0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – 1 – The People’s Idea of God

No one could miss the dynamism of this first book, as it plunges
straight in to the central theme of the revelation with the voice of
authority and the ring of conviction. The author knows, and the reader
realizes that she speaks from experience. Here is no long introduction,
no processing of the minds of mortals, no telling us about God; but
directly it conveys to us God's actuality, presence and power.
This little book originated in a sermon under the title, "The People's
God, Its Effect  on Health and Christianity." It was first published in the
pages of the Journal in June 1883, and then as a pamphlet in October.
Not until 1886, when it was copyrighted, was the name changed to its
present form. Mrs Eddy delivered the sermon to the small Christian
Science congregation which met at that time in the College on Columbus
Avenue in Boston. They were indeed discovering a New World. Today,
after a hundred years, one can still sense - and share - the exhilaration
with which those early hearers responded to the power of the Word.
The People's Idea of God provides a truly remarkable starting-point for
the whole series of books because, like the PRAYER chapter in Science and
Health, it grasps the end from the beginning: "the great element of
reform is not born of human wisdom; it draws not its life from human
organizations: rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from
reason, the translation of law back to its original language - Mind, and
the final unity between man and God" (Peo. I). Clearly, Mrs Eddy saw
the reforming work not as a long line of progress but more as a cyclical
movement: the goal of deathless being is with us now, "accordingly as
the understanding that we are spiritual beings here reappears" (p. I).
Therefore, because of Science, we can "behold once again the power of
divine Life and Love to heal and reinstate man in God's own image and
likeness" (p. 14). Were the end not inherent in the beginning - if man
did not originally come from God - he could never work his way back to
God, nor have the means to do so.
The sermon is given in three parts on a text from Ephesians, "One
Lord, one faith, one baptism," and it starts straight in on - or rather out
from - the subject that will be elaborated through all the subsequent
writings - the allness of God. The central point, of course, is what we
mean by "one Lord." Our prayer must be to learn from God what God
is. It must be a "heaven-born aspiration and spiritual consciousness" as
the PRAYER chapter puts it (S&H 16). "The improved theory and
practice of religion and of medicine are mainly due to the people's
improved views of the Supreme Being. As the finite sense of Deity ...
yields its grosser elements, we shall learn what God is, and what God
does" (p. 2).
Thus like a cosmic 'big bang' which starts from a densely packed
nucleus and suddenly produces all the energy and substance for an
entire new universe, The People's Idea of God bursts out on only its second
page with a declaration of the Supreme Being that employs all seven
capitalized synonymous terms for God. (This is quite a rarity in any of
the books.) Immediately, from those divine elements a new concept of
man is formed. Out of God is formed good. "Proportionately as the
people's belief of God ... has been dematerialized and unfinited has
their Deity become good" (p. 2), and "thus it is that our ideas of divinity
form our models of humanity" (p. 14).
"The glorious Godhead is Life, Truth, and Love, and these three
terms for one divine Principle are the three in one that can be
understood, and that find no reflection in sinning, sick, and dying
mortals" (p. 4). We therefore have "one faith," - a sense of God and
man that is resurrected out of materialism into spiritual understanding.
"God is no longer a mystery to the Christian Scientist, but a divine
Principle, understood in part, because the grand realities of Life and
Truth are found destroying sin, sickness, and death" (p.6).
Just as the PRAYER chapter in Science and Health sets out the mental and
spiritual attitude requisite in the student, so too does this first book.
"Silent prayer is a desire, fervent, importunate" (p. 9). It shows
spiritualization to be the first essential. "Scientific discovery and the
inspiration of Truth have taught me that the health and character of
man become more or less perfect as his mind-models are more or less
spiritual. Because God is Spirit, our thoughts must spiritualize to
approach Him, and our methods grow more spiritual to accord with our
thoughts" (p. 7).
"Christian Science has one faith, one Lord, one baptism; and this
faith builds on Spirit, not matter; and this baptism is the purification of
mind ... that bathes us in the life of Truth and the truth of Life" (p. 9).
The baptism immerses our uncapitalized values in the capitalized terms
for God. Thus through a higher understanding of "the Diving Being" we
have a higher order of humanity, "and the brotherhood of man in unity
of Mind and oneness of Principle" (p. 13).
The fanfare has been sounded; the little book has voiced the Word; its
Truth rolls around the world.SHOW ALL

