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

conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed

by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ-316:18 man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion,

and thus proved that truth was the master of death.

Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit cre-316:21 ates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that

blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man

dominion over all the earth.

 

Deadness in sin

316:24 The spiritual idea of God, as presented by Jesus, was

scourged in person, and its Principle was rejected. That

man was accounted a criminal who could 316:27 prove God’s divine power by healing the

sick, casting out evils, spiritualizing materialistic beliefs,

and raising the dead, - those dead in trespasses and 316:30 sins, satisfied with the flesh, resting on the basis of matter, blind to the possibilities of Spirit and its correlative truth. 317:1 Jesus uttered things which had been “secret from the

foundation of the world,” - since material knowledge 317:3 usurped the throne of the creative divine Principle, insisted

on the might of matter, the force of falsity, the insignificance of spirit, and proclaimed an anthropomorphic God.

 

The cup of Jesus

317:6 Whosoever lives most the life of Jesus in this age

and declares best the power of Christian Science, will

drink of his Master’s cup. Resistance to 317:9 Truth will haunt his steps, and he will incur the hatred of sinners, till “wisdom is justified of

her children.” These blessed benedictions rest upon 317:12 Jesus’ followers: “If the world hate you, ye know that

it hated me before it hated you;” “Lo, I am with you

alway,” - that is, not only in all time, but in all ways 317:15 and conditions.

 

The individuality of man is no less tangible because

it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of 317:18 matter. The understanding of his spiritual individuality

makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death. Our Lord 317:21 and Master presented himself to his disciples after his

resurrection from the grave, as the self-same Jesus whom

they had loved before the tragedy on Calvary.

 

Material skepticism

317:24 To the materialistic Thomas, looking for the ideal

Saviour in matter instead of in Spirit and to the testimony of the material senses and the body, 317:27 more than to Soul, for an earnest of immortality, - to him Jesus furnished the proof that he was

unchanged by the crucifixion. To this dull and doubt-317:30 ing disciple Jesus remained a fleshly reality, so long as

the Master remained an inhabitant of the earth. Nothing but a display of matter could make existence real 318:1 to Thomas. For him to believe in matter was no task,

but for him to conceive of the substantiality of Spirit - 318:3 to know that nothing can efface Mind and immortality, in

which Spirit reigns - was more difficult.

 

What the senses originate

 

Corporeal senses define diseases as realities; but the 318:6 Scriptures declare that God made all, even while the corporeal senses are saying that matter causes

disease and the divine Mind cannot or will 318:9 not heal it. The material senses originate and

support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased.

They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom 318:12 all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material

sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause

the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death 318:15 and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence.

 

Sickness as discord

 

Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but

so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God. 318:18 Weary of their material beliefs, from which

comes so much suffering, invalids grow more

spiritual, as the error - or belief that life is in matter - 318:21 yields to the reality of spiritual Life.

 

The Science of Mind denies the error of sensation in

matter, and heals with Truth. Medical science treats 318:24 disease as though disease were real, therefore right, and

attempts to heal it with matter. If disease is right it is

wrong to heal it. Material methods are temporary, and 318:27 are not adapted to elevate mankind.

 

The governor is not subjected to the governed. In

Science man is governed by God, divine Principle, as 318:30 numbers are controlled and proved by His laws. Intelligence does not originate in numbers, but is manifested

through them. The body does not include soul, but man-319:1 ifests mortality, a false sense of soul. The delusion that

there is life in matter has no kinship with the Life supernal.

 

Unscientific introspection

319:3 Science depicts disease as error, as matter versus

Mind, and error reversed as subserving the facts of

health. To calculate one’s life-prospects 319:6 from a material basis, would infringe upon

spiritual law and misguide human hope. Having faith

in the divine Principle of Health and spiritually under-319:9 standing God, sustains man under all circumstances;

whereas the lower appeal to the general faith in material

means (commonly called nature) must yield to the all-319:12 might of infinite Spirit.

 

Throughout the infinite cycles of eternal existence,

Spirit and matter neither concur in man nor in the universe.

 

God the only Mind

319:15 The varied doctrines and theories which presuppose

life and intelligence to exist in matter are so many ancient

and modern mythologies. Mystery, miracle, 319:18 sin, and death will disappear when it becomes

fairly understood that the divine Mind controls man and

man has no Mind but God.

