EVIL ~ A life of taking ~ Divides & Subtracts From GOOD
Mary Baker Eddy’s Other Writings – Prose Works + Manual
Chapters - Mary Baker Eddy’s Other Writings
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| 1 | 0 | Title page, Cover page, Table of Contents | Show all text | Contents 1 CAUTION IN THE TRUTH 1 ...Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death? 8 SEEDTIME AND HARVEST 8 Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant? 13 THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD 17 WAYS HIGHER THAN OUR WAYS 20 RECTIFICATIONS 21 A COLLOQUY 27 THE EGO 28 SOUL 31 THERE IS NO MATTER 33 Sight 34 Touch 35 Taste 35 Force 37 IS THERE NO DEATH? 44 PERSONAL STATEMENTS 48 CREDO 48 Do you believe in God? 49 Do you believe in man? 50 Do you believe in matter? 51 What say you of woman? 52 What say you of evil? 55 SUFFERING FROM OTHERS' THOUGHTS 59 THE SAVIOUR'S MISSION 64 SUMMARY |
| 2 | 1 | Caution in the Truth | Show all text | Unity of Good CAUTION IN THE TRUTH 1 Perhaps no doctrine of Christian Scienc...e rouses so much natural doubt and questioning as this, that 3 God knows no such thing as sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the "things hard to be understood," such as the apostle Peter declared were taught by his fellow- 6 apostle Paul, "which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest . . . unto their own destruction." (2 Peter iii. 16.) Let us then reason together on this important subject, 9 whose statement in Christian Science may justly be char- acterized as wonderful. Does God know or behold sin, sickness, and death? 12 The nature and character of God is so little appre- hended and demonstrated by mortals, that I counsel my students to defer this infinite inquiry, in their discussions 15 of Christian Science. In fact, they had better leave the subject untouched, until they draw nearer to the divine character, and are practically able to testify, by their lives, 18 that as they come closer to the true understanding of God they lose all sense of error. Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 2 1 The Scriptures declare that God is too pure to behold iniquity (Habakkuk i. 13); but they also declare that 3 God pitieth them who fear Him; that there is no place where His voice is not heard; that He is "a very present help in trouble." 6 The sinner has no refuge from sin, except in God, who is his salvation. We must, however, realize God's pres- ence, power, and love, in order to be saved from sin. This 9 realization takes away man's fondness for sin and his pleasure in it; and, lastly, it removes the pain which accrues to him from it. Then follows this, as the finale in 12 Science: The sinner loses his sense of sin, and gains a higher sense of God, in whom there is no sin. The true man, really saved, is ready to testify of God 15 in the infinite penetration of Truth, and can affirm that the Mind which is good, or God, has no knowledge of sin. In the same manner the sick lose their sense of sickness, 18 and gain that spiritual sense of harmony which contains neither discord nor disease. According to this same rule, in divine Science, the 21 dying — if they die in the Lord — awake from a sense of death to a sense of Life in Christ, with a knowledge of Truth and Love beyond what they possessed before; be- 24 cause their lives have grown so far toward the stature of manhood in Christ Jesus, that they are ready for a spirit- ual transfiguration, through their affections and under- 27 standing. Those who reach this transition, called death, without Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 3 1 1 having rightly improved the lessons of this primary school of mortal existence, — and still believe in matter's reality, 3 pleasure, and pain, — are not ready to understand im- mortality. Hence they awake only to another sphere of experience, and must pass through another probationary 6 state before it can be truly said of them: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." They upon whom the second death, of which we read 9 in the Apocalypse (Revelation xx. 6), hath no power, are those who have obeyed God's commands, and have washed their robes white through the sufferings of the 12 flesh and the triumphs of Spirit. Thus they have reached the goal in divine Science, by knowing Him in whom they have believed. This knowledge is not the forbidden fruit 15 of sin, sickness, and death, but it is the fruit which grows on the "tree of life." This is the understanding of God, whereby man is found in the image and likeness of 18 good, not of evil; of health, not of sickness; of Life, not of death. God is All-in-all. Hence He is in Himself only, in His 21 own nature and character, and is perfect being, or con- sciousness. He is all the Life and Mind there is or can be. Within Himself is every embodiment of Life and Mind. 24 If He is All, He can have no consciousness of anything unlike Himself; because, if He is omnipresent, there can be nothing outside of Himself. 27 Now this self-same God is our helper. He pities us. He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 4 1 1 careers. He is near to them who adore Him. To under- stand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense 3 of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become like Him. Truth is God, and in God's law. This law declares 6 that Truth is All, and there is no error. This law of Truth destroys every phase of error. To gain a temporary con- sciousness of God's law is to feel, in a certain finite human 9 sense, that God comes to us and pities us; but the attain- ment of the understanding of His presence, through the Science of God, destroys our sense of imperfection, or 12 of His absence, through a diviner sense that God is all true consciousness; and this convinces us that, as we get still nearer Him, we must forever lose our own con- 15 sciousness of error. But how could we lose all consciousness of error, if God be conscious of it? God has not forbidden man to know 18 Him; on the contrary, the Father bids man have the same Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus," — which was certainly the divine Mind; but God does forbid man's 21 acquaintance with evil. Why? Because evil is no part of the divine knowledge. John's Gospel declares (xvii. 3) that "life eternal" con- 24 sists in the knowledge of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. Surely from such an under- standing of Science, such knowing, the vision of sin is 27 wholly excluded. Nevertheless, at the present crude hour, no wise men or Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 5 1 1 women will rudely or prematurely agitate a theme involv- ing the All of infinity. 3 Rather will they rejoice in the small understanding they have already gained of the wholeness of Deity, and work gradually and gently up toward the perfect thought 6 divine. This meekness will increase their apprehension of God, because their mental struggles and pride of opin- ion will proportionately diminish. 9 Every one should be encouraged not to accept any per- sonal opinion on so great a matter, but to seek the divine Science of this question of Truth by following upward indi- 12 vidual convictions, undisturbed by the frightened sense of any need of attempting to solve every Life-problem in a day. "Great is the mystery of godliness," says Paul; and 15 mystery involves the unknown. No stubborn purpose to force conclusions on this subject will unfold in us a higher sense of Deity; neither will it promote the Cause of Truth 18 or enlighten the individual thought. Let us respect the rights of conscience and the liberty of the sons of God, so letting our "moderation be known 21 to all men." Let no enmity, no untempered controversy, spring up between Christian Science students and Chris- tians who wholly or partially differ from them as to the 24 nature of sin and the marvellous unity of man with God shadowed forth in scientific thought. Rather let the stately goings of this wonderful part of Truth be left to 27 the supernal guidance. "These are but parts of Thy ways," says Job; and the Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 6 1 1 whole is greater than its parts. Our present understanding is but "the seed within itself," for it is divine Science, 3 "bearing fruit after its kind." Sooner or later the whole human race will learn that, in proportion as the spotless selfhood of God is understood, 6 human nature will be renovated, and man will receive a higher selfhood, derived from God, and the redemption of mortals from sin, sickness, and death be established on 9 everlasting foundations. The Science of physical harmony, as now presented to the people in divine light, is radical enough to promote 12 as forcible collisions of thought as the age has strength to bear. Until the heavenly law of health, according to Christian Science, is firmly grounded, even the thinkers 15 are not prepared to answer intelligently leading questions about God and sin, and the world is far from ready to assimilate such a grand and all-absorbing verity concern- 18 ing the divine nature and character as is embraced in the theory of God's blindness to error and ignorance of sin. No wise mother, though a graduate of Wellesley College, 21 will talk to her babe about the problems of Euclid. Not much more than a half-century ago the assertion of universal salvation provoked discussion and horror, 24 similar to what our declarations about sin and Deity must arouse, if hastily pushed to the front while the platoons of Christian Science are not yet thoroughly drilled in the 27 plainer manual of their spiritual armament. "Wait patiently on the Lord;" and in less than another fifty Unity of Good – Caution in the Truth 7 1 1 years His name will be magnified in the apprehension of this new subject, as already He is glorified in the wide 3 extension of belief in the impartial grace of God, — shown by the changes at Andover Seminary and in multi- tudes of other religious folds. 6 Nevertheless, though I thus speak, and from my heart of hearts, it is due both to Christian Science and myself to make also the following statement: When I have most 9 clearly seen and most sensibly felt that the infinite recog- nizes no disease, this has not separated me from God, but has so bound me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to 12 heal a cancer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein. In the same spiritual condition I have been able to re- place dislocated joints and raise the dying to instantaneous 15 health. People are now living who can bear witness to these cures. Herein is my evidence, from on high, that the views here promulgated on this subject are correct. 18 Certain self-proved propositions pour into my waiting thought in connection with these experiences; and here is one such conviction: that an acknowledgment of the per- 21 fection of the infinite Unseen confers a power nothing else can. An incontestable point in divine Science is, that because God is All, a realization of this fact dispels even 24 the sense or consciousness of sin, and brings us nearer to God, bringing out the highest phenomena of the All- Mind. |
| 3 | 2 | Seedtime and Harvest | Show all text | 8
... SEEDTIME AND HARVEST
1 Let another query now be considered, which gives
much trouble to many earnest thinkers before Science
3 answers it.
Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?
Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so.
6 What you see, hear, feel, is a mode of consciousness, and
can have no other reality than the sense you entertain
of it.
9 It is dangerous to rest upon the evidence of the senses,
for this evidence is not absolute, and therefore not real,
in our sense of the word. All that is beautiful and good
12 in your individual consciousness is permanent. That
which is not so is illusive and fading. My insistence upon
a proper understanding of the unreality of matter and
15 evil arises from their deleterious effects, physical, moral,
and intellectual, upon the race.
All forms of error are uprooted in Science, on the same
18 basis whereby sickness is healed, — namely, by the es-
tablishment, through reason, revelation, and Science, of
the nothingness of every claim of error, even the doc-
21 trine of heredity and other physical causes. You demon-
strate the process of Science, and it proves my view
Unity of Good – Seedtime and Harvest 9
1 conclusively, that mortal mind is the cause of all disease.
Destroy the mental sense of the disease, and the disease
3 itself disappears. Destroy the sense of sin, and sin itself
disappears.
Material and sensual consciousness are mortal. Hence
6 they must, some time and in some way, be reckoned un-
real. That time has partially come, or my words would
not have been spoken. Jesus has made the way plain,
9 — so plain that all are without excuse who walk not in
it; but this way is not the path of physical science, human
philosophy, or mystic psychology.
12 The talent and genius of the centuries have wrongly
reckoned. They have not based upon revelation their
arguments and conclusions as to the source and resources
15 of being, — its combinations, phenomena, and outcome,
— but have built instead upon the sand of human reason.
They have not accepted the simple teaching and life of
18 Jesus as the only true solution of the perplexing problem
of human existence.
Sometimes it is said, by those who fail to understand
21 me, that I monopolize; and this is said because ideas
akin to mine have been held by a few spiritual think-
ers in all ages. So they have, but in a far different
24 form. Healing has gone on continually; yet healing, as
I teach it, has not been practised since the days of
Christ.
27 What is the cardinal point of the difference in my meta-
physical system? This: that by knowing the unreality of
Unity of Good – Seedtime and Harvest 10
1 disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God.
This difference wholly separates my system from all others.
3 The reality of these so-called existences I deny, because
they are not to be found in God, and this system is built
on Him as the sole cause. It would be difficult to name
6 any previous teachers, save Jesus and his apostles, who
have thus taught.
If there be any monopoly in my teaching, it lies in this
9 utter reliance upon the one God, to whom belong all
things.
Life is God, or Spirit, the supersensible eternal. The
12 universe and man are the spiritual phenomena of this one
infinite Mind. Spiritual phenomena never converge toward
aught but infinite Deity. Their gradations are spiritual
15 and divine; they cannot collapse, or lapse into their op-
posites, for God is their divine Principle. They live,
because He lives; and they are eternally perfect, because
18 He is perfect, and governs them in the Truth of divine
Science, whereof God is the Alpha and Omega, the centre
and circumference.
21 To attempt the calculation of His mighty ways, from
the evidence before the material senses, is fatuous. It is
like commencing with the minus sign, to learn the prin-
24 ciple of positive mathematics.
God was not in the whirlwind. He is not the blind
force of a material universe. Mortals must learn this;
27 unless, pursued by their fears, they would endeavor to
hide from His presence under their own falsities, and call
Unity of Good – Seedtime and Harvest 11
1 in vain for the mountains of unholiness to shield them
from the penalty of error.
3 Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the cur-
rents of matter, or mortal mind. His teachings beard
the lions in their dens. He turned the water into wine,
6 he commanded the winds, he healed the sick, — all in
direct opposition to human philosophy and so-called
natural science. He annulled the laws of matter, showing
9 them to be laws of mortal mind, not of God. He showed
the need of changing this mind and its abortive laws. He
demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and
12 effected this change through the higher laws of God.
The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of
physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human
15 consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He
heeded not the taunt, "That withered hand looks very
real and feels very real;" but he cut off this vain boast-
18 ing and destroyed human pride by taking away the ma-
terial evidence. If his patient was a theologian of some
bigoted sect, a physician, or a professor of natural phi-
21 losophy, — according to the ruder sort then prevalent, —
he never thanked Jesus for restoring his senseless hand;
but neither red tape nor indignity hindered the divine
24 process. Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought
in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibili-
ties. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and
27 is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four
months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up,
Unity of Good – Seedtime and Harvest 12
1 not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest;
and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes.
3 The laborers are few in this vineyard of Mind-sowing and
reaping; but let them apply to the waiting grain the curv-
ing sickle of Mind's eternal circle, and bind it with bands
6 of Soul.
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| 4 | 3 | The Deep Things of God | Show all text | 13
... THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD
1 Science reverses the evidence of the senses in the-
ology, on the same principle that it does in astronomy.
3 Popular theology makes God tributary to man, coming at
human call; whereas the reverse is true in Science. Men
must approach God reverently, doing their own work in
6 obedience to divine law, if they would fulfil the intended
harmony of being.
The principle of music knows nothing of discord. God
9 is harmony's selfhood. His universal laws, His unchange-
ableness, are not infringed in ethics any more than in
music. To Him there is no moral inharmony; as we shall
12 learn, proportionately as we gain the true understanding
of Deity. If God could be conscious of sin, His infinite
power would straightway reduce the universe to chaos.
15 If God has any real knowledge of sin, sickness, and
death, they must be eternal; since He is, in the very
fibre of His being, "without beginning of years or end of
18 days." If God knows that which is not permanent, it
follows that He knows something which He must learn
to unknow, for the benefit of our race.
21 Such a view would bring us upon an outworn theological
Unity of Good – The Deep Things of God 14
1 platform, which contains such planks as the divine repent-
ance, and the belief that God must one day do His
3 work over again, because it was not at first done
aright.
Can it be seriously held, by any thinker, that long after
6 God made the universe, — earth, man, animals, plants,
the sun, the moon, and "the stars also," — He should so
gain wisdom and power from past experience that He
9 could vastly improve upon His own previous work, — as
Burgess, the boatbuilder, remedies in the Volunteer the
shortcomings of the Puritan's model?
12 Christians are commanded to grow in grace. Was it
necessary for God to grow in grace, that He might rectify
His spiritual universe?
15 The Jehovah of limited Hebrew faith might need
repentance, because His created children proved sinful;
but the New Testament tells us of "the Father of lights,
18 with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
God is not the shifting vane on the spire, but the
corner-stone of living rock, firmer than everlasting hills.
21 As God is Mind, if this Mind is familiar with evil, all
cannot be good therein. Our infinite model would be
taken away. What is in eternal Mind must be reflected
24 in man, Mind's image. How then could man escape, or
hope to escape, from a knowledge which is everlasting in
his creator?
27 God never said that man would become better by learn-
ing to distinguish evil from good, — but the contrary, that
Unity of Good – The Deep Things of God 15
1 by this knowledge, by man's first disobedience, came
"death into the world, and all our woe."
3 "Shall mortal man be more just than God?" asks the
poet-patriarch. May men rid themselves of an incubus
which God never can throw off? Do mortals know more
6 than God, that they may declare Him absolutely cognizant
of sin?
God created all things, and pronounced them good.
9 Was evil among these good things? Man is God's child
and image. If God knows evil, so must man, or the like-
ness is incomplete, the image marred.
12 If man must be destroyed by the knowledge of evil,
then his destruction comes through the very knowledge
caught from God, and the creature is punished for his
15 likeness to his creator.
God is commonly called the sinless, and man the sinful;
but if the thought of sin could be possible in Deity, would
18 Deity then be sinless? Would God not of necessity take
precedence as the infinite sinner, and human sin become
only an echo of the divine?
21 Such vagaries are to be found in heathen religious his-
tory. There are, or have been, devotees who worship not
the good Deity, who will not harm them, but the bad
24 deity, who seeks to do them mischief, and whom there-
fore they wish to bribe with prayers into quiescence,
as a criminal appeases, with a money-bag, the venal
27 officer.
Surely this is no Christian worship! In Christianity,
Unity of Good – The Deep Things of God 16
1 man bows to the infinite perfection which he is bidden to
imitate. In Truth, such terms as divine sin and infinite
3 sinner are unheard-of contradictions, — absurdities; but
would they be sheer nonsense, if God has, or can have,
a real knowledge of sin?
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| 5 | 4 | Ways Higher Than Our Ways | Show all text | 17
WAYS HIGHER THAN O...UR WAYS
1 A lie has only one chance of successful deception, —
to be accounted true. Evil seeks to fasten all error
3 upon God, and so make the lie seem part of eternal Truth.
