Science and Health With Key to The Scriptures

M >> Mary Baker Eddy >> Science and Health With Key to The Scriptures

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53

303:21 The belief that pain and pleasure, life and death, holi-
ness and unholiness, mingle in man, - that
mortal, material man is the likeness of God
303:24 and is himself a creator, - is a fatal error.

Man's entity spiritual

God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would
be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be
303:27 without a witness or proof of His own na-
ture. Spiritual man is the image or idea of
God, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep-
303:30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence
before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the
apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from
304:1 God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and
Truth.

Man inseparable from Love

304:3 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material
sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and good-
ness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Nei-
304:6 ther death, nor life, . . . nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
304:9 the love of God." This is the doctrine of Christian
Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its
manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into
304:12 sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can
never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind
nor life result in death. The perfect man - governed
304:15 by God, his perfect Principle - is sinless and eternal.

Harmony natural

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled
by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life
304:18 of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at
the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not
contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful
304:21 as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.

The science of music governs tones. If mortals caught
harmony through material sense, they would lose har-
304:24 mony, if time or accident robbed them of material sense.
To be master of chords and discords, the science of
music must be understood. Left to the decisions
304:27 of material sense, music is liable to be misappre-
hended and lost in confusion. Controlled by belief,
instead of understanding, music is, must be, imper-
304:30 fectly expressed. So man, not understanding the Sci-
ence of being, - thrusting aside his divine Principle as
incomprehensible, - is abandoned to conjectures, left in
305:1 the hands of ignorance, placed at the disposal of illusions,
subjected to material sense which is discord. A discon-
305:3 tented, discordant mortal is no more a /man/ than discord
is music.

Human reflection

A picture in the camera or a face reflected in the mirror
305:6 is not the original, though resembling it. Man, in the
likeness of his Maker, reflects the central light
of being, the invisible God. As there is no cor-
305:9 poreality in the mirrored form, which is but a reflection,
so man, like all things real, reflects God, his divine Prin-
ciple, not in a mortal body.

305:12 Gender also is a quality, not of God, but a character-
istic of mortal mind. The verity that God's image is not
a creator, though he reflects the creation of Mind, God,
305:15 constitutes the underlying reality of reflection. "Then
answered Jesus and said unto them: Verily, verily I say
unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
305:18 seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise."

Inverted images

The inverted images presented by the senses, the de-
305:21 flections of matter as opposed to the Science of spirit-
ual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In
the illusion of life that is here to-day and
305:24 gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were
it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in
divine Science, destroys all error and brings immor-
305:27 tality to light. Because man is the reflection of his
Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, de-
cay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not
305:30 divine.

Jewish traditions

The Sadducees reasoned falsely about the resurrec-
tion, but not so blindly as the Pharisees, who believed
306:1 error to be as immortal as Truth. The Pharisees thought
that they could raise the spiritual from the material. They
306:3 would first make life result in death, and then
resort to death to reproduce spiritual life.
Jesus taught them how death was to be overcome by
306:6 spiritual Life, and demonstrated this beyond cavil.

Divinity not childless

Life demonstrates Life. The immortality of Soul makes
man immortal. If God, who is Life, were parted for a
306:9 moment from His reflection, man, during that
moment there would be no divinity reflected.
The Ego would be unexpressed, and the Father would be
306:12 childless, - no Father.

If Life or Soul and its representative, man, unite for
a period and then are separated as by a law of divorce to
306:15 be brought together again at some uncertain future time
and in a manner unknown, - and this is the general
religious opinion of mankind, - we are left without a
306:18 rational proof of immortality. But man cannot be sep-
arated for an instant from God, if man reflects God.
Thus Science proves man's existence to be intact.

Thought-forms

306:21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest
as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the mate-
rial senses than are the Soul-created forms
306:24 to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as per-
manent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the
material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding
306:27 to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle,
- is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and
eternal.

306:30 God's man, spiritually created, is not material and
mortal.

The serpent's whisper

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream,
307:1 the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life
and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter.
307:3 This pantheistic error, or so-called /serpent/, in-
sists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying,
"Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real
307:6 and eternal as Truth.

Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that
there is more than one intelligence or God. It says:
307:9 "There shall be lords and gods many. I declare that God
makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him.
Truth shall change sides and be unlike Spirit. I will
307:12 put spirit into what I call matter, and matter shall seem
to have life as much as God, Spirit, who /is/ the only life."

