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

cross. Our wine the inspiration of Love, the draught our Master drank and commended to his followers.

 

Final purpose

35:30 The design of Love is to reform the sinner. If the

sinner’s punishment here has been insufficient to reform him, the good man’s heaven would be a hell to 36:1 the sinner. They, who know not purity and affection by

experience, can never find bliss in the blessed company of 36:3 Truth and Love simply through translation

into another sphere. Divine Science reveals

the necessity of sufficient suffering, either before or after 36:6 death, to quench the love of sin. To remit the penalty

due for sin, would be for Truth to pardon error. Escape

from punishment is not in accordance with God’s govern-36:9 ment, since justice is the handmaid of mercy.

 

Jesus endured the shame, that he might pour his

dear-bought bounty into barren lives. What was his 36:12 earthly reward? He was forsaken by all save John,

the beloved disciple, and a few women who bowed in

silent woe beneath the shadow of his cross. The earthly 36:15 price of spirituality in a material age and the great moral

distance between Christianity and sensualism preclude

Christian Science from finding favor with the worldly-36:18 minded.

 

Righteous retribution

 

A selfish and limited mind may be unjust, but the unlimited and divine Mind is the immortal law of justice as 36:21 well as of mercy. It is quite as impossible for

sinners to receive their full punishment this

side of the grave as for this world to bestow on the right-36:24 eous their full reward. It is useless to suppose that the

wicked can gloat over their offences to the last moment

and then be suddenly pardoned and pushed into heaven, 36:27 or that the hand of Love is satisfied with giving us only

toil, sacrifice, cross-bearing, multiplied trials, and mockery of our motives in return for our efforts at well doing.

 

Vicarious suffering

36:30 Religious history repeats itself in the suffering of the just for the unjust. Can God

therefore overlook the law of righteousness which de-37:1 stroys the belief called sin? Does not Science show that

sin brings suffering as much to-day as yesterday? They 37:3 who sin must suffer. “With what measure ye mete, it

shall be measured to you again.”

 

Martyrs inevitable

 

History is full of records of suffering. “The blood of 37:6 the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Mortals try in

vain to slay Truth with the steel or the stake,

but error falls only before the sword of Spirit. 37:9 Martyrs are the human links which connect one stage with

another in the history of religion. They are earth’s lumi—

naries, which serve to cleanse and rarefy the atmosphere of 37:12 material sense and to permeate humanity with purer ideals.

Consciousness of right-doing brings its own reward; but

not amid the smoke of battle is merit seen and appreciated 37:15 by lookers-on.

 

Complete emulation

 

When will Jesus’ professed followers learn to emulate

him in all his ways and to imitate his mighty works? 37:18 Those who procured the martyrdom of that

righteous man would gladly have turned his

sacred career into a mutilated doctrinal platform. May 37:21 the Christians of to-day take up the more practical import of that career! It is possible, - yea, it is the duty

and privilege of every child, man, and woman, - to follow 37:24 in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness. Christians claim to be his followers, but do they follow him in 37:27 the way that he commanded? Hear these imperative commands: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father

which is in heaven is perfect!” “Go ye into all the world, 37:30 and preach the gospel to every creature!” “/Heal the

sick/!”

 

Jesus’ teaching belittled

 

Why has this Christian demand so little inspiration 38:1 to stir mankind to Christian effort? Because men are

assured that this command was intended only for a par-38:3 ticular period and for a select number of followers. This teaching is even more pernicious

than the old doctrine of foreordination, - the election of a 38:6 few to be saved, while the rest are damned; and so it will

be considered, when the lethargy of mortals, produced

by man-made doctrines, is broken by the demands of 38:9 divine Science.

 

Jesus said: “These signs shall follow them that believe; … they shall lay hands on the sick, and they 38:12 shall recover.” Who believes him? He was addressing

his disciples, yet he did not say, ” These signs shall follow

you,” but them- “them that believe” in all time to come. 38:15 Here the word hands is used metaphorically, as in the text,

“The right hand of the Lord is exalted.” It expresses

spiritual power; otherwise the healing could not have 38:18 been done spiritually. At another time Jesus prayed, not

for the twelve only, but for as many as should believe

“through their word.”

 

Material pleasures

38:21 Jesus experienced few of the pleasures of the physical

senses, but his sufferings were the fruits of other people’s sins, not of his own. The eternal Christ, 38:24 his spiritual selfhood, never suffered. Jesus

mapped out the path for others. He unveiled the Christ,

the spiritual idea of divine Love. To those buried in the 38:27 belief of sin and self, living only for pleasure or the gratification of the senses, he said in substance: Having eyes

ye see not, and having ears ye hear not; lest ye should un-38:30 derstand and be converted, and I might heal you. He

taught that the material senses shut out Truth and its

healing power.