Emerson says, "Hitch your wagon to a star." I say,
Be allied to the deific power, and all that is good will aid
6 your journey, as the stars in their courses fought against
Sisera. (Judges v. 20.) Hourly, in Christian Science,
man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a
9 union predestined from all eternity; but evil ties its wagon-
load of offal to the divine chariots, — or seeks so to do, —
that its vileness may be christened purity, and its darkness
12 get consolation from borrowed scintillations.
Jesus distinctly taught the arrogant Pharisees that, from
the beginning, their father, the devil, was the would-be
15 murderer of Truth. A right apprehension of the wonder-
ful utterances of him who "spake as never man spake,"
would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and trans-
18 form the universe into a home of marvellous light, — "a
consummation devoutly to be wished."
Error says God must know evil because He knows all
21 things; but Holy Writ declares God told our first parents
that in the day when they should partake of the fruit of
evil, they must surely die. Would it not absurdly follow
Unity of Good – Ways Higher Than Our Ways 18
1 that God must perish, if He knows evil and evil neces-
sarily leads to extinction? Rather let us think of God as
3 saying, I am infinite good; therefore I know not evil.
Dwelling in light, I can see only the brightness of My
own glory.
6 Error may say that God can never save man from sin,
if He knows and sees it not; but God says, I am too pure
to behold iniquity, and destroy everything that is unlike
9 Myself.
Many fancy that our heavenly Father reasons thus:
If pain and sorrow were not in My mind, I could not
12 remedy them, and wipe the tears from the eyes of My chil-
dren. Error says you must know grief in order to console
it. Truth, God, says you oftenest console others in
15 troubles that you have not. Is not our comforter always
from outside and above ourselves?
God says, I show My pity through divine law, not
18 through human. It is My sympathy with and My knowl-
edge of harmony (not inharmony) which alone enable Me
to rebuke, and eventually destroy, every supposition of
21 discord.
Error says God must know death in order to strike at
its root; but God saith, I am ever-conscious Life, and
24 thus I conquer death; for to be ever conscious of Life is
to be never conscious of death. I am All. A knowledge
of aught beside Myself is impossible.
27 If such knowledge of evil were possible to God, it would
lower His rank.
Unity of Good – Ways Higher Than Our Ways 19
1 With God, knowledge is necessarily foreknowledge; and
foreknowledge and foreordination must be one, in an in-
3 finite Being. What Deity foreknows, Deity must fore-
ordain; else He is not omnipotent, and, like ourselves,
He foresees events which are contrary to His creative will,
6 yet which He cannot avert.
If God knows evil at all, He must have had foreknowl-
edge thereof; and if He foreknew it, He must virtually
9 have intended it, or ordered it aforetime, — foreordained
it; else how could it have come into the world?
But this we cannot believe of God; for if the supreme
12 good could predestine or foreknow evil, there would be
sin in Deity, and this would be the end of infinite moral
unity. "If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness,
15 how great is that darkness!" On the contrary, evil is
only a delusive deception, without any actuality which
Truth can know.
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| 6 | 5 | Rectifications | Show all text | 20
... RECTIFICATIONS
1 How is a mistake to be rectified? By reversal or re-
vision, — by seeing it in its proper light, and then
3 turning it or turning from it.
We undo the statements of error by reversing them.
Through these three statements, or misstatements, evil
6 comes into authority: —
First: The Lord created it.
Second: The Lord knows it.
9 Third: I am afraid of it.
By a reverse process of argument evil must be de-
throned: —
12 First: God never made evil.
Second: He knows it not.
Third: We therefore need not fear it.
15 Try this process, dear inquirer, and so reach that per-
fect Love which "casteth out fear," and then see if this
Love does not destroy in you all hate and the sense of evil.
18 You will awake to the perception of God as All-in-all.
You will find yourself losing the knowledge and the opera-
tion of sin, proportionably as you realize the divine in-
21 finitude and believe that He can see nothing outside of
His own focal distance.
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| 7 | 6 | A Colloquy | Show all text | 21 ... A COLLOQUY 1 In Romans (ii. 15) we read the apostle's description of mental processes wherein human thoughts are "the 3 mean while accusing or else excusing one another." If we observe our mental processes, we shall find that we are perpetually arguing with ourselves; yet each mortal is 6 not two personalities, but one. In like manner good and evil talk to one another; yet they are not two but one, for evil is naught, and good only 9 is reality. Evil. God hath said, "Ye shall eat of every tree of the garden." If you do not, your intellect will be circum- 12 scribed and the evidence of your personal senses be de- nied. This would antagonize individual consciousness and existence. 15 Good. The Lord is God. With Him is no conscious- ness of evil, because there is nothing beside Him or outside of Him. Individual consciousness in man is 18 inseparable from good. There is no sensible matter, no sense in matter; but there is a spiritual sense, a sense of Spirit, and this is the only consciousness belonging to true 21 individuality, or a divine sense of being. Unity of Good – A Colloquy 22 1 Evil. Why is this so? Good. Because man is made after God's eternal like- 3 ness, and this likeness consists in a sense of harmony and immortality, in which no evil can possibly dwell. You may eat of the fruit of Godlikeness, but as to the fruit of 6 ungodliness, which is opposed to Truth, — ye shall not touch it, lest ye die. Evil. But I would taste and know error for myself. 9 Good. Thou shalt not admit that error is something to know or be known, to eat or be eaten, to see or be seen, to feel or be felt. To admit the existence of error would 12 be to admit the truth of a lie. Evil. But there is something besides good. God knows that a knowledge of this something is essential to 15 happiness and life. A lie is as genuine as Truth, though not so legitimate a child of God. Whatever exists must come from God, and be important to our knowledge. 18 Error, even, is His offspring. Good. Whatever cometh not from the eternal Spirit, has its origin in the physical senses and material brains, 21 called human intellect and will-power, — alias intelligent matter. In Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, it was the Unity of Good – A Colloquy 23 1 traitorous and cruel treatment received by old Gloster from his bastard son Edmund which makes true the lines: 3 The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us. His lawful son, Edgar, was to his father ever loyal. Now 6 God has no bastards to turn again and rend their Maker. The divine children are born of law and order, and Truth knows only such. 9 How well the Shakespearean tale agrees with the word of Scripture, in Hebrews xii. 7, 8: "If ye endure chasten- ing, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is 12 he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be with- out chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons." 15 The doubtful or spurious evidence of the senses is not to be admitted, — especially when they testify concern- ing Spirit, whereof they are confessedly incompetent to 18 speak. Evil. But mortal mind and sin really exist! Good. How can they exist, unless God has created 21 them? And how can He create anything so wholly unlike Himself and foreign to His nature? An evil material mind, so-called, can conceive of God only as like itself, and 24 knowing both evil and good; but a purely good and spiritual consciousness has no sense whereby to cognize Unity of Good – A Colloquy 24 1 evil. Mortal mind is the opposite of immortal Mind, and sin the opposite of goodness. I am the infinite All. From 3 me proceedeth all Mind, all consciousness, all individu- ality, all being. My Mind is divine good, and cannot drift into evil. To believe in minds many is to depart 6 from the supreme sense of harmony. Your assumptions insist that there is more than the one Mind, more than the one God; but verily I say unto you, God is All-in-all; 9 and you can never be outside of His oneness. Evil. I am a finite consciousness, a material individu- ality, — a mind in matter, which is both evil and good. 12 Good. All consciousness is Mind; and Mind is God, — an infinite, and not a finite consciousness. This conscious- ness is reflected in individual consciousness, or man, whose 15 source is infinite Mind. There is no really finite mind, no finite consciousness. There is no material substance, for Spirit is all that endureth, and hence is the only substance. 18 There is, can be, no evil mind, because Mind is God. God and His ideas — that is, God and the universe — constitute all that exists. Man, as God's offspring, must 21 be spiritual, perfect, eternal. Evil. I am something separate from good or God. I am substance. My mind is more than matter. In my 24 mortal mind, matter becomes conscious, and is able to see, taste, hear, feel, smell. Whatever matter thus affirms is Unity of Good – A Colloquy 25 1 mainly correct. If you, O good, deny this, then I deny your truthfulness. If you say that matter is unconscious, 3 you stultify my intellect, insult my conscience, and dispute self-evident facts; for nothing can be clearer than the testimony of the five senses. 6 Good. Spirit is the only substance. Spirit is God, and God is good; hence good is the only substance, the only Mind. Mind is not, cannot be, in matter. It sees, hears, 9 feels, tastes, smells as Mind, and not as matter. Matter cannot talk; and hence, whatever it appears to say of itself is a lie. This lie, that Mind can be in matter, — 12 claiming to be something beside God, denying Truth and its demonstration in Christian Science, — this lie I declare an illusion. This denial enlarges the human intellect by 15 removing its evidence from sense to Soul, and from finite- ness into infinity. It honors conscious human individu- ality by showing God as its source. 18 Evil. I am a creator, — but upon a material, not a spiritual basis. I give life, and I can destroy life. Good. Evil is not a creator. God, good, is the only 21 creator. Evil is not conscious or conscientious Mind; it is not individual, not actual. Evil is not spiritual, and therefore has no groundwork in Life, whose only source 24 is Spirit. The elements which belong to the eternal All, — Life, Truth, Love, — evil can never take away. Unity of Good – A Colloquy 26 1 Evil. I am intelligent matter; and matter is egoistic, having its own innate selfhood and the capacity to evolve 3 mind. God is in matter, and matter reproduces God. From Him come my forms, near or remote. This is my honor, that God is my author, authority, governor, dis- 6 poser. I am proud to be in His outstretched hands, and I shirk all responsibility for myself as evil, and for my varying manifestations. 9 Good. You mistake, O evil! God is not your authority and law. Neither is He the author of the material changes, the phantasma, a belief in which leads to such teaching 12 as we find in the hymn-verse so often sung in church: — Chance and change are busy ever, Man decays and ages move; 15 But His mercy waneth never, — God is wisdom, God is love. Now if it be true that God's power never waneth, how 18 can it be also true that chance and change are universal factors, — that man decays? Many ordinary Christians protest against this stanza of Bowring's, and its sentiment 21 is foreign to Christian Science. If God be changeless good- ness, as sings another line of this hymn, what place has chance in the divine economy? Nay, there is in God 24 naught fantastic. All is real, all is serious. The phan- tasmagoria is a product of human dreams. |
| 8 | 7 | The Ego | Show all text | 27
... THE EGO
1 From various friends comes inquiry as to the meaning
of a word employed in the foregoing colloquy.