  	     THE PEOPLE'S IDEA OF GOD 

 1	    TEXT:  One Lord, one faith, one baptism. — EPHESIANS iv. 5 

  	    Every step of progress is a step more spiritual. The
 3	great element of reform is not born of human wis-
  	dom; it draws not its life from human organizations;
  	rather is it the crumbling away of material elements from
 6	reason, the translation of law back to its original language,
  	 — Mind, and the final unity between man and God. 
  	The footsteps of thought, as they pass from the sensual
 9	side of existence to the reality and Soul of all things, are
  	slow, portending a long night to the traveller; but the
  	guardians of the gloom are the angels of His presence, that
12	impart grandeur to the intellectual wrestling and colli-
  	sions with old-time faiths, as we drift into more spiritual
  	latitudes. The beatings of our heart can be heard; but
15	the ceaseless throbbings and throes of thought are unheard,
  	as it changes from material to spiritual standpoints. Even
  	the pangs of death disappear, accordingly as  the under-
18	standing that we are spiritual beings here reappears, and
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            2


 1	we learn our capabilities for good, which insures man's
  	continuance and is the true glory of immortality. 
 3	    The improved theory and practice of religion and of
  	medicine are mainly due to the people's improved views
  	of the Supreme Being. As the finite sense of Deity, based
 6	on material conceptions of spiritual being, yields its grosser
  	elements, we shall learn what God is, and what God does. 
  	The Hebrew term that gives another letter to the word
 9	God and makes it good, unites Science and Christianity,
  	whereby we learn that God, good, is universal, and the
  	divine Principle, — Life, Truth, Love; and this Principle is
12	learned through goodness, and of Mind instead of matter,
  	of Soul instead of the senses, and by revelation supporting
  	reason. It is the false conceptions of Spirit, based on the
15	evidences gained from the material senses, that make a
  	Christian only in theory, shockingly material in practice,
  	and form its Deity out of the worst human qualities, else
18	of wood or stone. 
  	    Such a theory has overturned empires in demoniacal con-
  	tests over religion. Proportionately as the people's belief
21	of God, in every age, has been dematerialized and unfinited
  	has their Deity become good; no longer a personal tyrant
  	or a molten image, but the divine Life, Truth, and Love,
24	 — Life without beginning or ending, Truth without a
  	lapse or error, and Love universal, infinite, eternal. This
  	more perfect idea, held constantly before the people's
27	mind, must have a benign and elevating influence upon
  	the character of nations as well as individuals, and will
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            3


 1	lift man ultimately to the understanding that our ideals
  	form our characters, that as a man "thinketh in his heart,
 3	so is he." The crudest ideals of speculative theology
  	have made monsters of men; and the ideals of materia
  	medica have made helpless invalids and cripples. The
 6	eternal roasting amidst noxious vapors; the election of the
  	minority to be saved and the majority to be eternally pun-
  	ished; the wrath of God, to be appeased by the sacrifice
 9	and torture of His favorite Son, — are some of the false
  	beliefs that have produced sin, sickness, and death; and
  	then would affirm that these are natural, and that Chris-
12	tianity and Christ-healing are preternatural; yea, that
  	make a mysterious God and a natural devil. 
  	    Let us rejoice that the bow of omnipotence already
15	spans the moral heavens with light, and that the more
  	spiritual idea of good and Truth meets the old material
  	thought like a promise upon the cloud, while it inscribes
18	on the thoughts of men at this period a more metaphysical
  	religion founded upon Christian Science. A personal
  	God is based on finite premises, where thought begins
21	wrongly to apprehend the infinite, even the quality or the
  	quantity of eternal good. This limited sense of God as
  	good limits human thought and action in their goodness,
24	and assigns them mortal fetters in the outset. It has im-
  	planted in our religions certain unspiritual shifts, such as
  	dependence on personal pardon for salvation, rather than
27	obedience to our Father's demands, whereby we grow out
  	of sin in the way that our Lord has appointed; namely,
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            4


