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

>The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are

contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the 289:27 material must be untrue. Life is not in matter.

Therefore it cannot be said to pass out of matter. Matter and death are mortal illusions. Spirit and 289:30 all things spiritual are the real and eternal.

 

Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit, - of

Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be 290:1 eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I AM, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase.

 

Death no advantage

290:3 If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of man’s being

are not in the least understood before what is termed death

overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher spir-290:6 itually in the scale of existence on account of

that single experience, but will remain as material as before the transition, still seeking happiness through a ma-290:9 terial, instead of through a spiritual sense of life, and from

selfish and inferior motives. That Life or Mind is finite

and physical or is manifested through brain and nerves, 290:12 is false. Hence Truth comes to destroy this error and

its effects, - sickness, sin, and death. To the spiritual

class, relates the Scripture: “On such the second death 290:15 hath no power.”

 

Future purification

 

If the change called death destroyed the belief in sin,

sickness, and death, happiness would be won at the mo-290:18 ment of dissolution, and be forever permanent;

but this is not so. Perfection is gained only

by perfection. They who are unrighteous shall be un-290:21 righteous still, until in divine Science Christ, Truth, removes all ignorance and sin.

 

Sin is punished

 

The sin and error which possess us at the instant of 290:24 death do not cease at that moment, but endure until the

death of these errors. To be wholly spiritual,

man must be sinless, and he becomes thus only 290:27 when he reaches perfection. The murderer, though slain

in the act, does not thereby forsake sin. He is no more

spiritual for believing that his body died and learning that 290:30 his cruel mind died not. His thoughts are no purer until

evil is disarmed by good. His body is as material as his

mind, and vice versa.

291:1 The suppositions that sin is pardoned while unforsaken, that happiness can be genuine in the midst of 291:3 sin, that the so-called death of the body frees from sin,

and that God’s pardon is aught but the destruction of

sin, - these are grave mistakes. We know that all will 291:6 be changed “in the twinkling of an eye,” when the last

trump shall sound; but this last call of wisdom cannot

come till mortals have already yielded to each lesser call 291:9 in the growth of Christian character. Mortals need not

fancy that belief in the experience of death will awaken

them to glorified being.

 

Salvation and probation

291:12 Universal salvation rests on progression and probation,

and is unattainable without them. Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the 291:15 manifestations of Mind are harmonious and

immortal, because sin is not there and man is

found having no righteousness of his own, but in posses-291:18 sion of “the mind of the Lord,” as the Scripture says.

 

“In the place where the tree falleth, there it shall

be.” So we read in Ecclesiastes. This text has been 291:21 transformed into the popular proverb, “As the tree

falls, so it must lie.” As man falleth asleep, so shall he

awake. As death findeth mortal man, so shall he be 291:24 after death, until probation and growth shall effect the

needed change. Mind never becomes dust. No resurrection from the grave awaits Mind or Life, for the grave 291:27 has no power over either.

 

Day of judgment

 

No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment—

day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, 291:30 even the judgment by which mortal man is divested of all material error. As for spiritual error there

is none.

292:1 When the last mortal fault is destroyed, then the final

trump will sound which will end the battle of Truth with 292:3 error and mortality; “but of that day and hour, knoweth

no man.” Here prophecy pauses. Divine Science alone

can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal 292:6 the infinite.

 

Primitive error

 

Truth will be to us “the resurrection and the life” only

as it destroys all error and the belief that Mind, the only 292:9 immortality of man, can be fettered by the

body, and Life be controlled by death. A sinful, sick, and dying mortal is not the likeness of God, the 292:12 perfect and eternal.

 

Matter is the primitive belief of mortal mind, because

this so-called mind has no cognizance of Spirit. To 292:15 mortal mind, matter is substantial, and evil is

real. The so-called senses of mortals are material.

Hence the so-called life of mortals is dependent on 292:18 matter.

 

Explaining the origin of material man and mortal mind,

Jesus said: “Why do ye not understand my speech? 292:21 Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your

father, the devil [evil], and the lusts of your father ye will

do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode 292:24 not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When

he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,

and the father of it.”

 

Immortal man

292:27 This carnal material mentality, misnamed mind, is

mortal. Therefore man would be annihilated, were it

not for the spiritual real man’s indissoluble 292:30 connection with his God, which Jesus brought

to light. In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed

that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and 293:1 that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence

of the reality.

