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

down with the kid; 514:24 And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together;

And a little child shall lead them.

 

Creatures of God useful

 

Understanding the control which Love held over all, 514:27 Daniel felt safe in the lions’ den, and Paul proved the

viper to be harmless. All of God’s creatures

moving in the harmony of Science, are harm-514:30 less, useful, indestructible. A realization of this grand

verity was a source of strength to the ancient worthies. 515:1 It supports Christian healing, and enables its possessor

to emulate the example of Jesus. “And God saw that 515:3 it was good.”

 

The serpent harmless

 

Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping

over lofty summits, persevering in its intent. The ser-515:6 pent of God’s creating is neither subtle nor

poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its

adroitness, for Love’s ideas are subject to the Mind which 515:9 forms them, - the power which changeth the serpent

into a staff.

 

Genesis i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our 515:12 image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over

the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over

the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping 515:15 thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 

Elohistic plurality

 

The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe.

The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of 515:18 Spirit does not imply more than one God, nor

does it imply three persons in one. It relates

to the oneness, the triunity of Life, Truth, and Love. 515:21 “Let them have dominion.” Man is the family name

for all ideas, - the sons and daughters of God. All that

God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting good-515:24 ness and power.

 

Reflected likeness

 

Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. 515:27 If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in

accord with yours. Now compare man before

the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror 515:30 divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note 516:1 how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection

to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in 516:3 the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of

God. The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love,

which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; 516:6 and when we subordinate the false testimony of the

corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see

this true likeness and reflection everywhere.

 

Love imparts beauty

516:9 God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life

is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in

goodness, which impart their own peace and 516:12 permanence. Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light. The grass beneath

our feet silently exclaims, “The meek shall inherit the 516:15 earth.” The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath to

heaven. The great rock gives shadow and shelter. The

sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the 516:18 prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the

flower, beautifies the landscape, blesses the earth. Man,

made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God’s domin-516:21 ion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent

and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality,

the infinite Father-Mother God.

516:24 Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image,

in the image of God created He him; male and female

created He them.

 

Ideal man and woman

516:27 To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated

that God made man in His own image, to reflect the

divine Spirit. It follows that man is a generic 516:30 term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter genders are human concepts. In one of the ancient lan-517:1 guages the word for man is used also as the synonym of

mind. This definition has been weakened by anthropo-517:3 morphism, or a humanization of Deity. The word /anthropomorphic/, in such a phrase as “an anthropomorphic

God,” is derived from two Greek words, signifying man 517:6 and form, and may be defined as a mortally mental attempt to reduce Deity to corporeality. The life-giving

quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter. The ideal man 517:9 corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth.

The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In

divine Science, we have not as much authority for con-517:12 sidering God masculine, as we have for considering

Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of

Deity.

 

Divine personality

517:15 The world believes in many persons; but if God is personal, there is but one person, because there is but one

God. His personality can only be reflected, 517:18 not transmitted. God has countless ideas, and

they all have one Principle and parentage. The only

proper symbol of God as person is Mind’s infinite ideal. 517:21 What is this ideal? Who shall behold it? This ideal

is God’s own image, spiritual and infinite. Even eternity

can never reveal the whole of God, since there is no limit 517:24 to infinitude or to its reflections.

 

Genesis i. 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto

them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, 517:27 and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea,

and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing

that moveth upon the earth.

 

Birthright of man

517:30 Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to

multiply, - to manifest His power. Man is not made 518:1 to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection. He is lord of the belief in earth 518:3 and heaven, - himself subordinate alone to

his Maker. This is the Science of being.

 

Genesis i. 29, 30. And God said, Behold, I have given 518:6 you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all

the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree

yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every 518:9 beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to

everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is

life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it 518:12 was so.

 

Assistance in brotherhood

 

God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the

greater, and in return, the higher always protects the 518:15 lower. The rich in spirit help the poor in

one grand brotherhood, all leaving the same

Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth 518:18 his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in

another’s good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea

might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through 518:21 all as the blossom shines through the bud. All the varied

expressions of God reflect health, holiness, immortality -

infinite Life, Truth, and Love.

518:24 Genesis i. 31. And God saw everything that He had

made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and

the morning were the sixth day.

 

Perfection of creation

518:27 The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and expresses all, and all must therefore be as perfect is the

divine Principle is perfect. Nothing is new to Spirit. 519:1 Nothing can be novel to eternal Mind, the author of all

things, who from all eternity knoweth His own ideas. 519:3 Deity was satisfied with His work. How could

He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation

was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self-519:6 containment and immortal wisdom?

 

Genesis ii. 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were

finished, and all the host of them.

 

Infinity measureless

519:9 Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete

and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and

the fatherhood and motherhood of Love. Hu-519:12 man capacity is slow to discern and to grasp

God’s creation and the divine power and presence which

go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin. Mortals 519:15 can never know the infinite, until they throw off the old

man and reach the spiritual image and likeness. What

can fathom infinity! How shall we declare Him, till, 519:18 in the language of the apostle, “we all come in the unity

of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto

a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful-519:21 ness of Christ”?

 

Genesis ii. 2. And on the seventh day God ended His

work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh 519:24 day from all His work which He had made.

 

Resting in holy work

 

God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished,

can never impoverish, the divine Mind. No 519:27 exhaustion follows the action of this Mind,

according to the apprehension of divine Science. The 520:1 highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint,

is in holy work.

 

Love and man coexistent

520:3 Unfathomable Mind is expressed. The depth, breadth,

height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all

space. That is enough! Human language 520:6 can repeat only an infinitesimal part of what

exists. The absolute ideal, man, is no more seen nor

comprehended by mortals, than is His infinite Principle, 520:9 Love. Principle and its idea, man, are coexistent and

eternal. The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can

never be reckoned according to the calendar of time. 520:12 These days will appear as mortality disappears, and they

will reveal eternity, newness of Life, in which all sense of

error forever disappears and thought accepts the divine 520:15 infinite calculus.

 

Genesis ii. 4, 5. These are the generations of the heavens

and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the 520:18 Lord God [Jehovah] made the earth and the heavens, and

every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every

herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God [Jehovah] 520:21 had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not

a man to till the ground.

 

Growth is from Mind

 

Here is the emphatic declaration that God creates all 520:24 through Mind, not through matter, - that the plant

grows, not because of seed or soil, but because

growth is the eternal mandate of Mind. Mor-520:27 tal thought drops into the ground, but the immortal creating thought is from above, not from beneath. Because

Mind makes all, there is nothing left to be made by a 520:30 lower power. Spirit acts through the Science of Mind,

never causing man to till the ground, but making him 521:1 superior to the soil. Knowledge of this lifts man above

the sod, above earth and its environments, to conscious 521:3 spiritual harmony and eternal being.

 

Spiritual narrative

 

Here the inspired record closes its narrative of being

that is without beginning or end. All that is made is 521:6 the work of God, and all is good. We leave

this brief, glorious history of spiritual creation

(as stated in the first chapter of Genesis) in the hands of 521:9 God, not of man, in the keeping of Spirit, not matter, -

joyfully acknowledging now and forever God’s supremacy,

omnipotence, and omnipresence.

521:12 The harmony and immortality of man are intact. We

should look away from the opposite supposition that man

is created materially, and turn our gaze to the spiritual 521:15 record of creation, to that which should be engraved on

the understanding and heart “with the point of a diamond”

and the pen of an angel.

 

521:18 The reader will naturally ask if there is nothing more

about creation in the book of Genesis. Indeed there is,

but the continued account is mortal and