 1	by working out our own salvation. It has given to all
  	systems of materia medica nothing but materialism, — 
 3	more faith in hygiene and drugs than in God. Idolatry
  	sprang from the belief that God is a form, more than an
  	infinite and divine Mind; sin, sickness, and death origi-
 6	nated in the belief that Spirit materialized into a body,
  	infinity became finity, or man, and the eternal entered the
  	temporal. Mythology, or the myth of ologies, said that
 9	Life, which is infinite and eternal, could enter finite man
  	through his nostrils, and matter become intelligent of
  	good and evil, because a serpent said it. When first good,
12	God, was named a person, and evil another person, the
  	error that a personal God and a personal devil entered
  	into partnership and would form a third person, called
15	material man, obtained expression. But these unspirit-
  	ual and mysterious ideas of God and man are far from
  	correct. 
18	    The glorious Godhead is Life, Truth, and Love, and
  	these three terms for one divine Principle are the three in
  	one that can be understood, and that find no reflection in
21	sinning, sick, and dying mortals. No miracle of grace can
  	make a spiritual mind out of beliefs that are as material as
  	the heathen deities. The pagan priests appointed Apollo
24	and Esculapius the gods of medicine, and they inquired of
  	these heathen deities what drugs to prescribe. Systems
  	of religion and of medicine grown out of such false ideals
27	of the Supreme Being cannot heal the sick and cast out
  	devils, error. Eschewing a materialistic and idolatrous
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            5


 1	theory and practice of medicine and religion, the apostle
  	devoutly recommends the more spiritual Christianity, — 
 3	"one Lord, one faith, one baptism." The prophets and
  	apostles, whose lives are the embodiment of a living faith,
  	have not taken away our Lord, that we know not where they
 6	have laid him; they have resurrected a deathless life of
  	love; and into the cold materialisms of dogma and doctrine
  	we look in vain for their more spiritual ideal, the risen
 9	Christ, whose materia medica and theology were one. 
  	    The ideals of primitive Christianity are nigh, even at
  	our door. Truth is not lost in the mists of remoteness or
12	the barbarisms of spiritless codes. The right ideal is not
  	buried, but has risen higher to our mortal sense, and
  	having overcome death and the grave, wrapped in a pure
15	winding-sheet, it sitteth beside the sepulchre in angel
  	form, saying unto us, "Life is God; and our ideal of God
  	has risen above the sod to declare His omnipotence." This
18	white-robed thought points away from matter and doc-
  	trine, or dogma, to the diviner sense of Life and Love, — 
  	yea, to the Principle that is God, and to the demonstra-
21	tion thereof in healing the sick. Let us then heed this heav-
  	enly visitant, and not entertain the angel unawares. 
  	    The ego is not self-existent matter animated by mind,
24	but in itself is mind; therefore a Truth-filled mind makes
  	a pure Christianity and a healthy mind and body. Oliver
  	Wendell Holmes said, in a lecture before the Harvard
27	Medical School: "I firmly believe that if the whole materia
  	medica could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            6


 1	all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes." 
  	Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse writes: "I am sick of learned
 3	quackery." Dr. Abercrombie, Fellow of the Royal Col-
  	lege of Physicians in Edinburgh, writes: "Medicine is the
  	science of guessing." Dr. James Johnson, Surgeon Ex-
 6	traordinary to the King, says: "I declare my conscientious
  	belief, founded on long observation and reflection, that
  	if there was not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary,
 9	man-midwife, chemist, druggist, or drug on the face of
  	the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality
  	than now obtains." Voltaire says: "The art of medicine
12	consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the
  	disease." 
  	    Believing that man is the victim of his Maker, we natu-
15	rally fear God more than we love Him; whereas "perfect
  	Love casteth out fear;" but when we learn God aright, we
  	love Him, because He is found altogether lovely. Thus it
18	is that a more spiritual and true ideal of Deity improves
  	the race physically and spiritually. God is no longer a
  	mystery to the Christian Scientist, but a divine Principle,
21	understood in part, because the grand realities of Life and
  	Truth are found destroying sin, sickness, and death; and
  	it should no longer be deemed treason to understand God,
24	when the Scriptures enjoin us to "acquaint now thyself
  	with Him [God], and be at peace;" we should understand
  	something of that great good for which we are to leave all
27	else. 
  	    Periods and peoples are characterized by their highest
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           7


