0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Bk 3 – No and Yes – Chpt 10 – Is Man a Person

  	                                IS MAN A PERSON? 

 9	    Man is more than physical personality, or what we cog-
  	nize through the material senses. Mind is more than mat-
  	ter, even as the infinite idea of Truth is beyond a finite
12	belief. Man outlives finite mortal definitions of himself,
  	according to a law of "the survival of the fittest." Man is
  	the eternal idea of his divine Principle, or Father. He is
15	neither matter nor a mode of mortal mind, for he is spir-
  	itual and eternal, an immortal mode of the divine Mind. 
  	Man is the image and likeness of God, coexistent and
18	coeternal with Him. 
  	    Man is not absorbed in Deity; for he is forever individ-
  	ual; but what this everlasting individuality is, remains to
21	be learned. Mortals have not seen it. That which is born
  	of the flesh is not man's eternal identity. Spiritual and
  	immortal man alone is God's likeness,  and that which is
24	mortal is not man in a spiritually scientific sense. A
  	material, sinful mortal is but the counterfeit of immortal
  	man. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 26


 1	    The mind-quacks believe that mortal man is identical
  	with immortal man, and that the immortal is inside the
 3	mortal; that good and evil blend; that matter and Spirit
  	are one; and that Soul, or Spirit, is subdivided into spirits,
  	or souls, — alias gods. This infantile talk about Mind-
 6	healing is no more identical with Christian Science than
  	the babe is identical with the adult, or the human belief
  	resembles the divine idea. Hence it is impossible for those
 9	holding such material and mortal views to demonstrate
  	my metaphysics. Theirs is the sensuous thought, which
  	brings forth its own sensuous conception. Mine is the
12	spiritual idea which transfigures thought. 
  	    All real being represents God, and is in Him. In this
  	Science of being, man can no more relapse or collapse
15	from perfection, than his divine Principle, or Father, can
  	fall out of Himself into something below infinitude. Man's
  	real ego, or selfhood, is goodness. If man's individuality
18	were evil, he would be annihilated, for evil is self-destroying. 
  	    Man's individual being must reflect the supreme indi-
  	vidual Being, to be His image and likeness; and this
21	individuality never originated in molecule, corpuscle, ma-
  	teriality, or mortality. God holds man in the eternal
  	bonds of Science, — in the immutable harmony of divine
24	law. Man is a celestial; and in the spiritual universe
  	he is forever individual and forever harmonious. "If
  	God so clothe the grass of the field, . . . shall He not
27	much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?" 
  	    Sin must be obsolete, — dust returning to dust, noth-
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 27


 1	ingness to nothingness. Sin is not Mind; it is but the sup-
  	position that there is more than one Mind. It issues
 3	a false claim; and the claim, being worthless, is in reality
  	no claim whatever. Matter is not Mind, to claim aught;
  	but Mind is God, and evil finds no place in good. When
 6	we get near enough to God to see this, the springtide
  	of Truth in Christian Science will burst upon us in the
  	similitude of the Apocalyptic pictures. No night will be
 9	there, and there will be no more sea. There will be no
  	need of the sun, for Spirit will be the light of the city, and
  	matter will be proved a myth. Until centuries pass, and
12	this vision of Truth is fully interpreted by divine Science,
  	this prophecy will be scoffed at; but it is just as veritable
  	now as it can be then. Science, divine Science, presents
15	the grand and eternal verities of God and man as the
  	divine Mind and that Mind's idea. 
  	    Mortal man is the antipode of immortal man, and the
18	two should not be confounded. Bishop Foster said, in a
  	lecture in Boston, "No man living hath yet seen man." 
  	This material sinful personality, which we misname man,
21	is what St. Paul terms "the old man and his deeds," to
  	be "put off." 
  	    Who can say what the absolute personality of God or
24	man is? Who living hath seen God or a perfect man? 
  	In presence of such thoughts take off thy shoes and
  	tread lightly, for this is holy ground. Surely the probation
27	of mortals must go on after the change called death, that
  	they may learn the definition of immortal being; or else
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 28


 1	their present mistakes would extinguish human existence. 
  	How long this false sense remains after the transition called
 3	death, no mortal knoweth; but this is sure, that the mists
  	of error, sooner or later, will melt in the fervent heat of
  	suffering, mortality will burst the barriers of sense, and
 6	man be found perfect and eternal. Of his intermediate
  	conditions — the purifying processes and terrible revolu-
  	tions necessary to effect this end — I am ignorant. 
 9	    Inasmuch as these momentous facts in the Science of
  	being must be learned some time, now is the most accept-
  	able time for beginning the lesson. If Science is pointing
12	the way, and is found to bring with it health, holiness, and
  	immortality, then to-day is none too soon for entering this
  	path. The proof that Christian Science is the way of sal-
15	vation given by Christ, I consider well established. The
  	present, as well as the future, reveals the fact that Truth
  	is never understood too soon. 
18	    Has Truth, as demonstrated by Jesus, reappeared? 
  	Study Christian Science and practise it, and you will
  	know that Truth has reappeared. What is demonstrably
21	true cannot be gainsaid; but getting the letter and omitting
  	the spirit of this Science is neither the comprehension of
  	its Principle nor the practice of its Life. SHOW ALL