0.0 – Science and Health – Topic – City of our God by Christian Science Author Mary Baker Eddy

Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures ~ Chpt 16 ~ The Apocalypse ~ 575:7 - 577:31
The city foursquare
  	    This sacred city, described in the Apocalypse (xxi. 16)
  	as one that "lieth foursquare" and cometh "down from
 9	God, out of heaven," represents the light and
  	glory of divine Science. The builder and
  	maker of this New Jerusalem is God, as we read in the
12	book of Hebrews; and it is "a city which hath founda-
  	tions." The description is metaphoric. Spiritual teach-
  	ing must always be by symbols. Did not Jesus illustrate
15	the truths he taught by the mustard-seed and the prodi-
  	gal? Taken in its allegorical sense, the description of
  	the city as foursquare has a profound meaning. The
18	four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity,
  	and divine Science; "and the gates of it shall not be shut
  	at all by day: for there shall be no night there." This
21	city is wholly spiritual, as its four sides indicate. 

The royally divine gates
  	    As the Psalmist saith, "Beautiful for situation, the
  	joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of
24	the north, the city of the great King." It is
  	indeed a city of the Spirit, fair, royal, and 
  	square. Northward, its gates open to the North Star,
27	the Word, the polar magnet of Revelation; eastward,
  	to the star seen by the Wisemen of the Orient, who fol-
  	lowed it to the manger of Jesus; southward, to the
30	genial tropics, with the Southern Cross in the skies,
  	 — the Cross of Calvary, which binds human society
  	into solemn union; westward, to the grand realization
 
      Science and Health – The Apocalypse                                             576

1	of the Golden Shore of Love and the Peaceful Sea of
  	Harmony. 
    
Revelation's pure zenith    
3	    This heavenly city, lighted by the Sun of Righteous-
  	ness, — this New Jerusalem, this infinite All, which to
  	us seems hidden in the mist of remoteness, — 
6	reached St. John's vision while yet he taber-
  	nacled with mortals. 
  	    In Revelation xxi. 22, further describing this holy city,
9	the beloved Disciple writes: —  

  	And I saw no temple therein:  for the Lord God Almighty
  	and the Lamb are the temple of it. 

The shrine celestial
12	    There was no temple, — that is, no material structure
  	in which to worship God, for He must be worshipped
  	in spirit and in love. The word temple also	
15	means body. The Revelator was familiar
  	with Jesus' use of this word, as when Jesus spoke of his
  	material body as the temple to be temporarily rebuilt
18	(John ii. 21). What further indication need we of the
  	real man's incorporeality than this, that John saw
  	heaven and earth with "no temple [body] therein"? 
21	This kingdom of God "is within you," — is within
  	reach of man's consciousness here, and the spiritual
  	idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this
24	recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his
  	understanding of God. 
    
Divine sense of Deity    
  	    The term Lord, as used in our version of the Old
27	Testament, is often synonymous with Jehovah, and ex-
  	presses the Jewish concept, not yet elevated
  	to deific apprehension through spiritual trans- 
30	figuration. Yet the word gradually approaches a higher
  	meaning. This human sense of Deity yields to the divine
 
      Science and Health – The Apocalypse                                             577

 1	sense, even as the material sense of personality yields
  	to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite
 3	Principle and infinite idea, — as one Father with His uni-
  	versal family, held in the gospel of Love. The Lamb's
  	wife presents the unity of male and female as no longer
 6	two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures
  	in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality re-
  	flects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. 
 9	In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no
  	impediment to eternal bliss, — to the perfectibility of
  	God's creation. 
    
The city of our God    
12	    This spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary
  	nor limit, but its four cardinal points are:  first, the
  	Word of Life, Truth, and Love; second,
15	the Christ, the spiritual idea of God; third, 
  	Christianity, which is the outcome of the divine Prin-
  	ciple of the Christ-idea in Christian history; fourth,
18	Christian Science, which to-day and forever interprets
  	this great example and the great Exemplar. This city
  	of our God has no need of sun or satellite, for Love
21	is the light of it, and divine Mind is its own interpreter. 
  	All who are saved must walk in this light. Mighty
  	potentates and dynasties will lay down their honors
24	within the heavenly city. Its gates open towards light
  	and glory both within and without, for all is good, and
  	nothing can enter that city, which "defileth, . . . or
27	maketh a lie." 
  	    The writer's present feeble sense of Christian Science
  	closes with St. John's Revelation as recorded by the
30	great apostle, for his vision is the acme of this Science
  	as the Bible reveals it.