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

spiritually and materially, or by both

God and man, contradicts this eternal truth. All the 303:15 vanity of the ages can never make both these contraries

true. Divine Science lays the axe at the root of the illusion that life, or mind, is formed by or is in the material 303:18 body, and Science will eventually destroy this illusion

through the self-destruction of all error and the beatified

understanding of the Science of Life.

 

Error defined

303:21 The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holiness and unholiness, mingle in man, - that

mortal, material man is the likeness of God 303:24 and is himself a creator, - is a fatal error.

 

Man’s entity spiritual

 

God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would

be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be 303:27 without a witness or proof of His own nature. Spiritual man is the image or idea of

God, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep-303:30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence

before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the

apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from 304:1 God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and

Truth.

 

Man inseparable from Love

304:3 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material

sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: “Nei-304:6 ther death, nor life, … nor things present,

nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor

any other creature, shall be able to separate us from 304:9 the love of God.” This is the doctrine of Christian

Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its

manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into 304:12 sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can

never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind

nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed 304:15 by God, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal.

 

Harmony natural

 

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled

by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life 304:18 of man. Man’s happiness is not, therefore, at

the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not

contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful 304:21 as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.

 

The science of music governs tones. If mortals caught

harmony through material sense, they would lose har-304:24 mony, if time or accident robbed them of material sense.

To be master of chords and discords, the science of

music must be understood. Left to the decisions 304:27 of material sense, music is liable to be misappre—

hended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief,

instead of understanding, music is, must be, imper-304:30 fectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Science of being, - thrusting aside his divine Principle as

incomprehensible, - is abandoned to conjectures, left in 305:1 the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions,

subjected to material sense which is discord. A discon-305:3 tented, discordant mortal is no more a man than discord

is music.

 

Human reflection

 

A picture in the camera or a face reflected in the mirror 305:6 is not the original, though resembling it. Man, in the

likeness of his Maker, reflects the central light

of being, the invisible God. As there is no cor-305:9 poreality in the mirrored form, which is but a reflection,

so man, like all things real, reflects God, his divine Principle, not in a mortal body.

305:12 Gender also is a quality, not of God, but a characteristic of mortal mind. The verity that God’s image is not

a creator, though he reflects the creation of Mind, God, 305:15 constitutes the underlying reality of reflection. “Then

answered Jesus and said unto them: Verily, verily I say

unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he 305:18 seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth,

these also doeth the Son likewise.”

 

Inverted images

 

The inverted images presented by the senses, the de-305:21 flections of matter as opposed to the Science of spiritual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In

the illusion of life that is here to-day and 305:24 gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were

it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in

divine Science, destroys all error and brings immor-305:27 tality to light. Because man is the reflection of his

Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, decay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not 305:30 divine.

 

Jewish traditions

 

The Sadducees reasoned falsely about the resurrection, but not so blindly as the Pharisees, who believed 306:1 error to be as immortal as Truth. The Pharisees thought

that they could raise the spiritual from the material. They 306:3 would first make life result in death, and then

resort to death to reproduce spiritual life.

Jesus taught them how death was to be overcome by 306:6 spiritual Life, and demonstrated this beyond cavil.

 

Divinity not childless

 

Life demonstrates Life. The immortality of Soul makes

man immortal. If God, who is Life, were parted for a 306:9 moment from His reflection, man, during that

moment there would be no divinity reflected.

The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father would be 306:12 childless, - no Father.

 

If Life or Soul and its representative, man, unite for

a period and then are separated as by a law of divorce to 306:15 be brought together again at some uncertain future time

and in a manner unknown, - and this is the general

religious opinion of mankind, - we are left without a 306:18 rational proof of immortality. But man cannot be separated for an instant from God, if man reflects God.

Thus Science proves man’s existence to be intact.

 

Thought-forms

306:21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest

as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the material senses than are the Soul-created forms 306:24 to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as permanent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the

material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding 306:27 to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,

- is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and

eternal.

306:30 God’s man, spiritually created, is not material and

mortal.

 

The serpent’s whisper

 

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, 307:1 the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life

and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. 307:3 This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,

“Ye shall be as gods;” that is, I will make error as real 307:6 and eternal as Truth.

 

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that

there is more than one intelligence or God. It says: 307:9 “There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God

makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him.

Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will 307:12 put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem

to have life as much as God, Spirit, who is the only life.”

 

Bad results from error

 

This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found 307:15 to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death. Error charges

its lie to Truth and says: “The Lord knows 307:18 it. He has made man immortal and material, out of matter instead of Spirit.” Thus error partakes of its own

nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter 307:21 as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin

or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal,

a part of God’s creation, and so weighs against our course 307:24 Spiritward.

 

Higher statutes

 

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul

of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man 307:27 was not created from a material basis, nor

bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never

made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher 307:30 law of Mind.

 

The great question

 

Above error’s awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice

of Truth still calls: “Adam, where art thou? Conscious-308:1 ness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief

that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou 308:3 in the living faith that there is and can be but

one God, and keeping His commandment?”

Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind gov-308:6 erning man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the

beginning, and will hide from the demand, “Where art

thou?” This awful demand, “Adam, where art thou?” 308:9 is met by the admission from the head, heart, stomach,

blood, nerves, etc.: “Lo, here I am, looking for happiness

and life in the body, but finding only an illusion, a blend-308:12 ing of false claims, false pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and

death.”

 

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, 308:15 and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.

 

Wrestling of Jacob

 

Jacob was alone, wrestling with error, - struggling

with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence 308:18 as existent in matter with its false pleasures

and pains, - when an angel, a message from

Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew, 308:21 or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and

Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual

strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said 308:24 the spiritual evangel: “Let me go, for the day breaketh;”

that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.

But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need 308:27 of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light

until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was

asked, “What is thy name?” he straightway answered; 308:30 and then his name was changed to Israel, for “as a prince”

had he prevailed and had “power with God and with

men.” Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, “Tell me, 309:1 I pray thee, thy name;” but this appellation was withheld,

for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name-309:3 less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which,

to use the word of the Psalmist, restored his Soul, - gave

him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material 309:6 sense.

 

Israel the new name

 

The result of Jacob’s struggle thus appeared. He had

conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit 309:9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.

He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, -

a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought 309:12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who

through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the

power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children 309:15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the

children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.

If these children should go astray, and forget that Life 309:18 is God, good, and that good is not in elements which are

not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals

the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back 309:21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian

Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter,

even as the gospel teaches.

 

Life never structural

309:24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for infinite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to

have an intelligence separate from his Maker. 309:27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there

can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life,

when such so-called life