 1	or their lowest ideals, by their God and their devil. We are
  	all sculptors, working out our own ideals, and leaving the
 3	impress of mind on the body as well as on history and
  	marble, chiselling to higher excellence, or leaving to rot and
  	ruin the mind's ideals. Recognizing this as we ought, we
 6	shall turn often from marble to model, from matter to
  	Mind, to beautify and exalt our lives. 

  	            "Chisel in hand stood a sculptor-boy,
 9	               With his marble block before him;
  	             And his face lit up with a smile of joy
  	               As an angel dream passed o'er him. 
12	             He carved the dream on that shapeless stone
  	               With many a sharp incision. 
  	             With heaven's own light the sculptor shone, — 
15	               He had caught the angel-vision. 

  	            "Sculptors of life are we as we stand
  	               With our lives uncarved before us,
18	             Waiting the hour when at God's command
  	               Our life dream passes o'er us. 
  	             If we carve it then on the yielding stone
21	               With many a sharp incision,
  	             Its heavenly beauty shall be our own, — 
  	               Our lives that angel-vision." 

24	    To remove those objects of sense called sickness and dis-
  	ease, we must appeal to mind to improve its subjects and
  	objects of thought, and give to the body those better de-
27	lineations. Scientific discovery and the inspiration of
  	Truth have taught me that the health and character of
  	man become more or less perfect as his mind-models are
30	more or less spiritual. Because God is Spirit, our thoughts
  	must spiritualize to approach Him, and our methods grow
  	more spiritual to accord with our thoughts. Religion and
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            8


 1	medicine must be dematerialized to present the right idea
  	of Truth; then will this idea cast out error and heal the
 3	sick. If changeableness that repenteth itself; partiality
  	that elects some to be saved and others to be lost, or that
  	answers the prayer of one and not of another; if incom-
 6	petency that cannot heal the sick, or lack of love that will
  	not; if unmercifulness, that for the sins of a few tired
  	years punishes man eternally, — are our conceptions of
 9	Deity, we shall bring out these qualities of character in our
  	own lives and extend their influence to others. 
  	    Judaism, enjoining the limited and definite form of a
12	national religion, was not more the antithesis of Chris-
  	tianity than are our finite and material conceptions of
  	Deity. Life is God; but we say that Life is carried on
15	through principal processes, and speculate concerning
  	material forces. Mind is supreme; and yet we make more
  	of matter, and lean upon it for health and life. Mind,
18	that governs the universe, governs every action of the body
  	as directly as it moves a planet and controls the muscles
  	of the arm. God grant that the trembling chords of human
21	hope shall again be swept by the divine Talitha cumi,
  	"Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." Then shall Christian
  	Science again appear, to light our sepulchres with im-
24	mortality. We thank our Father that to-day the uncre-
  	mated fossils of material systems, already charred, are
  	fast fading into ashes; and that man will ere long stop
27	trusting where there is no trust, and gorging his faith with
  	skill proved a million times unskilful. 
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                            9


