0.0 – Christian Science Publication Contents

  	    St. Paul speaks of the new birth as "waiting for the
 6	adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." The
  	great Nazarene Prophet said, "Blessed are the pure in
  	heart:  for they shall see God." Nothing aside from the
 9	spiritualization — yea, the highest Christianization — of
  	thought and desire, can give the true perception of God
  	and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and
12	holiness. 
  	    The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins
  	with moments, and goes on with years; moments of sur-
15	render to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption
  	of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration,
  	heaven-born hope, and spiritual love. 
18	    Time may commence, but it cannot complete, the
  	new birth:  eternity does this; for progress is the law
  	of infinity. Only through the sore travail of mortal mind
21	shall soul as sense be satisfied, and man awake in His
  	likeness. What a faith-lighted thought is this! that
  	mortals can lay off the "old man," until man is found
24	to be the image of the infinite good that we name God,
  	and the fulness of the stature of man in Christ appears. 
  	    In mortal and material man, goodness seems in em-
27	bryo. By suffering for sin, and the gradual fading out
  	of the mortal and material sense of man, thought is de-
  	veloped into an infant Christianity; and, feeding at first
30	on the milk of the Word, it drinks in the sweet revealings
 
Miscellaneous Writings --- The ...New Birth                                  16

 1	of a new and more spiritual Life and Love. These nourish
  	the hungry hope, satisfy more the cravings for immor-
 3	tality, and so comfort, cheer, and bless one, that he saith:
  	In mine infancy, this is enough of heaven to come down
  	to earth. 
 6	    But, as one grows into the manhood or womanhood
  	of Christianity, one finds so much lacking, and so very
  	much requisite to become wholly Christlike, that one
 9	saith:  The Principle of Christianity is infinite:  it is
  	indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite
  	claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human;
12	and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being
  	His likeness and image, man must reflect the full
  	dominion of Spirit — even its supremacy over sin, sick-
15	ness, and death. 
  	    Here, then, is the awakening from the dream of life
  	in matter, to the great fact that God is the only Life;
18	that, therefore, we must entertain a higher sense of both
  	God and man. We must learn that God is infinitely
  	more than a person, or finite form, can contain; that
21	God is a divine Whole, and All, an all-pervading in-
  	telligence and Love, a divine, infinite Principle; and
  	that Christianity is a divine Science. This newly
24	awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates
  	from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun
  	in Christian Science. 
27	    Now, dear reader, pause for a moment with me, earn-
  	estly to contemplate this new-born spiritual altitude; for
  	this statement demands demonstration. 
30	    Here you stand face to face with the laws of infinite
  	Spirit, and behold for the first time the irresistible con-
  	flict between the flesh and Spirit. You stand before the
 
Miscellaneous Writings --- The New Birth                                  17

 1	awful detonations of Sinai. You hear and record the
  	thunderings of the spiritual law of Life, as opposed to
 3	the material law of death; the spiritual law of Love, as
  	opposed to the material sense of love; the law of om-
  	nipotent harmony and good, as opposed to any supposi-
 6	titious law of sin, sickness, or death. And, before the
  	flames have died away on this mount of revelation, like
  	the patriarch of old, you take off your shoes — lay aside
 9	your material appendages, human opinions and doc-
  	trines, give up your more material religion with its rites
  	and ceremonies, put off your materia medica and hygiene
12	as worse than useless — to sit at the feet of Jesus. Then,
  	you meekly bow before the Christ, the spiritual idea
  	that our great Master gave of the power of God to heal
15	and to save. Then it is that you behold for the first
  	time the divine Principle that redeems man from under
  	the curse of materialism, — sin, disease, and death. 
18	This spiritual birth opens to the enraptured understand-
  	ing a much higher and holier conception of the supremacy
  	of Spirit, and of man as His likeness, whereby man reflects
21	the divine power to heal the sick. 
  	    A material or human birth is the appearing of a mor-
  	tal, not the immortal man. This birth is more or less
24	prolonged and painful, according to the timely or un-
  	timely circumstances, the normal or abnormal material
  	conditions attending it. 
27	    With the spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless,
  	spiritual existence dawns on human thought, — through
  	the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing
30	pleasure and accumulating pains of sense, — by which
  	one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of
  	Spirit and spiritual man. 
 
Miscellaneous Writings --- The New Birth                                  18

 1	    The purification or baptismals that come from Spirit,
  	develop, step by step, the original likeness of perfect man,
 3	and efface the mark of the beast. "Whom the Lord
  	loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom
  	He receiveth;" therefore rejoice in tribulation, and wel-
 6	come these spiritual signs of the new birth under the law
  	and gospel of Christ, Truth. 
  	    The prominent laws which forward birth in the divine
 9	order of Science, are these: "Thou shalt have no other
  	gods before me;" "Love thy neighbor as thyself." 
  	These commands of infinite wisdom, translated into
12	the new tongue, their spiritual meaning, signify:  Thou
  	shalt love Spirit only, not its opposite, in every God-
  	quality, even in substance; thou shalt recognize thy-
15	self as God's spiritual child only, and the true man
  	and true woman, the all-harmonious "male and female,"
  	as of spiritual origin, God's reflection, — thus as chil-
18	dren of one common Parent, — wherein and whereby
  	Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and
  	divine idea, even the divine "Us" — one in good, and
21	good in One. 
  	    With this recognition man could never separate him-
  	self from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain
24	habitual love for his fellow-man. Only by admitting
  	evil as a reality, and entering into a state of evil
  	thoughts, can we in belief separate one man's interests
27	from those of the whole human family, or thus attempt
  	to separate Life from God. This is the mistake that
  	causes much that must be repented of and overcome. 
30	Not to know what is blessing you, but to believe that
  	aught that God sends is unjust, — or that those whom
  	He commissions bring to you at His demand that which
 
Miscellaneous Writings --- The New Birth                                  19

 1	is unjust, — is wrong and cruel. Envy, evil thinking,
  	evil speaking, covetousness, lust, hatred, malice, are
 3	always wrong, and will break the rule of Christian
  	Science and prevent its demonstration; but the rod of
  	God, and the obedience demanded of His servants in
 6	carrying out what He teaches them, — these are never
  	unmerciful, never unwise. 
  	    The task of healing the sick is far lighter than that
 9	of so teaching the divine Principle and rules of Chris-
  	tian Science as to lift the affections and motives of men
  	to adopt them and bring them out in human lives. He
12	who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually
  	accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine
  	Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked
15	endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the
  	current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God,
  	its divine source. 
18	    But, taking the livery of heaven wherewith to cover
  	iniquity, is the most fearful sin that mortals can commit. 
  	I should have more faith in an honest drugging-doctor,
21	one who abides by his statements and works upon as
  	high a basis as he understands, healing me, than I could
  	or would have in a smooth-tongued hypocrite or mental
24	malpractitioner. 
  	    Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental forces
  	of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we
27	go out of materialism or sin, and choose our course and
  	its results. Which, then, shall be our choice, — the sin-
  	ful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving,
30	and eternal? 
  	    The spiritual sense of Life and its grand pursuits is
  	of itself a bliss, health-giving and joy-inspiring. This
 
Miscellaneous Writings --- The New Birth                                  20

 1	sense of Life illumes our pathway with the radiance of
  	divine Love; heals man spontaneously, morally and
 3	physically, — exhaling the aroma of Jesus' own words,
  	"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
         and I will give you rest."
Read more