Inadequate
theories of creation 255
Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As
mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into
expression. "Let there be light," is the perpetual demand of Truth
and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.
The mythical human theories of creation, anciently classified as the higher
criticism, sprang from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they
afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by the divine Mind.
Finite
views of Deity 255
Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to
belittle Deity with human conceptions. In league with material sense, mortals
take limited views of all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man
should affirm.
The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot
be made the basis of any true idea of the infinite Godhead. Eye hath not seen
Spirit, nor hath ear heard His voice.
No
material creation 256
Progress takes off human shackles. The finite
must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought
rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the
inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All things are created
spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is
the Father and Mother of the universe, including man.
Tritheism
impossible 256
The theory of three persons in one God (that
is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism, rather than the one
ever-present I AM. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord."
No
divine corporeality 256
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor
compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be
understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of
small importance in comparison with the sublime question, What is infinite
Mind or divine Love?
Who is it that demands our obedience? He who,
in the language of Scripture, "doeth according to His will in the army of
heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or
say unto Him, What doest Thou?"
No form nor physical combination is adequate to
represent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God leads to formalism
and narrowness; it chills the spirit of Christianity.
Limitless
Mind 256
A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical
limitations. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vastness of infinity. A
mind originating from a finite or material source must be limited and finite.
Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the infinite image or idea
emanating from this Mind. If Mind is within and without all things, then all
is Mind; and this definition is scientific.
Matter
is not substance 257
If matter, so-called, is substance, then
Spirit, matter's unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce
substance. The theory that Spirit is not the only substance and creator is
pantheistic heterodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is the
belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soul governed by the body and a
mind in matter. This belief is shallow pantheism.
Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the
substance of an idea is very far from being the supposed substance of
non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind is not the father of matter. The
material senses and human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into
material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic God, instead of
infinite Principle, - in other words, divine Love, - is the father of the
rain, "who hath begotten the drops of dew," who bringeth "forth
Mazzaroth in his season," "and guideth "Arcturus with his
sons."
Inexhaustible
divine Love 257
Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and
thus proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the antipode of Mind.
Who hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human
want and woe, - to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations? Infinite
Mind cannot be limited to a finite form, or Mind would lose its infinite
character as inexhaustible Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth.
Infinite
physique impossible 257
It would require an infinite form to contain
infinite Mind. Indeed, the phrase infinite
form involves a contradiction of terms. Finite man cannot be
the image and likeness of the infinite God. A mortal, corporeal, or finite
conception of God cannot embrace the glories of limitless, incorporeal Life
and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher,
holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a physical God and man. The
insufficiency of this belief to supply the true idea proves the falsity of
material belief.
Infinity's
reflection 258
Man is more than a material form with a mind
inside, which must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man
reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God.
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever
developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless
basis. Mind manifests all that exists in the infinitude of Truth. We know no
more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of God.
The infinite Principle is reflected by the
infinite idea and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses
have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. The human capacities are
enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of
man and God.
Individual
permanency 258
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the
spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him belongs eternal
Life. Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the
government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate.
God's
man discerned 258
Through spiritual sense you can discern the
heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man.
Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he
reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents
infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.
In divine Science, man is the true image of
God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon
mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their
poor thought-models would allow, - thoughts which presented man as fallen,
sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and
divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, - perfect God and
perfect man, - as the basis of thought and demonstration.
The
divine image not lost 259
If man was once perfect but has now lost his
perfection, then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image of God. The
lost image is no image.
The true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection. Understanding this,
Jesus said: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect."
Immortal
models 259
Mortal thought transmits its own images, and
forms its offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works spiritually, not
materially. Brain or matter never formed a human concept. Vibration is not
intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal ideas, pure, perfect, and
enduring, are transmitted by the divine Mind through divine Science, which
corrects error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine concepts, to
the end that they may produce harmonious results.
Deducing one's conclusions as to man from
imperfection instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the true
conception or understanding of man, and make himself like it, than the
sculptor can perfect his outlines from an imperfect model, or the painter can
depict the form and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character of
Judas.
Spiritual
discovery 260
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must
give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many
generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the
immortal and perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only
true conception of being.
Science reveals the possibility of achieving
all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done; but
distrust of one's ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better
and higher results, often hampers the trial of one's wings and ensures failure
at the outset.
Requisite
change of our ideals 260
Mortals must change their ideals in order to
improve their models. A sick body is evolved from sick thoughts. Sickness,
disease, and death proceed from fear. Sensualism evolves bad physical and
moral conditions.
Selfishness and sensualism are educated in
mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, by conversation
about the body, and by the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from it;
and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought
in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal nature.
Thoughts
are things 260
If we look to the body for pleasure, we find
pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find
its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into
Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold
thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will
bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your
thoughts.
Unreality
of pain 261
The effect of mortal mind on health and
happiness is seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such absorbed
interest as to forget it, the body experiences no pain. Under the strong
impulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor was accustomed night
after night to go upon the stage and sustain his appointed task, walking about
as actively as the youngest member of the company. This old man was so lame
that he hobbled every day to the theatre, and sat aching in his chair till his
cue was spoken, - a signal which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity
as if he had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full possession of his
so-called senses.
Immutable
identity of man 261
Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is
only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good,
and the nature of the immutable and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations
of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life
nor your own identity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will
rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst
from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight.
Forgetfulness
of self 261
We should forget our bodies in remembering good
and the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in which to work out the
problem of being. Consecration to good does not lessen man's dependence on
God, but heightens it. Neither does consecration diminish man's obligations to
God, but shows the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian Science
takes naught from the perfection of God, but it ascribes to Him the entire
glory. By putting "off the old man with his deeds," mortals
"put on immortality."