 1	    Christian Science has one faith, one Lord, one baptism;
  	and this faith builds on Spirit, not matter; and this bap-
 3	tism is the purification of mind, — not an ablution of the
  	body, but tears of repentance, an overflowing love, wash-
  	ing away the motives for sin; yea, it is love leaving self
 6	for God. The cool bath may refresh the body, or as com-
  	pliance with a religious rite may declare one's belief; but
  	it cannot purify his mind, or meet the demands of Love. 
 9	It is the baptism of Spirit that washes our robes and makes
  	them white in the blood of the Lamb; that bathes us in the
  	life of Truth and the truth of Life. Having one Lord, we
12	shall not be idolaters, dividing our homage and obedience
  	between matter and Spirit; but shall work out our own
  	salvation, after the model of our Father, who never par-
15	dons the sin that deserves to be punished and can be de-
  	stroyed only through suffering. 
  	    We ask and receive not, because we "ask amiss;" even
18	dare to invoke the divine aid of Spirit to heal the sick, and
  	then administer drugs with full confidence in their efficacy,
  	showing our greater faith in matter, despite the authority
21	of Jesus that "ye cannot serve two masters." 
  	    Silent prayer is a desire, fervent, importunate:  here
  	metaphysics is seen to rise above physics, and rest all faith
24	in Spirit, and remove all evidence of any other power than
  	Mind; whereby we learn the great fact that there is no
  	omnipotence, unless omnipotence is the All-power. This
27	truth of Deity, understood, destroys discord with the higher
  	and more potent evidences in Christian Science of man's
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           10


 1	harmony and immortality. Thought is the essence of an
  	act, and the stronger element of action; even as steam is
 3	more powerful than water, simply because it is more
  	ethereal. Essences are refinements that lose some materi-
  	ality; and as we struggle through the cold night of physics,
 6	matter will become vague, and melt into nothing under the
  	microscope of Mind. 
  	    Massachusetts succored a fugitive slave in 1853, and put
 9	her humane foot on a tyrannical prohibitory law regulating
  	the practice of medicine in 1880. It were well if the sister
  	States had followed her example and sustained as nobly
12	our constitutional Bill of Rights. Discerning the God-
  	given rights of man, Paul said, "I was free born." Justice
  	and truth make man free, injustice and error enslave
15	him. Mental Science alone grasps the standard of liberty,
  	and battles for man's whole rights, divine as well as hu-
  	man. It assures us, of a verity, that mortal beliefs, and
18	not a law of nature, have made men sinning and sick, — 
  	that they alone have fettered free limbs, and marred in
  	mind the model of man. 
21	    We possess our own body, and make it harmonious or
  	discordant according to the images that thought reflects
  	upon it. The emancipation of our bodies from sickness
24	will follow the mind's freedom from sin; and, as St. Paul
  	admonishes, we should be "waiting for the adoption, to
  	wit, the redemption of our body." The rights of man were
27	vindicated but in a single instance when African slavery
  	was abolished on this continent, yet that hour was a
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           11


 1	prophecy of the full liberty of the sons of God as found in
  	Christian Science. The defenders of the rights of the
 3	colored man were scarcely done with their battles before a
  	new abolitionist struck the keynote of higher claims, in
  	which it was found that the feeblest mind, enlightened
 6	and spiritualized, can free its body from disease as well as
  	sin; and this victory is achieved, not with bayonet and
  	blood, not by inhuman warfare, but in divine peace. 
 9	    Above the platform of human rights let us build another
  	staging for diviner claims, — even the supremacy of Soul
  	over sense, wherein man cooperates with and is made sub-
12	ject to his Maker. The lame, the blind, the sick, the sen-
  	sual, are slaves, and their fetters are gnawing away life
  	and hope; their chains are clasped by the false teachings,
15	false theories, false fears, that enforce new forms of op-
  	pression, and are the modern Pharaohs that hold the chil-
  	dren of Israel still in bondage. Mortals, alias mortal
18	minds, make the laws that govern their bodies, as directly
  	as men pass legislative acts and enact penal codes; while
  	the body, obedient to the legislation of mind, but ignorant
21	of the law of belief, calls its own enactments "laws of
  	matter." The legislators who are greatly responsible for
  	all the woes of mankind are those leaders of public thought
24	who are mistaken in their methods of humanity. 
  	    The learned quacks of this period "bind heavy bur-
  	dens," that they themselves will not touch "with one of
27	their fingers." Scientific guessing conspires unwittingly
  	against the liberty and lives of men. Should we but
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           12