3 There are two English words, often used as if they were
synonyms, which really have a shade of difference between
them.
6 An egotist is one who talks much of himself. Egotism
implies vanity and self-conceit.
Egoism is a more philosophical word, signifying a
9 passionate love of self, which doubts all existence except
its own. An egoist, therefore, is one uncertain of every-
thing except his own existence.
12 Applying these distinctions to evil and God, we shall
find that evil is egotistic, — boastful, but fleeing like a
shadow at daybreak; while God is egoistic, knowing only
15 His own all-presence, all-knowledge, all-power.
|
| 9 | 8 | Soul | Show all text | 28
...
SOUL
1 We read in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The soul that
sinneth, it shall die."
3 What is Soul? Is it a reality within the mortal body?
Who can prove that? Anatomy has not descried nor
described Soul. It was never touched by the scalpel nor
6 cut with the dissecting-knife. The five physical senses do
not cognize it.
Who, then, dares define Soul as something within man?
9 As well might you declare some old castle to be peopled
with demons or angels, though never a light or form was
discerned therein, and not a spectre had ever been seen
12 going in or coming out.
The common hypotheses about souls are even more
vague than ordinary material conjectures, and have less
15 basis; because material theories are built on the evidence
of the material senses.
Soul must be God; since we learn Soul only as we learn
18 God, by spiritualization. As the five senses take no cog-
nizance of Soul, so they take no cognizance of God. What-
ever cannot be taken in by mortal mind — by human
21 reflection, reason, or belief — must be the unfathomable
Mind, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." Soul
Unity of Good – Soul 29
1 stands in this relation to every hypothesis as to its human
character.
3 If Soul sins, it is a sinner, and Jewish law condemned
the sinner to death, — as does all criminal law, to a cer-
tain extent.
6 Spirit never sins, because Spirit is God. Hence, as
Spirit, Soul is sinless, and is God. Therefore there is,
there can be, no spiritual death.
9 Transcending the evidence of the material senses,
Science declares God to be the Soul of all being, the only
Mind and intelligence in the universe. There is but one
12 God, one Soul, or Mind, and that one is infinite, supplying
all that is absolutely immutable and eternal, — Truth,
Life, Love.
15 Science reveals Soul as that which the senses cannot
define from any standpoint of their own. What the physi-
cal senses miscall soul, Christian Science defines as mate-
18 rial sense; and herein lies the discrepancy between the
true Science of Soul and that material sense of a soul which
that very sense declares can never be seen or measured or
21 weighed or touched by physicality.
Often we can elucidate the deep meaning of the Scrip-
tures by reading sense instead of soul, as in the Forty-
24 second Psalm: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul
[sense]? . . . Hope thou in God [Soul]: for I shall yet
praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and
27 my God [my Soul, immortality]."
The Virgin-mother's sense being uplifted to behold
Unity of Good – Soul 30
1 Spirit as the sole origin of man, she exclaimed, "My soul
[spiritual sense] doth magnify the Lord."
3 Human language constantly uses the word soul for
sense. This it does under the delusion that the senses can
reverse the spiritual facts of Science, whereas Science re-
6 verses the testimony of the material senses.
Soul is Life, and being spiritual Life, never sins. Mate-
rial sense is the so-called material life. Hence this lower
9 sense sins and suffers, according to material belief, till
divine understanding takes away this belief and restores
Soul, or spiritual Life. "He restoreth my soul," says
12 David.
In his first epistle to the Corinthians (xv. 45) Paul writes:
"The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last
15 Adam was made a quickening spirit." The apostle re-
fers to the second Adam as the Messiah, our blessed
Master, whose interpretation of God and His creation —
18 by restoring the spiritual sense of man as immortal instead
of mortal — made humanity victorious over death and the
grave.
21 When I discovered the power of Spirit to break the
cords of matter, through a change in the mortal sense of
things, then I discerned the last Adam as a quickening
24 Spirit, and understood the meaning of the declaration of
Holy Writ, "The first shall be last," — the living Soul
shall be found a quickening Spirit; or, rather, shall reflect
27 the Life of the divine Arbiter.
|
| 10 | 9 | There Is No Matter | Show all text | 31
... THERE IS NO MATTER
1 "God is a Spirit" (or, more accurately translated,
"God is Spirit"), declares the Scripture (John iv.
3 24), "and they that worship Him must worship Him in
spirit and in truth."
If God is Spirit, and God is All, surely there can be no
6 matter; for the divine All must be Spirit.
The tendency of Christianity is to spiritualize thought
and action. The demonstrations of Jesus annulled the
9 claims of matter, and overruled laws material as emphati-
cally as they annihilated sin.
According to Christian Science, the first idolatrous claim
12 of sin is, that matter exists; the second, that matter is
substance; the third, that matter has intelligence; and
the fourth, that matter, being so endowed, produces life
15 and death.
Hence my conscientious position, in the denial of matter,
rests on the fact that matter usurps the authority of God,
18 Spirit; and the nature and character of matter, the anti-
pode of Spirit, include all that denies and defies Spirit, in
quantity or quality.
21 This subject can be enlarged. It can be shown, in
detail, that evil does not obtain in Spirit, God; and that
God, or good, is Spirit alone; whereas, evil does, accord-
Unity of Good – There Is No Matter 32
1 ing to belief, obtain in matter; and that evil is a false
claim, — false to God, false to Truth and Life. Hence
3 the claim of matter usurps the prerogative of God, saying,
"I am a creator. God made me, and I make man and
the material universe."
6 Spirit is the only creator, and man, including the uni-
verse, is His spiritual concept. By matter is commonly
meant mind, — not the highest Mind, but a false form of
9 mind. This so-called mind and matter cannot be sep-
arated in origin and action.
What is this mind? It is not the Mind of Spirit; for
12 spiritualization of thought destroys all sense of matter as
substance, Life, or intelligence, and enthrones God in
the eternal qualities of His being.
15 This lower, misnamed mind is a false claim, a sup-
positional mind, which I prefer to call mortal mind. True
Mind is immortal. This mortal mind declares itself ma-
18 terial, in sin, sickness, and death, virtually saying, "I am
the opposite of Spirit, of holiness, harmony, and Life."
To this declaration Christian Science responds, even
21 as did our Master: "You were a murderer from the begin-
ning. The truth abode not in you. You are a liar, and
the father of it." Here it appears that a liar was in the
24 neuter gender, — neither masculine nor feminine. Hence
it was not man (the image of God) who lied, but the false
claim to personality, which I call mortal mind; a claim
27 which Christian Science uncovers, in order to demonstrate
the falsity of the claim.
Unity of Good – There Is No Matter 33
1 There are lesser arguments which prove matter to be
identical with mortal mind, and this mind a lie.
3 The physical senses (matter really having no sense)
give the only pretended testimony there can be as to the
existence of a substance called matter. Now these senses,
6 being material, can only testify from their own evidence,
and concerning themselves; yet we have it on divine
authority: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is
9 not true." (John v. 31.)
In other words: matter testifies of itself, "I am matter;"
but unless matter is mind, it cannot talk or testify; and
12 if it is mind, it is certainly not the Mind of Christ, not
the Mind that is identical with Truth.
