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

pleasures and pains of matter perish, 296:15 and they must go out under the blaze of Truth, spiritual

sense, and the actuality of being. Mortal belief must lose

all satisfaction in error and sin in order to part with 296:18 them.

 

Whether mortals will learn this sooner or later, and

how long they will suffer the pangs of destruction, de-296:21 pends upon the tenacity of error.

 

Mixed testimony

 

The knowledge obtained from the corporeal senses

leads to sin and death. When the evidence of Spirit 296:24 and matter, Truth and error, seems to commingle, it rests upon foundations which time

is wearing away. Mortal mind judges by the testimony 296:27 of the material senses, until Science obliterates this false

testimony. An improved belief is one step out of error,

and aids in taking the next step and in understanding 296:30 the situation in Christian Science.

 

Belief an autocrat

 

Mortal belief is a liar from the beginning, not deserving

power. It says to mortals, “You are wretched!” and they 297:1 think they are so; and nothing can change this state, until

the belief changes. Mortal belief says, “You are happy!” 297:3 and mortals are so; and no circumstance can

alter the situation, until the belief on this subject changes. Human belief says to mortals, “You are 297:6 sick!” and this testimony manifests itself on the body as

sickness. It is as necessary for a health-illusion, as for

an illusion of sickness, to be instructed out of itself into 297:9 the understanding of what constitutes health; for a change

in either a health-belief or a belief in sickness affects the

physical condition.

 

Self-improvement

297:12 Erroneous belief is destroyed by truth. Change the

evidence, and that disappears which before seemed real

to this false belief, and the human conscious-297:15 ness rises higher. Thus the reality of being

is attained and man found to be immortal. The only

fact concerning any material concept is, that it is neither 297:18 scientific nor eternal, but subject to change and dissolution.

 

Faith higher than belief

 

Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is 297:21 a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual

evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the 297:24 ever-present, is becoming understood. Human thoughts

have their degrees of comparison. Some thoughts are

better than others. A belief in Truth is better than a 297:27 belief in error, but no mortal testimony is founded on the

divine rock. Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until

belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual under-297:30 standing, human thought has little relation to the actual

or divine.

 

A mortal belief fulfils its own conditions. Sickness, 298:1 sin, and death are the vague realities of human conclusions. Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine 298:3 Science. They dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in

spiritual understanding. As a cloud hides the sun it

cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the 298:6 voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot destroy Science armed with faith, hope, and fruition.

 

Truth’s witness

 

What is termed material sense can report only a mor-298:9 tal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can

bear witness only to Truth. To material sense,

the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected 298:12 by Christian Science.

 

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, real-298:15 ity. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in

matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense

of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never 298:18 reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal.

When the real is attained, which is announced by Science,

joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spirit-298:21 ual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle,

and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead

up to their divine origin, God, and to the spiritual sense 298:24 of being.

 

Thought-angels

 

Angels are not etherealized human beings, evolving

animal qualities in their wings; but they are celestial 298:27 visitants, flying on spiritual, not material,

pinions. Angels are pure thoughts from God,

winged with Truth and Love, no matter what their indi-298:30 vidualism may be. Human conjecture confers upon angels

its own forms of thought, marked with superstitious outlines, making them human creatures with suggestive 299:1 feathers; but this is only fancy. It has behind it no more

reality than has the sculptor’s thought when he carves 299:3 his “Statue of Liberty,” which embodies his conception of an unseen quality or condition, but which has

no physical antecedent reality save in the artist’s own ob-299:6 servation and “chambers of imagery.”

 

Our Angelic messengers

 

My angels are exalted thoughts, appearing at the door

of some sepulchre, in which human belief has buried 299:9 its fondest earthly hopes. With white fingers they point upward to a new and glorified trust, to higher ideals of life and its joys. Angels 299:12 are God’s representatives. These upward-soaring beings

never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to

the divine Principle of all good, whither every real indi-299:15 viduality, image, or likeness of God, gathers. By giving

earnest heed to these spiritual guides they tarry with us,

and we entertain “angels unawares.”

 

Knowledge and Truth

299:18 Knowledge gained from material sense is figuratively

represented in Scripture as a tree, bearing the fruits of

sin, sickness, and death. Ought we not then 299:21 to judge the knowledge thus obtained to be

untrue and dangerous, since “the tree is known by his

fruit”?