We cannot fathom the nature and quality of
God's creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse
our feeble flutterings - our efforts to find life and truth in matter - and
rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the
immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God-like man to
reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.
The true
sense 262
Job said: "I have heard of Thee by the
hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee." Mortals will echo Job's
thought, when the supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate.
They will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and
sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and
conquering all that is unlike God. Starting from a higher standpoint, one
rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for "where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also."
Mind the
only cause 262
The foundation of mortal discord is a false
sense of man's origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Every concept which
seems to begin with the brain begins falsely. Divine Mind is the only cause or
Principle of existence. Cause does not exist in matter, in mortal mind, or in
physical forms.
Human
egotism 263
Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves
to be independent workers, personal authors, and even privileged originators
of something which Deity would not or could not create. The creations of
mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man alone represents the truth of
creation.
Mortal
man a mis-creator 263
When mortal man blends his thoughts of
existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, he will no longer
grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven. Carnal
beliefs defraud us. They make man an involuntary hypocrite, - producing evil
when he would create good, forming deformity when he would outline grace and
beauty, injuring those whom he would bless. He becomes a general mis-creator,
who believes he is a semi-god. His "touch turns hope to dust, the dust we
all have trod." He might say in Bible language: "The good that I
would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that
I do."
No new
creation 263
There can be but one creator, who has created
all. Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery of some distant
idea of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mortal
thought, as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and
attempts to pattern the infinite.
The multiplication of a human and mortal sense
of persons and things is not creation. A sensual thought, like an atom of dust
thrown into the face of spiritual immensity, is dense blindness instead of a
scientific eternal consciousness of creation.
Mind's
true camera 263
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and
material earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind. They have their
day before the permanent facts and their perfection in Spirit appear. The
crude creations of mortal thought must finally give place to the glorious
forms which we sometimes behold in the camera of divine Mind, when the mental
picture is spiritual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading, finite
forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. Where shall the gaze rest
but in the unsearchable realm of Mind? We must look where we would walk, and
we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we have our being.
Self-completeness
264
As mortals gain more correct views of God and
man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will
become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter,
this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God,
good, and needing no other consciousness.
Spiritual
proofs of existence 264
Spirit and its formations are the only
realities of being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sin is
unsustained by Truth, and sickness and death were overcome by Jesus, who
proved them to be forms of error. Spiritual living and blessedness are the
only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the
unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.
When we learn the way in Christian Science and
recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God's
creation, - all the glories of earth and heaven and man.
Godward
gravitation 264
The universe of Spirit is peopled with
spiritual beings, and its government is divine Science. Man is the offspring,
not of the lowest, but of the highest qualities of Mind. Man understands
spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are
enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow
spiritual, - they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain
some proper sense of the infinite, - in order that sin and mortality may be
put off.
This scientific sense of being, forsaking
matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the
loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider
sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more
permanent peace.
Mortal
birth and death 265
The senses represent birth as untimely and
death as irresistible, as if man were a weed growing apace or a flower
withered by the sun and nipped by untimely frosts; but this is true only of a
mortal, not of a man in God's image and likeness. The truth of being is
perennial, and the error is unreal and obsolete.
Blessings
from pain 265
Who that has felt the loss of human peace has
not gained stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after heavenly
good comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss
of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart.
The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal
and that joy is spiritual.
Decapitation
of error 265
The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench
away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to
Soul, where the creations of God are good, "rejoicing the heart."
Such is the sword of Science, with which Truth decapitates error, materiality
giving place to man's higher individuality and destiny.
Uses of
adversity 266
Would existence without personal friends be to
you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without
sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When
this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys,
spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth.
Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient
to exalt you; for "man's extremity is God's opportunity." The author
has experienced the foregoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teaches
mortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality. This is done
through self-abnegation. Universal Love is the divine way in Christian
Science.
The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil,
and the saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite persecutions of
material sense, aiding evil with evil, would deceive the very elect.
Beatific
presence 266
Mortals must follow Jesus' sayings and his
demonstrations, which dominate the flesh. Perfect and infinite Mind enthroned
is heaven. The evil beliefs which originate in mortals are hell. Man is the
idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with
light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He is above sin or frailty. He does not
cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with
God and the universe.
The
infinitude of God 267
Every object in material thought will be
destroyed, but the spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal. The
offspring of God start not from matter or ephemeral dust. They are in and of
Spirit, divine Mind, and so forever continue. God is one. The allness of Deity
is His oneness. Generically man is one, and specifically man means all men.
It is generally conceded that God is Father,
eternal, self-created, infinite. If this is so, the forever Father must have
had children prior to Adam. The great I AM made all "that was made."
Hence man and the spiritual universe coexist with God.
Christian Scientists understand that, in a
religious sense, they have the same authority for the appellative mother, as
for that of brother and sister. Jesus said: "For whosoever shall do the
will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and
mother."
Waymarks
to eternal Truth 267
When examined in the light of divine Science,
mortals present more than is detected upon the surface, since inverted
thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is
borrowed from a higher source than matter, and by reversal, errors serve as
waymarks to the one Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth.
The robes of Spirit are "white and glistering," like the raiment of
Christ. Even in this world, therefore, "let thy garments be always
white." "Blessed is the man that endureth {overcometh} temptation:
for when he is tried, {proved faithful}, he shall receive the crown of life,
which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." (James i. 12.)
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