Mary Baker Eddy - No and Yes
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Mary Baker Eddy >> No and Yes
NO AND YES
by
MARY BAKER EDDY
Author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Published by The
Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy
Boston, U.S.A.
Authorized Literature of
The First Church of Christ, Scientist
in Boston, Massachusetts
1919
PREFACE
It was the purpose of each edition of this pamphlet to benefit no favored
class, but, according to the apostle's admonition, to "reprove, rebuke,
exhort," and with the power and self-sacrificing spirit of Love to correct
involuntary as well as voluntary error.
By a modification of the language, the import of this edition is, we trust,
transparent to the hearts of all conscientious laborers in the realm of
Mind-healing. To those who are athirst for the life-giving waters of a true
divinity, it saith tenderly, "Come and drink;" and if you are babes in
Christ, leave the meat and take the unadulterated milk of the Word, until
you grow to apprehend the pure spirituality of Truth.
MARY BAKER EDDY
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
DISEASE UNREAL
SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM OR THEOSOPHY?
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE?
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC?
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BLASPHEMOUS?
IS THERE A PERSONAL DEITY?
IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL?
IS MAN A PERSON?
HAS MAN A SOUL?
IS SIN FORGIVEN?
IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS SIN?
IS THERE NO SACRIFICIAL ATONEMENT?
IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER?
SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE?
NO AND YES
INTRODUCTION
To kindle in all minds a common sentiment of regard for the spiritual idea
emanating from the infinite, is a most needful work; but this must be done
gradually, for Truth is as "the still, small voice," which comes to our
recognition only as our natures are changed by its silent influence.
Small streams are noisy and rush precipitately; and babbling brooks fill
the rivers till they rise in floods, demolishing bridges and overwhelming
cities. So men, when thrilled by a new idea, are sometimes impatient; and,
when public sentiment is aroused, are liable to be borne on by the current
of feeling. They should then turn temporarily from the tumult, for the
silent cultivation of the true idea and the quiet practice of its virtues.
When the noise and stir of contending sentiments cease, and the flames die
away on the mount of revelation, we can read more clearly the tablets of
Truth.
The theology and medicine of Jesus were one,--in the divine oneness of the
trinity, Life, Truth, and Love, which healed the sick and cleansed the
sinful. This trinity in unity, correcting the individual thought, is the
only Mind-healing I vindicate; and on its standard have emblazoned that
crystallized expression, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
A spurious and hydra-headed mind-healing is naturally glared at by the
pulpit, ostracized by the medical faculty, and scorned by people of common
sense. To aver that disease is normal, a God-bestowed and stubborn reality,
but that you can heal it, leaves you to work against that which is natural
and a law of being. It is scientific to rob disease of all reality; and to
accomplish this, you cannot begin by admitting its reality. Our Master
taught his students to deny self, sense, and take up the cross. Mental
healers who admit that disease is real should be made to test the
feasibility of what they say by healing one case audibly, through such an
admission,--if this is possible. I have healed more disease by the spoken
than the unspoken word.
The honest student of Christian Science is modest in his claims and
conscientious in duty, waiting and working to mature what he has been
taught. Institutes furnished with such teachers are becoming beacon-lights
along the shores of erudition; and many who are not teachers have large
practices and some marked success in healing the most defiant forms of
disease.
Dishonesty destroys one's ability to heal mentally. Conceit cannot avert
the effects of deceit. Taking advantage of the present ignorance in
relation to Christian Science Mind-healing, many are flooding our land with
conflicting theories and practice. We should not spread abroad patchwork
ideas that in some vital points lack Science. How sad it is that envy will
bend its bow and shoot its arrow at the idea which claims only its
inheritance, is naturally modest, generous, and sincere! while the
trespassing error murders either friend or foe who stands in its way. Truly
it is better to fall into the hands of God, than of man.