299:24 Truth never destroys God’s idea. Truth is spiritual,

eternal substance, which cannot destroy the right reflection. Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth, 299:27 health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the

sun or the mountain; but Science, the sunshine of Truth,

will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial 299:30 peaks.

 

Old and new man

 

If man were solely a creature of the material senses,

he would have no eternal Principle and would be mutable 300:1 and mortal. Human logic is awry when it attempts

to draw correct spiritual conclusions regarding life from 300:3 matter. Finite sense has no true appreciation of infinite Principle, God, or of His infinite image or reflection, man. The mirage, which makes 300:6 trees and cities seem to be where they are not, illustrates

the illusion of material man, who cannot be the image

of God.

300:9 So far as the scientific statement as to man is understood, it can be proved and will bring to light the true

reflection of God - the real man, or the new man (as 300:12 St. Paul has it).

 

The tares and wheat

 

The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and

real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im-300:15 mutable and perfect. The inharmonious and

self-destructive never touch the harmonious

and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares 300:18 and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal

sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Science separates the wheat from the tares, through the real-300:21 ization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting

the divine likeness.

 

The divine reflection

 

Spirit is God, Soul; therefore Soul is not in matter. If 300:24 Spirit were in matter, God would have no representative,

and matter would be identical with God.

The theory that soul, spirit, intelligence, in-300:27 habits matter is taught by the schools. This theory is

unscientific. The universe reflects and expresses the divine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the 300:30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in

the ray of light which goes out from it. God is revealed only in that which reflects Life, Truth, Love, - 301:1 yea, which manifests God’s attributes and power, even

as the human likeness thrown upon the mirror, repeats 301:3 the color, form, and action of the person in front of the

mirror.

 

Few persons comprehend what Christian Science 301:6 means by the word reflection. To himself, mortal and

material man seems to be substance, but his sense of

substance involves error and therefore is material, 301:9 temporal.

 

On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really

substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, 301:12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which

constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection

seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual 301:15 man’s substantiality transcends mortal vision and is revealed only through divine Science.

 

Inverted images and ideas

 

As God is substance and man is the divine image and 301:18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only

the substance of good, the substance of Spirit,

not matter. The belief that man has any other 301:21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks

the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one

Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub-301:24 stance, while man is “image” (idea). Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material

sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the 301:27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image

of Mind and substance with everything turned upside

down.

301:30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial

dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead

of spiritual. Immortality is not bounded by mortality. 302:1 Soul is not compassed by finiteness. Principle is not to

be found in fragmentary ideas.

 

Identity not lost

302:3 The material body and mind are temporal, but the

real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the

real man is not lost, but found through this 302:6 explanation; for the conscious infinitude of

existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose 302:9 aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his. The

notion that mind is in matter, and that the so-called pleasures and pains, the birth, sin, sickness, and death of 302:12 matter, are real, is a mortal belief; and this belief is all

that will ever be lost.

 

Definition of man

 

Continuing our definition of/ man/, let us remember that 302:15 harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and

is always beyond and above the mortal illusion of any life, substance and intelligence 302:18 as existent in matter. This statement is based on fact,

not fable. The Science of being reveals man as perfect,

even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind, 302:21 of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all

being, and because this real man is governed by Soul

instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called 302:24 laws of matter.

 

God is Love. He is therefore the divine, infinite Principle, called Person or God. Man’s true consciousness 302:27 is in the mental, not in any bodily or personal likeness

to Spirit. Indeed, the body presents no proper likeness

of divinity, though mortal sense would fain have us so 302:30 believe.

 

Mental propagation

 

Even in Christian Science, reproduction by Spirit’s

individual ideas is but the reflection of the creative power 303:1 of the divine Principle of those ideas. The reflection,

through mental manifestation, of the multitudinous 303:3 forms of Mind which people the realm of

the real is controlled by Mind, the Principle

governing the reflection. Multiplication of God’s chil-303:6 dren comes from no power of propagation in matter, it

is the reflection of Spirit.

 

The minutiae of lesser individualities reflect the one di-303:9 vine individuality and are comprehended in and formed

by Spirit, not by material sensation. Whatever reflects

Mind, Life, Truth, and Love, is spiritually conceived and 303:12 brought forth; but the statement that man is conceived

and evolved both