 1	hearken to the higher law of God, we should think for one
  	moment of these divine statutes of God:  Let them have
 3	"dominion over all the earth."   "And if they drink any
  	deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands
  	on the sick, and they shall recover." The only law of sick-
 6	ness or death is a law of mortal belief, an infringement
  	on the merciful and just government of God. When this
  	great fact is understood, the spurious, imaginary laws of
 9	matter — when matter is not a lawgiver — will be dis-
  	puted and trampled under the feet of Truth. Deal, then,
  	with this fabulous law as with an inhuman State law; re-
12	peal it in mind, and acknowledge only God in all thy ways,
  	 — "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy
  	diseases." Few there be who know what a power mind is
15	to heal when imbued with the spiritual truth that lifts man
  	above the demands of matter. 
  	    As our ideas of Deity advance to truer conceptions,
18	we shall take in the remaining two thirds of God's plan
  	of redemption, — namely, man's salvation from sickness
  	and death. Our blessed Master demonstrated this great
21	truth of healing the sick and raising the dead as God's
  	whole plan, and proved the application of its Principle to
  	human wants. Having faith in drugs and hygienic drills,
24	we lose faith in omnipotence, and give the healing power
  	to matter instead of Spirit. As if Deity would not if He
  	could, or could not if He would, give health to man; when
27	our Father bestows heaven not more willingly than health;
  	for without health there could be no heaven. 
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           13


 1	    The worshippers of wood and stone have a more mate-
  	rial deity, hence a lower order of humanity, than those
 3	who believe that God is a personal Spirit. But the wor-
  	shippers of a person have a lower order of Christianity than
  	he who understands that the Divine Being is more than a
 6	person, and can demonstrate in part this great impersonal
  	Life, Truth, and Love, casting out error and healing the
  	sick. This all-important understanding is gained in
 9	Christian Science, revealing the one God and His all-
  	power and ever-presence, and the brotherhood of man in
  	unity of Mind and oneness of Principle. 
12	    On the startled ear of humanity rings out the iron tread
  	of merciless invaders, putting man to the rack for his
  	conscience, or forcing from the lips of manhood shameful
15	confessions, — Galileo kneeling at the feet of priestcraft,
  	and giving the lie to science. But the lofty faith of the
  	pious Polycarp proved the triumph of mind over the body,
18	when they threatened to let loose the wild beasts upon him,
  	and he replied: "Let them come; I cannot change at once
  	from good to bad." Then they bound him to the stake,
21	set fire to the fagots, and his pure faith went up through
  	the baptism of fire to a higher sense of Life. The infidel
  	was blind who said, "Christianity is fit only for women and
24	weak-minded men." But infidels disagree; for Bonaparte
  	said: "Since ever the history of Christianity was written,
  	the loftiest intellects have had a practical faith in God;"
27	and Daniel Webster said: "My heart has assured and re-
  	assured me that Christianity must be a divine reality." 
 
   
The People’s Idea of God by Mary Baker Eddy                           14


 1	    As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express
  	them by objects more beautiful. To-day we clothe our
 3	thoughts of death with flowers laid upon the bier, and in
  	our cemeteries with amaranth blossoms, evergreen leaves,
  	fragrant recesses, cool grottos, smiling fountains, and
 6	white monuments. The dismal gray stones of church-
  	yards have crumbled into decay, as our ideas of Life have
  	grown more spiritual; and in place of "bat and owl on the
 9	bending stones, are wreaths of immortelles, and white
  	fingers pointing upward." Thus it is that our ideas of
  	divinity form our models of humanity. O Christian Scien-
12	tist, thou of the church of the new-born; awake to a
  	higher and holier love for God and man; put on the whole
  	armor of Truth; rejoice in hope; be patient in tribulation,
15	 — that ye may go to the bed of anguish, and look upon this
  	dream of life in matter, girt with a higher sense of omnipo-
  	tence; and behold once again the power of divine Life and
18	Love to heal and reinstate man in God's own image and
         likeness, having "one Lord, one faith, one baptism."SHOW ALL