 

Scriptures misinterpreted

319:21 The divine Science taught in the original language

of the Bible came through inspiration, and needs inspiration to be understood. Hence the misappre-319:24 hension of the spiritual meaning of the Bible,

and the misinterpretation of the Word in

some instances by uninspired writers, who only wrote 319:27 down what an inspired teacher had said. A misplaced

word changes the sense and misstates the Science of

the Scriptures, as, for instance, to name Love as merely 319:30 an attribute of God; but we can by special and proper

capitalization speak of the love of Love, meaning by that

what the beloved disciple meant in one of his epistles, 320:1 when he said, “God is love.” Likewise we can speak of

the truth of Truth and of the life of Life, for Christ plainly 320:3 declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

 

Interior meaning

 

Metaphors abound in the Bible, and names are often

expressive of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished 320:6 theologians in Europe and America agree that

the Scriptures have both a spiritual and literal meaning. In Smith’s Bible Dictionary it is said: 320:9 “The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest

upon both the literal and moral;” and in the learned

article on Noah in the same work, the familiar text, 320:12 Genesis vi. 3, “And the Lord said, My spirit shall not

always strive with man, for that he also is flesh,” is quoted

as follows, from the original Hebrew: “And Jehovah 320:15 said, My spirit shall not forever rule [or be humbled] in

men, seeing that they are [or, in their error they are]

but flesh.” Here the original text declares plainly the 320:18 spiritual fact of being, even man’s eternal and harmonious existence as image, idea, instead of matter (however transcendental such a thought appears), and avers 320:21 that this fact is not forever to be humbled by the belief

that man is flesh and matter, for according to that error

man is mortal.

 

Job, on the resurrection

320:24 The one important interpretation of Scripture is the

spiritual. For example, the text, “In my flesh shall I

see God,” gives a profound idea of the di-320:27 vine power to heal the ills of the flesh, and

encourages mortals to hope in Him who healeth all our

diseases; whereas this passage is continually quoted 320:30 as if Job intended to declare that even if disease and

worms destroyed his body, yet in the latter days he should

stand in celestial perfection before Elohim, still clad 321:1 in material flesh, - an interpretation which is just the opposite of the true, as may be seen by studying the book 321:3 of Job. As Paul says, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of

God.”

 

Fear of the serpent overcome

321:6 The Hebrew Lawgiver, slow of speech, despaired of

making the people understand what should be revealed

to him. When, led by wisdom to cast down his 321:9 rod, he saw it become a serpent, Moses fled before it; but wisdom bade him come back and

handle the serpent, and then Moses’ fear departed. In 321:12 this incident was seen the actuality of Science. Matter

was shown to be a belief only. The serpent, evil, under

wisdom’s bidding, was destroyed through understanding 321:15 divine Science, and this proof was a staff upon which to

lean. The illusion of Moses lost its power to alarm him,

when he discovered that what he apparently saw was really 321:18 but a phase of mortal belief.

 

Leprosy healed

 

It was scientifically demonstrated that leprosy was a

creation of mortal mind and not a condition of matter, 321:21 when Moses first put his hand into his bosom

and drew it forth white as snow with the dread

disease, and presently restored his hand to its natural con-321:24 dition by the same simple process. God had lessened

Moses’ fear by this proof in divine Science, and the inward voice became to him the voice of God, which said: 321:27 “It shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither

hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe

the voice of the latter sign.” And so it was in the coming 321:30 centuries, when the Science of being was demonstrated

by Jesus, who showed his students the power of Mind by

changing water into wine, and taught them how to handle 322:1 serpents unharmed, to heal the sick and cast out evils in

proof of the supremacy of Mind.

 

Standpoints changed

322:3 When understanding changes the standpoints of life and

intelligence from a material to a spiritual basis, we shall

gain the reality of Life, the control of Soul over 322:6 sense, and we shall perceive Christianity, or

Truth, in its divine Principle. This must be the climax

before harmonious and immortal man is obtained and his 322:9 capabilities revealed. It is highly important - in view

of the immense work to be accomplished before this recognition of divine Science can come - to turn our thoughts 322:12 towards divine Principle, that finite belief may be prepared to relinquish its error.

 

Saving the inebriate

 

Man’s wisdom finds no satisfaction in sin, since God 322:15 has sentenced sin to suffer. The necromancy of yesterday foreshadowed the mesmerism and hypnotism of to-day. The drunkard thinks he enjoys 322:18 drunkenness, and you cannot make the inebriate leave

his besottedness, until his physical sense of pleasure yields

to a higher sense. Then he turns from his cups, as 322:21 the startled dreamer who wakens from an incubus in—

curred through the pains of distorted sense. A man who

likes to do wrong - finding pleasure in it and refraining 322:24 from it only through fear of consequences - is neither

a temperate man nor a reliable religionist.

 

Uses of suffering

 

The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life 322:27 of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless

woes, turn us like tired children to the arms

of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life 322:30 in divine Science. Without this process of weaning,

“Canst thou by searching find out God?” It is easier

to desire Truth than to rid one’s