better and higher results, often

hampers the trial of one’s wings and ensures failure at the 260:18 outset.

 

Requisite change of our ideals

 

Mortals must change their ideals in order to improve

their models. A sick body is evolved from 260:21 sick thoughts. Sickness, disease, and death

proceed from fear. Sensualism evolves bad

physical and moral conditions.

260:24 Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal

mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one’s self, by

conversation about the body, and by the expectation of 260:27 perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education

is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array

thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal 260:30 nature.

 

Thoughts are things

 

If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for

Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, 261:1 we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action.

Look away from the body into Truth and Love, 261:3 the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and

immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these 261:6 into your experience proportionably to their occupancy

of your thoughts.

 

Unreality of pain

 

The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is 261:9 seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such

absorbed interest as to forget it, the body

experiences no pain. Under the strong im-261:12 pulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor was

accustomed night after night to go upon the stage and

sustain his appointed task, walking about as actively 261:15 as the youngest member of the company. This old man

was so lame that he hobbled every day to the theatre, and

sat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, - a signal 261:18 which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as if

he had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full possession of his so-called senses.

 

Immutable identity of man

261:21 Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only

a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning

of God, or good, and the nature of the immu-261:24 table and immortal. Breaking away from the

mutations of time and sense, you will neither

lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own iden-261:27 tity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will

rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird

which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a 261:30 skyward flight.

 

Forgetfulness of self

 

We should forget our bodies in remembering good and

the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in 262:1 which to work out the problem of being. Consecration

to good does not lessen man’s dependence on God, but 262:3 heightens it. Neither does consecration diminish man’s obligations to God, but shows

the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian 262:6 Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but it

ascribes to Him the entire glory. By putting “off the old

man with his deeds,” mortals “put on immortality.”

262:9 We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God’s

creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We

must reverse our feeble flutterings - our efforts to find 262:12 life and truth in matter - and rise above the testimony

of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal

idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God-262:15 like man to reach the