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

always ends in death. Life is 309:30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never structural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its

own formations.

 

Thought seen as substance

310:1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the

artist’s thought objectified. The human belief fancies 310:3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what

is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?

Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force; 310:6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be

understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but

without material accompaniments. The potter is not in 310:9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.

God is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

 

The central intelligence

 

Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees 310:12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun

is not affected by the revolution of the earth.

So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched 310:15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence

around which circle harmoniously all things in the systems of Mind.

 

Soul imperishable

310:18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there

is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that

soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If 310:21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh instead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of material sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die. 310:24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death

is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of

Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and 310:27 if Spirit should lose Life as God, good, then Spirit, which

has no other existence, would be annihilated.

 

Mind is God, and God is not seen by material sense, 310:30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot discern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in

Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense, 311:1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth

of being.

311:3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent

on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. God is Mind:

all that Mind, God, is, or hath made, is good, and He 311:6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

 

Sin only of the flesh

 

Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no element of self-destruction. is man lost spiritually? No, 311:9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is

of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists

here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in 311:12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul,

which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

 

Soul impeccable

 

Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense 311:15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a

sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spiritual truth. This state of error is the mortal 311:18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is

directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long

as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in 311:21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of being. When humanity does understand this Science, it

will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law 311:24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through harmony and immortality.

 

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not 311:27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal

belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all

supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as 311:30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelligence. but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by

these phases of mortality.

 

Sense-dreams

312:1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material

sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is 312:3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in

Science. That which material sense calls

intangible, is found to be substance. What to material 312:6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense—

dream vanishes and reality appears.

 

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as 312:9 matter. People say, “Man is dead;” but this death is

the departure of a mortal’s mind, not of matter. The

matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he 312:12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that

matter has caused his death.

 

Vain ecstasies

 

People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal 312:15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their

hearts; yet God is love, and without Love,

God, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try 312:18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet God is

Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man’s

eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in 312:21 a finite personal God; while God is infinite Love, which

must be unlimited.

 

Man-made theories

 

Our theories are based on finite premises, which can-312:24 not penetrate beyond matter. A personal sense of God

and of man’s capabilities necessarily limits

faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It 312:27 divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit,

the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the

intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate 312:30 drug.

 

The one anointed

 

Jesus’ spiritual origin and his demonstration of divine

Principle richly endowed him and entitled him to sonship 313:1 in Science. He was the son of a virgin. The term

Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to give the full and 313:3 proper translation of the Greek), may be rendered “Jesus the anointed,” Jesus the God—

crowned or the divinely royal man, as it is said of him in 313:6 the first chapter of Hebrews: -

Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee

With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

313:9 With this agrees another passage in the same chapter,

which refers to the Son as “the brightness of His [God’s]

glory, and the express [expressed] image of His person 313:12 [infinite Mind].” It is noteworthy that the phrase “express image” in the Common Version is, in the Greek

Testament, character. Using this word in its higher mean-313:15 ing, we may assume that the author of this remarkable

epistle regarded Christ as the Son of God, the royal

reflection of the infinite; and the cause given for the ex-313:18 altation of Jesus, Mary’s son, was that he “loved righteousness and hated iniquity.” The passage is made

even clearer in the translation of the late George R. 313:21 Noyes, D.D.: “Who, being a brightness from His glory,

and an image of His being.”

 

Jesus the Scientist

 

Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that 313:24 ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material

surface of things, and found the spiritual

cause. To accommodate himself to imma-313:27 ture ideas of spiritual power, - for spirituality was pos

sessed only in a limited degree even by his disciples, -

Jesus called the body, which by spiritual power he 313:30 raised from the grave, “flesh and bones.” To show

that the substance of himself was Spirit and the body 314:1 no more perfect because of death and no less material

until the ascension (his further spiritual exaltation), 314:3 Jesus waited until the mortal or fleshly sense had relinquished the belief of substance-matter, and spiritual

sense had quenched all earthly yearnings. Thus he found 314:6 the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were

inseparable as God and His reflection or spiritual man.

Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating 314:9 the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal.

 

The bodily resurrection

 

The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed

plainly that their material views were the parents of their 314:12 wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of reproducing his body, - knowing, as he did, that

Mind was the builder, - and said, “Destroy this temple, 314:15 and in three days I will raise it up,” they thought that he

meant their material temple instead of his body. To such

materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and 314:18 unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre,

seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of

the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he 314:21 presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of

Life and substance.

 

Opposition of materialists

 

Because of mortals’ material and sinful belief, the 314:24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher

his demonstration of divine Science carried

the problem of being, and the more dis-314:27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle,

Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners

and to those who, depending on doctrines and material 314:30 laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submissive to death as being in supposed accord with the

inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by 315:1 his resurrection, and said: “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

 

Hebrew theology

315:3 That saying of our Master, “I and my Father are one,”

separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.

His better understanding of God was a rebuke 315:6 to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid

no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind

instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not 315:9 Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science

brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

 

The true sonship

 

The opposite and false views of the people hid from 315:12 their sense Christ’s sonship with God. They could not

discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal

minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts 315:15 were filled with mortal error, instead of with God’s spiritual idea as presented by Christ Jesus. The likeness of

God we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spir-315:18 itual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only

when we subdue sin and prove man’s heritage, the liberty

of the sons of God.

 

Immaculate conception

315:21 Jesus’ spiritual origin and understanding enabled him

to demonstrate the facts of being, - to prove irrefutably

how spiritual Truth destroys material error, 315:24 heals sickness, and overcomes death. The

divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and presented an illustration of creation. The history of Jesus 315:27 shows him to have been more spiritual than all other

earthly personalities.

 

Jesus as mediator

 

Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed 315:30 to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother,

Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh,

between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrat-316:1 ing the way of divine Science, he became the way of

salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mor-316:3 tals may learn how to escape from evil. The

real man being linked by Science to his Maker,

mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal 316:6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to

God, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth,

was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of 316:9 Spirit over the flesh, - to show that Truth is made

manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body,

healing sickness and destroying sin.

 

Spiritual government

316:12 Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence

the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory

religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness 316:15 and the blindness of popular belief, which led

to the