Brain, thus assuming to testify, is only matter within
15 the skull, and is believed to be mind only through error
and delusion. Examine that form of matter called brains,
and you find no mind therein. Hence the logical sequence,
18 that there is in reality neither matter nor mortal mind,
but that the self-testimony of the physical senses is
false.
21 Examine these witnesses for error, or falsity, and
observe the foundations of their testimony, and you will
find them divided in evidence, mocking the Scripture
24 (Matthew xviii. 16), "In the mouth of two or three wit-
nesses every word may be established."
Sight. Mortal mind declares that matter sees through
27 the organizations of matter, or that mind sees by means
Unity of Good – There Is No Matter 34
1 of matter. Disorganize the so-called material structure,
and then mortal mind says, "I cannot see;" and declares
3 that matter is the master of mind, and that non-intelligence
governs. Mortal mind admits that it sees only material
images, pictured on the eye's retina.
6 What then is the line of the syllogism? It must be this:
That matter is not seen; that mortal mind cannot see
without matter; and therefore that the whole function
9 of material sight is an illusion, a lie.
Here comes in the summary of the whole matter, where-
with we started: that God is All, and God is Spirit; there-
12 fore there is nothing but Spirit; and consequently there
is no matter.
Touch. Take another train of reasoning. Mortal mind
15 says that matter cannot feel matter; yet put your finger
on a burning coal, and the nerves, material nerves, do
feel matter.
18 Again I ask: What evidence does mortal mind afford
that matter is substantial, is hot or cold? Take away
mortal mind, and matter could not feel what it calls sub-
21 stance. Take away matter, and mortal mind could not
cognize its own so-called substance, and this so-called
mind would have no identity. Nothing would remain to
24 be seen or felt.
What is substance? What is the reality of God and the
universe? Immortal Mind is the real substance, — Spirit,
27 Life, Truth, and Love.
Unity of Good – There Is No Matter 35
1 Taste. Mortal mind says, "I taste; and this is sweet,
this is sour." Let mortal mind change, and say that sour
3 is sweet, and so it would be. If every mortal mind believed
sweet to be sour, it would be so; for the qualities of matter
are but qualities of mortal mind. Change the mind, and
6 the quality changes. Destroy the belief, and the quality
disappears.
The so-called material senses are found, upon examina-
9 tion, to be mortally mental, instead of material. Reduced
to its proper denomination, matter is mortal mind; yet,
strictly speaking, there is no mortal mind, for Mind is
12 immortal, and is not matter, but Spirit.
Force. What is gravitation? Mortal mind says gravi-
tation is a material power, or force. I ask, Which was
15 first, matter or power? That which was first was God,
immortal Mind, the Parent of all. But God is Truth,
and the forces of Truth are moral and spiritual, not physi-
18 cal. They are not the merciless forces of matter. What
then are the so-called forces of matter? They are the
phenomena of mortal mind, and matter and mortal
21 mind are one; and this one is a misstatement of Mind,
God.
A molecule, as matter, is not formed by Spirit; for
24 Spirit is spiritual consciousness alone. Hence this spiritual
consciousness can form nothing unlike itself, Spirit, and
Spirit is the only creator. The material atom is an out-
27 lined falsity of consciousness, which can gather additional
Unity of Good – There Is No Matter 36
1 evidence of consciousness and life only as it adds lie to lie.
This process it names material attraction, and endows
3 with the double capacity of creator and creation.
From the beginning this lie was the false witness against
the fact that Spirit is All, beside which there is no other
6 existence. The use of a lie is that it unwittingly confirms
Truth, when handled by Christian Science, which reverses
false testimony and gains a knowledge of God from op-
9 posite facts, or phenomena.
This whole subject is met and solved by Christian
Science according to Scripture. Thus we see that Spirit
12 is Truth and eternal reality; that matter is the opposite
of Spirit, — referred to in the New Testament as the flesh
at war with Spirit; hence, that matter is erroneous, tran-
15 sitory, unreal.
A further proof of this is the demonstration, according
to Christian Science, that by the reduction and the rejec-
18 tion of the claims of matter (instead of acquiescence
therein) man is improved physically, mentally, morally,
spiritually.
21 To deny the existence or reality of matter, and yet
admit the reality of moral evil, sin, or to say that the
divine Mind is conscious of evil, yet is not conscious of
24 matter, is erroneous. This error stultifies the logic of
divine Science, and must interfere with its practical
demonstration.
|
| 11 | 10 | Is There No Death ? | Show all text | 37 ... IS THERE NO DEATH? 1 Jesus not only declared himself "the way" and "the truth," but also "the life." God is Life; and as 3 there is but one God, there can be but one Life. Must man die, then, in order to inherit eternal life and enter heaven? 6 Our Master said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Then God and heaven, or Life, are present, and death is not the real stepping-stone to Life and happiness. They 9 are now and here; and a change in human consciousness, from sin to holiness, would reveal this wonder of being. Because God is ever present, no boundary of time can 12 separate us from Him and the heaven of His presence; and because God is Life, all Life is eternal. Is it unchristian to believe there is no death? Not 15 unless it be a sin to believe that God is Life and All-in-all. Evil and disease do not testify of Life and God. Human beings are physically mortal, but spiritually 18 immortal. The evil accompanying physical personality is illusive and mortal; but the good attendant upon spirit- ual individuality is immortal. Existing here and now, 21 this unseen individuality is real and eternal. The so- called material senses, and the mortal mind which is mis- Unity of Good – There Is No Death 38 1 named man, take no cognizance of spiritual individuality, which manifests immortality, whose Principle is God. 3 To God alone belong the indisputable realities of being. Death is a contradiction of Life, or God; therefore it is not in accordance with His law, but antagonistic thereto. 6 Death, then, is error, opposed to Truth, — even the unreality of mortal mind, not the reality of that Mind which is Life. Error has no life, and is virtually without 9 existence. Life is real; and all is real which proceeds from Life and is inseparable from it. It is unchristian to believe in the transition called ma- 12 terial death, since matter has no life, and such misbelief must enthrone another power, an imaginary life, above the living and true God. A material sense of life robs 15 God, by declaring that not He alone is Life, but that some- thing else also is life, — thus affirming the existence and rulership of more gods than one. This idolatrous and 18 false sense of life is all that dies, or appears to die. The opposite understanding of God brings to light Life and immortality. Death has no quality of Life; and 21 no divine fiat commands us to believe in aught which is unlike God, or to deny that He is Life eternal. Life as God, moral and spiritual good, is not seen in 24 the mineral, vegetable, or animal kingdoms. Hence the inevitable conclusion that Life is not in these kingdoms, and that the popular views to this effect are not up to the 27 Christian standard of Life, or equal to the reality of being, whose Principle is God. Unity of Good – There Is No Death 39 1 When "the Word" is "made flesh" among mortals, the Truth of Life is rendered practical on the body. 3 Eternal Life is partially understood; and sickness, sin, and death yield to holiness, health, and Life, — that is, to God. The lust of the flesh and the pride of physical 6 life must be quenched in the divine essence, — that om- nipotent Love which annihilates hate, that Life which knows no death. 9 "Who hath believed our report?" Who understands these sayings? He to whom the arm of the Lord is re- vealed. He loves them from whom divine Science removes 12 human weakness by divine strength, and who unveil the Messiah, whose name is Wonderful. Man has no underived power. That selfhood is false 15 which opposes itself to God, claims another father, and denies spiritual sonship; but as many as receive the knowl- edge of God in Science must reflect, in some degree, the 18 power of Him who gave and giveth man dominion over all the earth. As soldiers of the cross we must be brave, and let Science 21 declare the immortal status of man, and deny the evidence of the material senses, which testify that man dies. As the image of God, or Life, man forever reflects and 24 embodies Life, not death. The material senses testify falsely. They presuppose that God is good and that man is evil, that Deity is deathless, but that man dies, losing 27 the divine likeness. Science and material sense conflict at all points, from Unity of Good – There Is No Death 40 1 the revolution of the earth to the fall of a sparrow. It is mortality only that dies. 3 To say that you and I, as mortals, will not enter this dark shadow of material sense, called death, is to assert what we have not proved; but man in Science never dies. 6 Material sense, or the belief of life in matter, must perish, in order to prove man deathless. As Truth supersedes error, and bears the fruits of Love, 9 this understanding of Truth subordinates the belief in death, and demonstrates Life as imperative in the divine order of being. 12 Jesus declares that they who believe his sayings will never die; therefore mortals can no more receive ever- lasting life by believing in death, than they can become 15 perfect by believing in imperfection and living imperfectly. Life is God, and God is good. Hence Life abides in man, if man abides in good, if he lives in God, who holds 18 Life by a spiritual and not by a material sense of being. A sense of death is not requisite to a proper or true sense of Life, but beclouds it. Death can never alarm or 21 even appear to him who fully understands Life. The death-penalty comes through our ignorance of Life, — of that which is without beginning and without end, — and 24 is the punishment of this ignorance. Holding a material sense of Life, and lacking the spirit- ual sense of it, mortals die, in belief, and regard all things 27 as temporal. A sense material apprehends nothing strictly belonging to the nature and office of Life. It conceives Unity of Good – There Is No Death 41 1 and beholds nothing but mortality, and has but a feeble concept of immortality. 