This verdict of the so-called material senses victimizes mortals, taught, as they are by physiology and pathology, to revere false testimony, even the errors that are destroyed by Truth through spiritual sense and Science.
Some of Mary Bakery Eddy’s longer sentences are difficult to understand as well as long.
What does the above sentence mean to you and how could it be better punctuated to express that thought?
The five physical senses are the avenues and instruments of human error, and they correspond with error. These senses indicate the common human belief, that life, substance, and intelligence are a unison of matter with Spirit. This is pantheism, and carries within itself the seeds of all error. If man is both mind and matter, the loss of one finger would take away some quality and quantity of the man, for matter and man would be one.
No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-day of wisdom comes hourly and continually
To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.
The spiritual fact and the material belief of things are contradictions; but the spiritual is true, and therefore the material must be untrue.
The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are to be found in the following postulates: that Life is God, good, and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not be found in the body; that Spirit is not, and cannot be, materialized; that Life is not subject to death; that the spiritual real man has no birth, no material life, and no death.
I was rummaging around Spirituality.com and just noticed the search feature. You can search Science and Health, the King James Bible, and Retrospection and Introspection. This is so wonderful. A huge thank you to the staff who made this possible.
I’ve added a search feature to my website on the right-hand bar. Enter a search word or phrase, and you are taken to the Spirituality.com search site with the search results.
If you would like to add this form to your own site, here is the HTML code:
<form action="http://spirituality.com/dt/book_search.jhtml">
<input type="text" name="query" size="30" />
<input type="image" border="0" name="Go" src="http://spirituality.com/dt/framework/images/go.gif" value="Submit" /></form>
Sin, sickness, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the divine Mind. There are without a real origin or existence. They have neither Principle nor permanence, but belong, with all that is material and temporal, to the nothingness of error, which simulates the creations of Truth. All creations of Spirit are eternal; but creations of matter must return to dust. Error supposes man to be both mental and material. Divine Science contradicts this postulate and maintains man's spiritual identity.
Eternal Mind and temporary material existence never unite in figure or in fact. A straight line finds no abiding-place in a curve, and a curve finds no adjustment to a straight line. Similarly, matter has no place in Spirit, and Spirit has no place in matter.
There is no inherent power in matter; for all that is material is a material, human, mortal thought, always governing itself erroneously.
As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God.
Divine Science does not put new wine into old bottles, Soul into matter, nor the infinite into the finite. Our false views of matter perish as we grasp the facts of Spirit. The old belief must be cast out or the new idea will be spilled, and the inspiration, which is to change our standpoint, will be lost.
I’m going to step aside from Mary Baker Eddy for just a moment here. I think the above quote might give one the impression that it is either now or never. The boat is leaving and you need to be on it. But I’ve known so many people with a spiritual path that wasn’t straight and had many potholes. Matter is a difficult belief to work through on the road of Spirituality.
I don’t think God ever gives up on us and his inspiration is never lost. Ours shouldn’t be either. Trust in God, yourself, and your fellow man.
as we approach Spirit and Truth, we lose the consciousness of matter
In proportion as the belief disappears that life and intelligence are in or of matter, the immortal facts of being are seen, and their only idea or intelligence is in God.
Spirit, God, is infinite, all. Spirit can have no opposite.
When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: "Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal
The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind,--that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.
All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.
The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.
Divine Science reverses the false testimony of the material senses, and thus tears away the foundations of error.
There is no material truth. The physical senses can take no cognizance of God and spiritual Truth.
It is the spiritualization of thought and Christianization of daily life, in contrast with the results of the ghastly farce of material existence; it is chastity and purity, in contrast with the downward tendencies and earthward gravitation of sensualism and impurity, which really attest the divine origin and operation of Christian Science.
Man is harmonious when governed by Soul. Hence the importance of understanding the truth of being, which reveals the laws of spiritual existence.
The testimony of the material senses is neither absolute nor divine.
Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul.
Perfect and infinite Mind enthroned is heaven.
The evil beliefs which originate in mortals are hell.
On my recent trip to the Bible Belt of America, we discussed beliefs of Heaven and Hell. I wasn’t as eloquent as Mary Baker Eddy in the above quote – wish I had been.
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.
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.
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.
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible.
There can be but one creator, who has created all.
Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence.
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
[Man] 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.
In divine Science, man is the true image of God.
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.
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.
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already done
Mortals must change their ideals in order to improve their models.
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.
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.
The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea and spiritual individuality
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.
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.
If you venture upon the quiet surface of error and are in sympathy with error, what is there to disturb the waters? What is there to strip off error's disguise?