Bad results from error

This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found
307:15 to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an ex-
istence which ends in death. Error charges
its lie to Truth and says: "The Lord knows
307:18 it. He has made man immortal and material, out of mat-
ter instead of Spirit." Thus error partakes of its own
nature and utters its own falsities. If we regard matter
307:21 as intelligent, and Mind as both good and evil, every sin
or supposed material pain and pleasure seems normal,
a part of God's creation, and so weighs against our course
307:24 Spiritward.

Higher statutes

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul
of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man
307:27 was not created from a material basis, nor
bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never
made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher
307:30 law of Mind.

The great question

Above error's awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice
of Truth still calls: "Adam, where art thou? Conscious-
308:1 ness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief
that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou
308:3 in the living faith that there is and can be but
one God, and keeping His commandment?"
Until the lesson is learned that God is the only Mind gov-
308:6 erning man, mortal belief will be afraid as it was in the
beginning, and will hide from the demand, "Where art
thou?" This awful demand, "Adam, where art thou?"
308:9 is met by the admission from the head, heart, stomach,
blood, nerves, etc.: "Lo, here I am, looking for happiness
and life in the body, but finding only an illusion, a blend-
308:12 ing of false claims, false pleasure, pain, sin, sickness, and
death."

The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth,
308:15 and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man.

Wrestling of Jacob

Jacob was /alone/, wrestling with error, - struggling
with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence
308:18 as existent in matter with its false pleasures
and pains, - when an angel, a message from
Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew,
308:21 or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and
Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual
strength in this Peniel of divine Science. Then said
308:24 the spiritual evangel: "Let me go, for the day breaketh;"
that is, the light of Truth and Love dawns upon thee.
But the patriarch, perceiving his error and his need
308:27 of help, did not loosen his hold upon this glorious light
until his nature was transformed. When Jacob was
asked, "What is thy name?" he straightway answered;
308:30 and then his name was changed to Israel, for "as a prince"
had he prevailed and had "power with God and with
men." Then Jacob questioned his deliverer, "Tell me,
309:1 I pray thee, /thy/ name;" but this appellation was withheld,
for the messenger was not a corporeal being, but a name-
309:3 less, incorporeal impartation of divine Love to man, which,
to use the word of the Psalmist, /restored /his Soul, - gave
him the spiritual sense of being and rebuked his material
309:6 sense.

Israel the new name

The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had
conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit
309:9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.
He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, -
a prince of God, or a soldier of God, who had fought
309:12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who
through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the
power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children
309:15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the
children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.
If these children should go astray, and forget that Life
309:18 is God, good, and that good is not in elements which are
not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals
the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back
309:21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian
Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter,
even as the gospel teaches.

Life never structural

309:24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for in-
finite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to
have an intelligence separate from his Maker.
309:27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there
can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life,
when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is
309:30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never struc-
tural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its
own formations.

Thought seen as substance

310:1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the
artist's thought objectified. The human belief fancies
310:3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what
is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?
Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force;
310:6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be
understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but
without material accompaniments. The potter is not in
310:9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.
God is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

The central intelligence

Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees
310:12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun
is not affected by the revolution of the earth.
So Science reveals Soul as God, untouched
310:15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence
around which circle harmoniously all things in the sys-
tems of Mind.

Soul imperishable

310:18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there
is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that
soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If
310:21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh in-
stead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of mate-
rial sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die.
310:24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death
is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of
Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and
310:27 if Spirit should lose Life as God, good, then Spirit, which
has no other existence, would be annihilated.

Mind is God, and God is not seen by material sense,
310:30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot dis-
cern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in
Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense,
311:1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth
of being.

311:3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent
on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. God is Mind:
all that Mind, God, is, or hath made, is good, and He
311:6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

Sin only of the flesh

Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no ele-
ment of self-destruction. is man lost spiritually? No,
311:9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is
of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists
here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in
311:12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul,
which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

Soul impeccable

Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense
311:15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a
sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spir-
itual truth. This state of error is the mortal
311:18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is
directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long
as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in
311:21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be-
ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it
will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law
311:24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through har-
mony and immortality.

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not
311:27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal
belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all
supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as
311:30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelli-
gence. but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by
these phases of mortality.

Sense-dreams

312:1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material
sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is
312:3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in
Science. That which material sense calls
intangible, is found to be substance. What to material
312:6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-
dream vanishes and reality appears.