 

Elementary electricity

293:3 Electricity is not a vital fluid, but the least material

form of illusive consciousness, - the material mindless—

ness, which forms no link between matter and 293:6 Mind, and which destroys itself. Matter and

mortal mind are but different strata of human belief. The

grosser substratum is named matter or body; the more 293:9 ethereal is called mind. This so-called mind and body

is the illusion called a mortal, a mind in matter. In reality

and in Science, both strata, mortal mind and mortal body, 293:12 are false representatives of man.

 

The material so-called gases and forces are counterfeits of the spiritual forces of divine Mind, whose potency 293:15 is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion and

cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being.

Electricity is the sharp surplus of materiality which coun-293:18 terfeits the true essence of spirituality or truth, - the

great difference being that electricity is not intelligent,

while spiritual truth is Mind.

 

The counterfeit forces

293:21 There is no vapid fury of mortal mind - expressed in

earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity

- and this so-called mind is self-destroyed. 293:24 The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit

divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, “The anger

of the Lord.” In reality, they show the self-destruction 293:27 of error or matter and point to matter’s opposite, the

strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science

brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal har-293:30 mony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness

of evil.

 

Instruments of error

 

The five physical senses are the avenues and instru-294:1 ments of human error, and they correspond with error.

These senses indicate the common human belief, that life, 294:3 substance, and intelligence are a unison of

matter with Spirit. This is pantheism, and

carries within itself the seeds of all error.

294:6 If man is both mind and matter, the loss of one finger

would take away some quality and quantity of the man,

for matter and man would be one.

 

Mortal verdict

294:9 The belief that matter thinks, sees, or feels is not more

real than the belief that matter enjoys and suffers. This

mortal belief, misnamed man, is error, saying: 294:12 “Matter has intelligence and sensation. Nerves

feel. Brain thinks and sins. The stomach can make a

man cross. Injury can cripple and matter can kill man.” 294:15 This verdict of the so-called material senses victimizes

mortals, taught, as they are by physiology and pathology,

to revere false testimony, even the errors that are destroyed 294:18 by Truth through spiritual sense and Science.

 

Mythical pleasure

 

The lines of demarcation between immortal man, representing Spirit, and mortal man, representing the error that 294:21 life and intelligence are in matter, show the

pleasures and pains of matter to be myths, and

human belief in them to be the father of mythology, in 294:24 which matter is represented as divided into intelligent gods.

Man’s genuine selfhood is recognizable only in what is

good and true. Man is neither self-made nor made by 294:27 mortals. God created man.

 

Severed members

 

The inebriate believes that there is pleasure in intoxication. The thief believes that he gains something by steal-294:30 ing, and the hypocrite that he is hiding himself. The

Science of Mind corrects such mistakes, for Truth demonstrates the falsity of error.

 

Severed members

295:1 The belief that a severed limb is aching in the old location, the sensation seeming to be in nerves which 295:3 are no longer there, is an added proof of the un—

reliability of physical testimony.

 

Mortals unlike immortals

 

God creates and governs the universe, including man. 295:6 The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He

evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind

that makes them. Mortal mind would trans-295:9 form the spiritual into the material, and then

recover man’s original self in order to escape from the

mortality of this error. Mortals are not like immortals, 295:12 created in God’s own image; but infinite Spirit being all,

mortal consciousness will at last yield to the scientific fact

and disappear, and the real sense of being, perfect and 295:15 forever intact, will appear.

 

Goodness transparent

 

The manifestation of God through mortals is as light

passing through the window-pane. The light and the 295:18 glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass

is less opaque than the walls. The mortal

mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that 295:21 one which has lost much materiality - much error - in

order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then,

like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides 295:24 the sun.

 

Brainology a myth

 

All that is called mortal thought is made up of error.

The theoretical mind is matter, named brain, or mate- 295:27 rial consciousness, the exact opposite of real

Mind, or Spirit. Brainology teaches that

mortals are created to suffer and die. It further 295:30 teaches that when man is dead, his immortal soul is

resurrected from death and mortality. Thus error the—

orizes that spirit is born of matter and returns to mat-296:1 ter, and that man has a resurrection from dust; whereas

Science unfolds the eternal verity, that man is the spiritual, 296:3 eternal reflection of God.

 

Scientific purgation

 

Progress is born of experience. It is the ripening of

mortal man, through which the mortal is dropped for 296:6 the immortal. Either here or hereafter, suffering or Science must destroy all illusions

regarding life and mind, and regenerate material sense 296:9 and self. The old man with his deeds must be put off.

Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a

false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic 296:12 matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real,

and eternal.

 

The so-called