If you launch your bark upon the ever-agitated but healthful waters of truth, you will encounter storms. Your good will be evil spoken of. This is the cross. Take it up and bear it, for through it you win
there is no cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense which is not power) able to make you sick or sinful
Material sense lifts its voice with the arrogance of reality and says: I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy. Animal in propensity, deceitful in sentiment, fraudulent in purpose, I mean to make my short span of life one gala day. What a nice thing is sin! How sin succeeds, where the good purpose waits! The world is my kingdom. I am enthroned in the gorgeousness of matter. Like bursting lava, I expand but to my own despair, and shine with the resplendency of consuming fire.
Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith: I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,--all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.
Mortal thoughts chase one another like snowflakes, and drift to the ground.
happiness is never the sport of circumstance.
Organization and time have nothing to do with Life.
Note: I took liberty of rewriting the second quote to be more to the point that I read from it.
We are all sculptors, working at various forms, [molding] and chiseling thought.
give up imperfect models and illusive ideals
We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually
Man is by no means a material germ rising from the imperfect and endeavoring to reach Spirit above his origin.
Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.
Each succeeding year unfolds wisdom, beauty, and holiness.
decrepitude is not according to law, nor is it a necessity of nature, but an illusion
The divine Science of man is woven into one web of consistency without seam or rent. Mere speculation or superstition appropriates no part of the divine vesture, while inspiration restores every part of the Christly garment of righteousness.
Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human motives. It forms material concepts and produces every discordant action of the body. If action proceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmonious. If it comes from erring mortal mind, it is discordant and ends in sin, sickness, death. Those two opposite sources never mingle in fount or stream. The perfect
Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind. Imperfect mortal mind sends forth its own resemblances, of which the wise man said, "All is vanity."
Question: Is there a list of all mini-treatments like this somewhere on the Internet?
People with mental work before them have no time for gossip about false law or testimony.
The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.
Mary Baker Eddy has a few thoughts about leaders. What a wonderful reading to pray about in all kinds of circumstances.
inferior motives induce the infuriated attacks on individuals…
A mother is the strongest educator, either for or against crime.
To prevent the experience of error and its sufferings, keep out of the minds of your [protégés] either sinful or diseased thoughts.
Words to find or describe leaders
While I do take a day off here and there from this blog, I had no intention of taking a week off. The rural area I traveled to is not well provided for by cellular coverage. I did everything I could to ensure I could post but when the cell towers aren’t there, they aren’t there.
Traveling to the rural bible belt of America where God, Jesus, and church slip into to every conversation gave me a new appreciation for Christian Science. My only disappointment was that the Amazon Kindle store sells way to many different, non-official versions of our text book. There were so many that I had no idea if they even had the official version.
compass the destruction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts which produce them, and by understanding the spiritual idea which corrects and destroys them
The counter fact relative to any disease is required to cure it.
…discords have only a fabulous existence, are mortal beliefs which divine Truth and Love destroy
He [Jesus] referred man's harmony to Mind, not to matter...
By universal consent, mortal belief has constituted itself a law to bind mortals to sickness, sin, and death.This customary belief is misnamed material law, and the individual who upholds it is mistaken in theory and in practice.
It is the transgression of a belief of mortal mind, not of a law of matter nor of divine Mind, which causes the belief of sickness. The remedy is Truth, not matter,--the truth that disease is unreal.
God, good, can no more produce sickness than goodness can cause evil and health occasion disease.
The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being.
The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned,--namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God.
There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.
There is always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth's standard.
Love is the liberator.
on earth peace, good-will toward men
Matter does not express Spirit.
Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government.
A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission.
He learned that suffering and disease were the self-imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of being; that God never decreed disease, –never ordained a law that fasting should be a means of health.
This new-born understanding, that neither food nor the stomach, without the consent of mortal mind, can make one suffer, brings with it another lesson, –that gluttony is a sensual illusion, and that this phantasm of mortal mind disappears as we better apprehend our spiritual existence and ascend the ladder of life.
…we shall never affirm concerning the body what we do not wish to have manifested.
Science includes no rule of discord, but governs harmoniously.
Mortal mind forms all conditions of the mortal body, and controls the stomach, bones, lungs, heart, blood, etc., as directly as the volition or will moves the hand.
What renders both sin and sickness difficult of cure is, that the human mind is the sinner, disinclined to self-correction, and believing that the body can be sick independently of mortal mind and that the divine Mind has no jurisdiction over the body.
Treat a belief in sickness as you would sin, with sudden dismissal. Resist the temptation to believe in matter as intelligent, as having sensation or power.