 

Mockery of truth

39:1 Meekly our Master met the mockery of his unrecognized grandeur. Such indignities as he received, his fol-39:3 lowers will endure until Christianity’s last

triumph. He won eternal honors. He overcame the world, the flesh, and all error, thus proving 39:6 their nothingness. He wrought a full salvation from sin,

sickness, and death. We need “Christ, and him crucified.” We must have trials and self-denials, as well as 39:9 joys and victories, until all error is destroyed.

 

A belief suicidal

 

The educated belief that Soul is in the body causes

mortals to regard death as a friend, as a stepping-stone 39:12 out of mortality into immortality and bliss.

The Bible calls death an enemy, and Jesus

overcame death and the grave instead of yielding to them. 39:15 He was “the way.” To him, therefore, death was not

the threshold over which he must pass into living

glory.

 

Present salvation

39:18 “Now,” cried the apostle, “is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,” - meaning, not that

now men must prepare for a future-world salva-39:21 tion, or safety, but that now is the time in which

to experience that salvation in spirit and in life. Now is

the time for so-called material pains and material pleas-39:24 ures to pass away, for both are unreal, because impossible

in Science. To break this earthly spell, mortals must get

the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists 39:27 and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is

apprehended slowly, and the interval before its attainment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as 39:30 triumphs.

 

Sin and penalty

 

Who will stop the practice of sin so long as he believes

in the pleasures of sin? When mortals once admit that 40:1 evil confers no pleasure, they turn from it. Remove error

from thought, and it will not appear in effect. The ad-40:3 vanced thinker and devout Christian, perceiving the scope and tendency of Christian healing

and its Science, will support them. Another will say: 40:6 “Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient

season I will call for thee.”

 

Divine Science adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted 40:9 it. Science removes the penalty only by first removing

the sin which incurs the penalty. This is my sense of

divine pardon, which I understand to mean God’s method 40:12 of destroying sin. If the saying is true, “While there’s

life there’s hope,” its opposite is also true, While there’s

sin there’s doom. Another’s suffering cannot lessen our 40:15 own liability. Did the martyrdom of Savonarola make

the crimes of his implacable enemies less criminal?

 

Suffering inevitable

 

Was it just for Jesus to suffer? No; but it was 40:18 inevitable, for not otherwise could he show us the way

and the power of Truth. If a career so great

and good as that of Jesus could not avert a 40:21 felon’s fate, lesser apostles of Truth may endure human

brutality without murmuring, rejoicing to enter into

fellowship with him through the triumphal arch of 40:24 Truth and Love.

 

Service and worship

 

Our heavenly Father, divine Love, demands that all

men should follow the example of our Master and his 40:27 apostles and not merely worship his personality. It is sad that the phrase divine service

has come so generally to mean public worship instead of 40:30 daily deeds.

 

Within the veil

 

The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed,

but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of 41:1 hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the

Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and 41:3 this advance beyond matter must come

through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions. 41:6 Like our Master, we must depart from material sense

into the spiritual sense of being.

 

The thorns and flowers

 

The God-inspired walk calmly on though it be with 41:9 bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter they will reap

what they now sow. The pampered hypocrite may have a flowery pathway here, but 41:12 he cannot forever break the Golden Rule and escape the

penalty due.

 

Healing early lost

 

The proofs of Truth, Life, and Love, which Jesus gave 41:15 by casting out error and healing the sick, completed his

earthly mission; but in the Christian Church

this demonstration of healing was early lost, 41:18 about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient

school of philosophy, materia medica, or scholastic theology ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of 41:21 absolute Science.

 

Immortal achieval

 

Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science would have

before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered 41:24 him not. He fulfilled his God-mission, and

then sat down at the right hand of the Father.

Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about 41:27 doing good deeds, for which they were maligned and

stoned. The truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at.

Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing 41:30 to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national

Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never

made a disciple who could cast out evils and heal the sick. 42:1 Jesus’ life proved, divinely and scientifically, that God

is Love, whereas priest and rabbi affirmed God to be a 42:3 mighty potentate, who loves and hates. The Jewish theology gave no hint of the unchanging love of God.

 

A belief in death

 

The universal belief in death is of no advantage. It 42:6 cannot make Life or Truth apparent. Death

will be found at length to be a mortal dream,

which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.

 

Cruel desertion

42:9 The “man of sorrows” was in no peril from salary or

popularity. Though entitled to the homage of the world

and endorsed pre-eminently by the approval 42:12 of God, his brief triumphal entry into Jerusalem was followed by the desertion of all save a few friends,

who sadly followed him