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as
312:9 matter. People say, "Man is dead;" but this death is
the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter. The
matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he
312:12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that
matter has caused his death.

Vain ecstasies

People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal
312:15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their
hearts; yet God /is/ love, and without Love,
God, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try
312:18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet God /is/
Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's
eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in
312:21 a finite personal God; while God is infinite Love, which
must be unlimited.

Man-made theories

Our theories are based on finite premises, which can-
312:24 not penetrate beyond matter. A personal sense of God
and of man's capabilities necessarily limits
faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It
312:27 divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit,
the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the
intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate
312:30 drug.

The one anointed

Jesus' spiritual origin and his demonstration of divine
Principle richly endowed him and entitled him to sonship
313:1 in Science. He was the son of a virgin. The term
Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to give the full and
313:3 proper translation of the Greek), may be ren-
dered "Jesus the anointed," Jesus the God-
crowned or the divinely royal man, as it is said of him in
313:6 the first chapter of Hebrews: -
Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee
With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

313:9 With this agrees another passage in the same chapter,
which refers to the Son as "the brightness of His [God's]
glory, and the express [expressed] image of His person
313:12 [infinite Mind]." It is noteworthy that the phrase "ex-
press image" in the Common Version is, in the Greek
Testament, /character/. Using this word in its higher mean-
313:15 ing, we may assume that the author of this remarkable
epistle regarded Christ as the Son of God, the royal
reflection of the infinite; and the cause given for the ex-
313:18 altation of Jesus, Mary's son, was that he "loved right-
eousness and hated iniquity." The passage is made
even clearer in the translation of the late George R.
313:21 Noyes, D.D.: "Who, being a brightness from His glory,
and an image of His being."

Jesus the Scientist

Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that
313:24 ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material
surface of things, and found the spiritual
cause. To accommodate himself to imma-
313:27 ture ideas of spiritual power, - for spirituality was pos
sessed only in a limited degree even by his disciples, -
Jesus called the body, which by spiritual power he
313:30 raised from the grave, "flesh and bones." To show
that the substance of himself was Spirit and the body
314:1 no more perfect because of death and no less material
until the ascension (his further spiritual exaltation),
314:3 Jesus waited until the mortal or fleshly sense had re-
linquished the belief of substance-matter, and spiritual
sense had quenched all earthly yearnings. Thus he found
314:6 the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were
inseparable as God and His reflection or spiritual man.
Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating
314:9 the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal.

The bodily resurrection

The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed
plainly that their material views were the parents of their
314:12 wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of repro-
ducing his body, - knowing, as he did, that
Mind was the builder, - and said, "Destroy this temple,
314:15 and in three days I will raise it up," they thought that he
meant their material temple instead of his body. To such
materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and
314:18 unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre,
seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of
the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he
314:21 presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of
Life and substance.

Opposition of materialists

Because of mortals' material and sinful belief, the
314:24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher
his demonstration of divine Science carried
the problem of being, and the more dis-
314:27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle,
Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners
and to those who, depending on doctrines and material
314:30 laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submis-
sive to death as being in supposed accord with the
inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by
315:1 his resurrection, and said: "Whosoever liveth and be-
lieveth in me shall never die."

Hebrew theology

315:3 That saying of our Master, "I and my Father are one,"
separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.
His better understanding of God was a rebuke
315:6 to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid
no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind
instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not
315:9 Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science
brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

The true sonship

The opposite and false views of the people hid from
315:12 their sense Christ's sonship with God. They could not
discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal
minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts
315:15 were filled with mortal error, instead of with God's spirit-
ual idea as presented by Christ Jesus. The likeness of
God we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spir-
315:18 itual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only
when we subdue sin and prove man's heritage, the liberty
of the sons of God.

Immaculate conception

315:21 Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him
to demonstrate the facts of being, - to prove irrefutably
how spiritual Truth destroys material error,
315:24 heals sickness, and overcomes death. The
divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and pre-
sented an illustration of creation. The history of Jesus
315:27 shows him to have been more spiritual than all other
earthly personalities.

Jesus as mediator

Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed
315:30 to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother,
Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh,
between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrat-
316:1 ing the way of divine Science, he became the way of
salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mor-
316:3 tals may learn how to escape from evil. The
real man being linked by Science to his Maker,
mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal
316:6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to
God, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth,
was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of
316:9 Spirit over the flesh, - to show that Truth is made
manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body,
healing sickness and destroying sin.

Spiritual government