3 In order to reach the true knowledge and consciousness of Life, we must learn it of good. Of evil we can never learn it, because sin shuts out the real sense of Life, and 6 brings in an unreal sense of suffering and death. Knowledge of evil, or belief in it, involves a loss of the true sense of good, God; and to know death, or to believe 9 in it, involves a temporary loss of God, the infinite and only Life. Resurrection from the dead (that is, from the belief in 12 death) must come to all sooner or later; and they who have part in this resurrection are they upon whom the second death has no power. 15 The sweet and sacred sense of the permanence of man's unity with his Maker can illumine our present being with a continual presence and power of good, opening wide 18 the portal from death into Life; and when this Life shall appear "we shall be like Him," and we shall go to the Father, not through death, but through Life; not through 21 error, but through Truth. All Life is Spirit, and Spirit can never dwell in its antag- onist, matter. Life, therefore, is deathless, because God 24 cannot be the opposite of Himself. In Christian Science there is no matter; hence matter neither lives nor dies. To the senses, matter appears to both live and die, and 27 these phenomena appear to go on ad infinitum; but such a theory implies perpetual disagreement with Spirit. Unity of Good – There Is No Death 42 1 Life, God, being everywhere, it must follow that death can be nowhere; because there is no place left for it. 3 Soul, Spirit, is deathless. Matter, sin, and death are not the outcome of Spirit, holiness, and Life. What then are matter, sin, and death? They can be nothing except 6 the results of material consciousness; but material con- sciousness can have no real existence, because it is not a living — that is to say, a divine and intelligent — reality. 9 That man must be vicious before he can be virtuous, dying before he can be deathless, material before he can be spiritual, is an error of the senses; for the very opposite 12 of this error is the genuine Science of being. Man, in Science, is as perfect and immortal now, as when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 15 of God shouted for joy." With Christ, Life was not merely a sense of existence, but a sense of might and ability to subdue material con- 18 ditions. No wonder "people were astonished at his doc- trine; for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." 21 As defined by Jesus, Life had no beginning; nor was it the result of organization, or of an infusion of power into matter. To him, Life was Spirit. 24 Truth, defiant of error or matter, is Science, dispelling a false sense and leading man into the true sense of self- hood and Godhood; wherein the mortal does not develop 27 the immortal, nor the material the spiritual, but wherein true manhood and womanhood go forth in the radiance Unity of Good – There Is No Death 43 1 of eternal being and its perfections, unchanged and unchangeable. 3 This generation seems too material for any strong dem- onstration over death, and hence cannot bring out the infinite reality of Life, — namely, that there is no death, 6 but only Life. The present mortal sense of being is too finite for anchorage in infinite good, God, because mortals now believe in the possibility that Life can be evil. 9 The achievement of this ultimatum of Science, com- plete triumph over death, requires time and immense spiritual growth. 12 I have by no means spoken of myself, I cannot speak of myself as "sufficient for these things." I insist only upon the fact, as it exists in divine Science, that man dies 15 not, and on the words of the Master in support of this verity, — words which can never "pass away till all be fulfilled." 18 Because of these profound reasons I urge Christians to have more faith in living than in dying. I exhort them to accept Christ's promise, and unite the influence of their 21 own thoughts with the power of his teachings, in the Science of being. This will interpret the divine power to human capacity, and enable us to apprehend, or lay hold 24 upon, "that for which," as Paul says in the third chapter of Philippians, we are also "apprehended of [or grasped by] Christ Jesus," — the ever-present Life which knows 27 no death, the omnipresent Spirit which knows no matter. |
| 12 | 11 | Personal Statements | Show all text | 44 ... PERSONAL STATEMENTS 1 Many misrepresentations are made concerning my doctrines, some of which are as unkind and unjust 3 as they are untrue; but I can only repeat the Master's words: "They know not what they do." The foundations of these assertions, like the structure 6 raised thereupon, are vain shadows, repeating — if the popular couplet may be so paraphrased — The old, old story, 9 Of Satan and his lie. In the days of Eden, humanity was misled by a false personality, — a talking snake, — according to Biblical 12 history. This pretender taught the opposite of Truth. This abortive ego, this fable of error, is laid bare in Christian Science. 15 Human theories call, or miscall, this evil a child of God. Philosophy would multiply and subdivide personality into everything that exists, whether expressive or not expressive 18 of the Mind which is God. Human wisdom says of evil, "The Lord knows it!" thus carrying out the serpent's assurance: "In the day ye eat thereof [when you, lie, get 21 the floor], then your eyes shall be opened [you shall be conscious matter], and ye shall be as gods, knowing good Unity of Good – Personal Statements 45 1 and evil [you shall believe a lie, and this lie shall seem truth]." 3 Bruise the head of this serpent, as Truth and "the woman" are doing in Christian Science, and it stings your heel, rears its crest proudly, and goes on saying, "Am 6 I not myself? Am I not mind and matter, person and thing?" We should answer: "Yes! you are indeed your- self, and need most of all to be rid of this self, for it is 9 very far from God's likeness." The egotist must come down and learn, in humility, that God never made evil. An evil ego, and his assumed 12 power, are falsities. These falsities need a denial. The falsity is the teaching that matter can be conscious; and conscious matter implies pantheism. This pantheism I 15 unveil. I try to show its all-pervading presence in certain forms of theology and philosophy, where it becomes error's affirmative to Truth's negative. Anatomy and physiology 18 make mind-matter a habitant of the cerebellum, whence it telegraphs and telephones over its own body, and goes forth into an imaginary sphere of its own creation and 21 limitation, until it finally dies in order to better itself. But Truth never dies, and death is not the goal which Truth seeks. 24 The evil ego has but the visionary substance of matter. It lacks the substance of Spirit, — Mind, Life, Soul. Mor- tal mind is self-creative and self-sustained, until it becomes 27 non-existent. It has no origin or existence in Spirit, im- mortal Mind, or good. Matter is not truly conscious; and Unity of Good – Personal Statements 46 1 mortal error, called mind, is not Godlike. These are the shadowy and false, which neither think nor speak. 3 All Truth is from inspiration and revelation, — from Spirit, not from flesh. We do not see much of the real man here, for he is 6 God's man; while ours is man's man. I do not deny, I maintain, the individuality and reality of man; but I do so on a divine Principle, not based on a 9 human conception and birth. The scientific man and his Maker are here; and you would be none other than this man, if you would subordinate the fleshly perceptions to 12 the spiritual sense and source of being. Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." He taught no selfhood as existent in matter. In his identity there is no 15 evil. Individuality and Life were real to him only as spiritual and good, not as material or evil. This incensed the rabbins against Jesus, because it was an indignity to 18 their personality; and this personality they regarded as both good and evil, as is still claimed by the worldly-wise. To them evil was even more the ego than was the good. 21 Sin, sickness, and death were evil's concomitants. This evil ego they believed must extend throughout the uni- verse, as being equally identical and self-conscious with 24 God. This ego was in the earthquake, thunderbolt, and tempest. The Pharisees fought Jesus on this issue. It furnished 27 the battle-ground of the past, as it does of the present. The fight was an effort to enthrone evil. Jesus assumed Unity of Good – Personal Statements 47 1 the burden of disproof by destroying sin, sickness, and death, to sight and sense. 3 Nowhere in Scripture is evil connected with good, the being of God, and with every passing hour it is losing its false claim to existence or consciousness. All that can 6 exist is God and His idea. |
| 13 | 12 | Credo | Show all text | 48 ... CREDO 1 It is fair to ask of every one a reason for the faith within. Though it be but to repeat my twice-told tale, — nay, 3 the tale already told a hundred times, — yet ask, and I will answer. Do you believe in God? 6 I believe more in Him than do most Christians, for I have no faith in any other thing or being. He sustains my individuality. Nay, more — He is my individuality 9 and my Life. Because He lives, I live. He heals all my ills, destroys my iniquities, deprives death of its sting, and robs the grave of its victory. 12 To me God is All. He is best understood as Supreme Being, as infinite and conscious Life, as the affectionate Father and Mother of all He creates; but this divine 15 Parent no more enters into His creation than the human father enters into his child. His creation is not the Ego, but the reflection of the Ego. The Ego is God Himself, 18 the infinite Soul. I believe that of which I am conscious through the understanding, however faintly able to demonstrate Truth 21 and Love. Unity of Good – Credo 49 1 Do you believe in man? I believe in the individual man, for I understand that 3 man is as definite and eternal as God, and that man is coexistent with God, as being the eternally divine idea. This is demonstrable by the simple appeal to human 6 consciousness. But I believe less in the sinner, wrongly named man. The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it 9 to be sinless, — as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker. To me the reality and substance of being are good, and nothing else. Through the eternal reality of existence I 12 reach, in thought, a glorified consciousness of the only living God and the genuine man. So long as I hold evil in consciousness, I cannot be wholly good. 15 You cannot simultaneously serve the mammon of materiality and the God of spirituality. There are not two realities of being, two opposite states of existence. 18 One should appear real to us, and the other unreal, or we lose the Science of being. Standing in no basic Truth, we make "the worse appear the better reason," and the un- 21 real masquerades as the real, in our thought. Evil is without Principle. Being destitute of Principle, it is devoid of Science. Hence it is undemonstrable, with- 24 out proof. This gives me a clearer right to call evil a nega- tion, than to affirm it to be something which God sees and knows, but which He straightway commands mortals to 27 shun or relinquish, lest it destroy them. This notion of Unity of Good – Credo 50 1 the destructibility of Mind implies the possibility of its defilement; but how can infinite Mind be defiled? 3 Do you believe in matter? I believe in matter only as I believe in evil, that it is something to be denied and destroyed to human conscious- 6 ness, and is unknown to the Divine. We should watch and pray that we enter not into the temptation of panthe- istic belief in matter as sensible mind. We should sub- 9 jugate it as Jesus did, by a dominant understanding of Spirit. At best, matter is only a phenomenon of mortal mind, 12 of which evil is the highest degree; but really there is no such thing as mortal mind, — though we are compelled to use the phrase in the endeavor to express the underlying 15 thought. In reality there are no material states or stages of con- sciousness, and matter has neither Mind nor sensation. 18 Like evil, it is destitute of Mind, for Mind is God. The less consciousness of evil or matter mortals have, the easier it is for them to evade sin, sickness, and death, 21 — which are but states of false belief, — and awake from the troubled dream, a consciousness which is without Mind or Maker. 24 Matter and evil cannot be conscious, and consciousness should not be evil. Adopt this rule of Science, and you will discover the material origin, growth, maturity, and 27 death of sinners, as the history of man, disappears, and the Unity of Good – Credo 51 1 everlasting facts of being appear, wherein man is the re- flection of immutable good. 3 Reasoning from false premises, — that Life is material, that immortal Soul is sinful, and hence that sin is eternal, — the reality of being is neither seen, felt, heard, nor un- 6 derstood. Human philosophy and human reason can never make one hair white or black, except in belief; whereas the demonstration of God, as in Christian Science, 9 is gained through Christ as perfect manhood. In pantheism the world is bereft of its God, whose place is ill supplied by the pretentious usurpation, by 12 matter, of the heavenly sovereignty. What say you of woman? Man is the generic term for all humanity. Woman is 15 the highest species of man, and this word is the generic term for all women; but not one of all these individualities is an Eve or an Adam. They have none of them lost their 18 harmonious state, in the economy of God's wisdom and government. The Ego is divine consciousness, eternally radiating 21 throughout all space in the idea of God, good, and not of His opposite, evil. The Ego is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; but the full Truth is found only in 24 divine Science, where we see God as Life, Truth, and Love. In the scientific relation of man to God, man is reflected not as human soul, but as the divine ideal, whose 27 Soul is not in body, but is God, — the divine Principle of Unity of Good – Credo 52 1 man. Hence Soul is sinless and immortal, in contradis- tinction to the supposition that there can be sinful souls or 3 immortal sinners. This Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal harmony 6 of both God and the universe. It is the kingdom of heaven, the ever-present reign of harmony, already with us. Hence the need that human consciousness should become divine, 9 in the coincidence of God and man, in contradistinction to the false consciousness of both good and evil, God and devil, — of man separated from his Maker. This is the 12 precious redemption of soul, as mortal sense, through Christ's immortal sense of Truth, which presents Truth's spiritual idea, man and woman. 15 What say you of evil? God is not the so-called ego of evil; for evil, as a sup- position, is the father of itself, — of the material world, 18 the flesh, and the devil. From this falsehood arise the self-destroying elements of this world, its unkind forces, its tempests, lightnings, earthquakes, poisons, rabid 21 beasts, fatal reptiles, and mortals. Why are earth and mortals so elaborate in beauty, color, and form, if God has no part in them? By the law of 24 opposites. The most beautiful blossom is often poisonous, and the most beautiful mansion is sometimes the home of vice. The senses, not God, Soul, form the condition of 27 beautiful evil, and the supposed modes of self-conscious Unity of Good – Credo 53 1 matter, which make a beautiful lie. Now a lie takes its pattern from Truth, by reversing Truth. So evil and all 3 its forms are inverted good. God never made them; but the lie must say He made them, or it would not be evil. Being a lie, it would be truthful to call itself a lie; and by 6 calling the knowledge of evil good, and greatly to be de- sired, it constitutes the lie an evil. The reality and individuality of man are good and God- 9 made, and they are here to be seen and demonstrated; it is only the evil belief that renders them obscure. Matter and evil are anti-Christian, the antipodes of 12 Science. To say that Mind is material, or that evil is Mind, is a misapprehension of being, — a mistake which will die of its own delusion; for being self-contradictory, 15 it is also self-destructive. The harmony of man's being is not built on such false foundations, which are no more logical, philosophical, or scientific than would be the as- 18 sertion that the rule of addition is the rule of subtraction, and that sums done under both rules would have one quotient. 21 Man's individuality is not a mortal mind or sinner; or else he has lost his true individuality as a perfect child of God. Man's Father is not a mortal mind and a sinner; 24 or else the immortal and unerring Mind, God, is not his Father; but God is man's origin and loving Father, hence that saying of Jesus, "Call no man your father 27 upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven." Unity of Good – Credo 54 1 The bright gold of Truth is dimmed by the doctrine of mind in matter. 3 To say there is a false claim, called sickness, is to admit all there is of sickness; for it is nothing but a false claim. To be healed, one must lose sight of a false claim. If the 6 claim be present to the thought, then disease becomes as tangible as any reality. To regard sickness as a false claim, is to abate the fear of it; but this does not destroy 9 the so-called fact of the claim. In order to be whole, we must be insensible to every claim of error. As with sickness, so is it with sin. To admit that sin 12 has any claim whatever, just or unjust, is to admit a dan- gerous fact. Hence the fact must be denied; for if sin's claim be allowed in any degree, then sin destroys the 15 at-one-ment, or oneness with God, — a unity which sin recognizes as its most potent and deadly enemy. If God knows sin, even as a false claimant, then ac- 18 quaintance with that claimant becomes legitimate to mortals, and this knowledge would not be forbidden; but God forbade man to know evil at the very beginning, 21 when Satan held it up before man as something desirable and a distinct addition to human wisdom, because the knowledge of evil would make man a god, — a representa- 24 tion that God both knew and admitted the dignity of evil. Which is right, — God, who condemned the knowledge of sin and disowned its acquaintance, or the serpent, who 27 pushed that claim with the glittering audacity of diabolical and sinuous logic? |
| 14 | 13 | Suffering From Others’ Thoughts | Show all text | 55 ... SUFFERING FROM OTHERS' THOUGHTS 1 Jesus accepted the one fact whereby alone the rule of Life can be demonstrated, — namely, that there is 3 no death. In his real self he bore no infirmities. Though "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," as Isaiah says of 6 him, he bore not his sins, but ours, "in his own body on the tree." "He was bruised for our iniquities; . . . and with his stripes we are healed." 9 He was the Way-shower; and Christian Scientists who would demonstrate "the way" must keep close to his path, that they may win the prize. "The way," in the 12 flesh, is the suffering which leads out of the flesh. "The way," in Spirit, is "the way" of Life, Truth, and Love, redeeming us from the false sense of the flesh and the 15 wounds it bears. This threefold Messiah reveals the self- destroying ways of error and the life-giving way of Truth. Job's faith and hope gained him the assurance that 18 the so-called sufferings of the flesh are unreal. We shall learn how false are the pleasures and pains of material sense, and behold the truth of being, as expressed in his 21 conviction, "Yet in my flesh shall I see God;" that is, Now and here shall I behold God, divine Love. Unity of Good – Suffering From Others’ Thoughts 56 1 The chaos of mortal mind is made the stepping-stone to the cosmos of immortal Mind. 3 If Jesus suffered, as the Scriptures declare, it must have been from the mentality of others; since all suffering comes from mind, not from matter, and there could be 6 no sin or suffering in the Mind which is God. Not his own sins, but the sins of the world, "crucified the Lord of glory," and "put him to an open shame." 9 Holding a quickened sense of false environment, and suffering from mentality in opposition to Truth, are signifi- cant of that state of mind which the actual understanding 12 of Christian Science first eliminates and then destroys. In the divine order of Science every follower of Christ shares his cup of sorrows. He also suffereth in the flesh, 15 and from the mentality which opposes the law of Spirit; but the divine law is supreme, for it freeth him from the law of sin and death. 18 Prophets and apostles suffered from the thoughts of others. Their conscious being was not fully exempt from physicality and the sense of sin. 21 Until he awakes from his delusion, he suffers least from sin who is a hardened sinner. The hypocrite's affections must first be made to fret in their chains; and the pangs 24 of hell must lay hold of him ere he can change from flesh to Spirit, become acquainted with that Love which is without dissimulation and endureth all things. Such 27 mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, con- stitute the miasma of earth. More obnoxious than Unity of Good – Suffering From Others’ Thoughts 57 1 Chinese stenchpots are these dispositions which offend the spiritual sense. 3 Anatomically considered, the design of the material senses is to warn mortals of the approach of danger by the pain they feel and occasion; but as this sense disap- 6 pears it foresees the impending doom and foretells the pain. Man's refuge is in spirituality, "under the shadow of the Almighty." 9 The cross is the central emblem of human history. Without it there is neither temptation nor glory. When Jesus turned and said, "Who hath touched me?" he 12 must have felt the influence of the woman's thought; for it is written that he felt that "virtue had gone out of him." His pure consciousness was discriminating, and rendered 15 this infallible verdict; but he neither held her error by affinity nor by infirmity, for it was detected and dismissed. This gospel of suffering brought life and bliss. This 18 is earth's Bethel in stone, — its pillow, supporting the ladder which reaches heaven. Suffering was the confirmation of Paul's faith. Through 21 "a thorn in the flesh" he learned that spiritual grace was sufficient for him. Peter rejoiced that he was found worthy to suffer for 24 Christ; because to suffer with him is to reign with him. Sorrow is the harbinger of joy. Mortal throes of anguish forward the birth of immortal being; but divine Science 27 wipes away all tears. The only conscious existence in the flesh is error of some Unity of Good – Suffering From Others’ Thoughts 58 1 sort, — sin, pain, death, — a false sense of life and happi- ness. Mortals, if at ease in so-called existence, are in their 3 native element of error, and must become dis-eased, dis- quieted, before error is annihilated. Jesus walked with bleeding feet the thorny earth-road, 6 treading "the winepress alone." His persecutors said mockingly, "Save thyself, and come down from the cross." This was the very thing he was doing, coming down from 9 the cross, saving himself after the manner that he had taught, by the law of Spirit's supremacy; and this was done through what is humanly called agony. 12 Even the ice-bound hypocrite melts in fervent heat, before he apprehends Christ as "the way." The Master's sublime triumph over all mortal mentality was immortal- 15 ity's goal. He was too wise not to be willing to test the full compass of human woe, being "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 18 Thus the absolute unreality of sin, sickness, and death was revealed, — a revelation that beams on mortal sense as the midnight sun shines over the Polar Sea. |
| 15 | 14 | The Saviour’s Mission | Show all text | 59 ... THE SAVIOUR'S MISSION 1 If there is no reality in evil, why did the Messiah come to the world, and from what evils was it his purpose 3 to save humankind? How, indeed, is he a Saviour, if the evils from which he saves are nonentities? Jesus came to earth; but the Christ (that is, the divine 6 idea of the divine Principle which made heaven and earth) was never absent from the earth and heaven; hence the phraseology of Jesus, who spoke of the Christ as one who 9 came down from heaven, yet as "the Son of man which is in heaven." (John iii. 13.) By this we understand Christ to be the divine idea brought to the flesh in the son 12 of Mary. Salvation is as eternal as God. To mortal thought Jesus appeared as a child, and grew to manhood, to suffer 15 before Pilate and on Calvary, because he could reach and teach mankind only through this conformity to mortal conditions; but Soul never saw the Saviour come and go, 18 because the divine idea is always present. Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which 21 calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Unity of Good – The Saviour’s Mission 60 1 Life. From such thoughts — mortal inventions, one and all — Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present 3 and eternal good. Mortal man is a kingdom divided against itself. With the same breath he articulates truth and error. We say 6 that God is All, and there is none beside Him, and then talk of sin and sinners as real. We call God omnipotent and omnipresent, and then conjure up, from the dark 9 abyss of nothingness, a powerful presence named evil. We say that harmony is real, and inharmony is its opposite, and therefore unreal; yet we descant upon sickness, sin, 12 and death as realities. With the tongue "bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the simili- 15 tude [human concept] of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be." (James iii. 9, 10.) Mortals 18 are free moral agents, to choose whom they would serve. If God, then let them serve Him, and He will be unto them All-in-all. 21 If God is ever present, He is neither absent from Him- self nor from the universe. Without Him, the universe would disappear, and space, substance, and immortality 24 be lost. St. Paul says, "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." (1 Corinthians xv. 17.) Christ cannot come to mortal and material sense, 27 which sees not God. This false sense of substance must yield to His eternal presence, and so dissolve. Rising Unity of Good – The Saviour’s Mission 61 1 above the false, to the true evidence of Life, is the resur- rection that takes hold of eternal Truth. Coming and 3 going belong to mortal consciousness. God is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." To material sense, Jesus first appeared as a helpless 6 human babe; but to immortal and spiritual vision he was one with the Father, even the eternal idea of God, that was — and is — neither young nor old, neither dead nor 9 risen. The mutations of mortal sense are the evening and the morning of human thought, — the twilight and dawn of earthly vision, which precedeth the nightless radiance 12 of divine Life. Human perception, advancing toward the apprehension of its nothingness, halts, retreats, and again goes forward; but the divine Principle and Spirit 15 and spiritual man are unchangeable, — neither advancing, retreating, nor halting. Our highest sense of infinite good in this mortal sphere 18 is but the sign and symbol, not the substance of good. Only faith and a feeble understanding make the earthly acme of human sense. "The life which I now live in the 21 flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." (Galatians ii. 20.) Christian Science is both demonstration and fruition, 24 but how attenuated are our demonstration and realization of this Science! Truth, in divine Science, is the stepping- stone to the understanding of God; but the broken and 27 contrite heart soonest discerns this truth, even as the help- less sick are soonest healed by it. Invalids say, "I have Unity of Good – The Saviour’s Mission 62 1 recovered from sickness;" when the fact really remains, in divine Science, that they never were sick. 3 The Christian saith, "Christ (God) died for me, and came to save me;" yet God dies not, and is the ever- presence that neither comes nor goes, and man is forever 6 His image and likeness. "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians iv. 18.) This is the mystery of godliness 9 — that God, good, is never absent, and there is none be- side good. Mortals can understand this only as they reach the Life of good, and learn that there is no Life in evil. 12 Then shall it appear that the true ideal of omnipotent and ever-present good is an ideal wherein and wherefor there is no evil. Sin exists only as a sense, and not as Soul. 15 Destroy this sense of sin, and sin disappears. Sickness, sin, or death is a false sense of Life and good. Destroy this trinity of error, and you find Truth. 18 In Science, Christ never died. In material sense Jesus died, and lived. The fleshly Jesus seemed to die, though he did not. The Truth or Life in divine Science — un- 21 disturbed by human error, sin, and death — saith forever, "I am the living God, and man is My idea, never in matter, nor resurrected from it." "Why seek ye the living among 24 the dead? He is not here, but is risen." (Luke xxiv. 5, 6.) Mortal sense, confining itself to matter, is all that can be buried or resurrected. 27 Mary had risen to discern faintly God's ever-presence, and that of His idea, man; but her mortal sense, revers- Unity of Good – The Saviour’s Mission 63 1 ing Science and spiritual understanding, interpreted this appearing as a risen Christ. The I AM was neither buried 3 nor resurrected. The Way, the Truth, and the Life were never absent for a moment. This trinity of Love lives and reigns forever. Its kingdom, not apparent to material 6 sense, never disappeared to spiritual sense, but remained forever in the Science of being. The so-called appearing, disappearing, and reappearing of ever-presence, in whom 9 is no variableness or shadow of turning, is the false human sense of that light which shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. |
| 16 | 15 | Summary | Show all text | 64
... SUMMARY
1 All that is, God created. If sin has any pretense of
existence, God is responsible therefor; but there is
3 no reality in sin, for God can no more behold it, or acknowl-
edge it, than the sun can coexist with darkness.
To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of
6 only health, holiness, and heaven, on the foundations of
an eternal Mind which is conscious of sickness, sin, and
death, is a moral impossibility; for "other foundation
9 can no man lay than that is laid." (1 Corinthians iii. 11.)
The nearer we approximate to such a Mind, even if it were
(or could be) God, the more real those mind-pictures would
12 become to us; until the hope of ever eluding their dread
presence must yield to despair, and the haunting sense
of evil forever accompany our being.
15 Mortals may climb the smooth glaciers, leap the dark
fissures, scale the treacherous ice, and stand on the sum-
mit of Mont Blanc; but they can never turn back what
18 Deity knoweth, nor escape from identification with what
dwelleth in the eternal Mind.
|
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