When I revised "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in 1878,
some irresponsible people insisted that my manual of the practice of
Christian Science Mind-healing should not be made public; but I obeyed a
diviner rule. People dependent on the rules of this practice for their
healing, not having lost the Spirit which sustains the genuine practice,
will put that book in the hands of their patients, whom it will heal, and
recommend it to their students, whom it would enlighten. Every teacher must
pore over it in secret, to keep himself well informed. The Nemesis of the
history of Mind-healing notes this hour.
Dishonesty necessarily stultifies the spiritual sense which Mind-healers
specially need; and which they must possess, in order to be safe members of
the community. How good and pleasant a thing it is to seek not so much
thine own as another's good, to sow by the wayside for the way-weary, and
trust Love's recompense of love.
Plagiarism from my writings is so common it is becoming odious to honest
people; and such compilations, instead of possessing the essentials of
Christian Science, are tempting and misleading.
Reading Science and Health has restored the sick to health; but the task
of learning thoroughly the Science of Mind-healing and demonstrating it
understandingly had better be undertaken in health than sickness.
DISEASE UNREAL
Disease is more than _imagination_; it is a human error, a constituent part
of what comprise the whole of mortal existence,--namely, material sensation
and mental delusion. But an erring sense of existence, or the error of
belief, named disease, never made sickness a stubborn reality. On the
ground that harmony is the truth of being, the Science of Mind-healing
destroys the feasibility of disease; hence error of thought becomes fable
instead of fact. Science demonstrates the reality of Truth and the
unreality of the error. A self-evident proposition, in the Science of
Mind-healing, is that disease is unreal; and the efficacy of my system,
beyond other systems of medicine, vouches for the validity of that
statement. Sin and disease are not scientific, because they embody not the
idea of divine Principle, and are not the phenomena of the immutable laws
of God; and they do not arise from the divine consciousness and true
constituency of being.
The unreality of sin, disease, and death, rests on the exclusive truth that
being, to be eternal, must be harmonious. All disease must be--and can only
be--healed on this basis. All true Christian Scientists are vindicating,
fearlessly and honestly, the Principle of this grand verity of
Mind-healing.
In erring mortal thought the reality of Truth has an antipode,--the reality
of error; and disease is one of the severe realities of this error. God has
no opposite in Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is real,
then it follows that to declare error real would be to make it Truth.
Disease arises from a false and material sense, from the belief that matter
has sensation. Therefore this material sense, which is untrue, is of
necessity unreal. Moreover, this unreal sense substitutes for Truth an
unreal belief,--namely, that life and health are independent of God, and
dependent on material conditions. Material sense also avers that Spirit, or
Truth, cannot restore health and perpetuate life, but that material
conditions can and do destroy both human health and life.
If disease is as real as health, and is itself a state of being, and yet is
arrayed against being, then Mind, or God, does not meddle with it. Disease
becomes indeed a stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A "kingdom divided
against itself is brought to desolation;" therefore the mind that attacks a
normal and real condition of man, is profanely tampering with the realities
of God and His laws. Metaphysical healing is a lost jewel in this
misconception of reality. Any contradictory fusion of Truth with error, in
both theory and practice, prevents one from healing scientifically, and
makes the last state of one's patients worse than the first. If disease is
real it is not illusive, and it certainly would contradict the Science of
Mind-healing to attempt to destroy the realities of Mind in order to heal
the sick.
On the theory that God's formations are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal,
and that God is the only creator, Christian Science refutes the validity of
the testimony of the senses, which take cognizance of their own
phenomena,--sickness, disease, and death. This refutation is indispensable
to the destruction of false evidence, and the consequent cure of the
sick,--as all understand who practise the true Science of Mind-healing. If,
as the error indicates, the evidence of disease is not false, then disease
cannot be healed by denying its validity; and this is why the mistaken
healer is not successful, trying to heal on a material basis.
The evidence that the earth is motionless and the sun revolves around our
planet, is as sensible and real as the evidence for disease; but Science
determines the evidence in both cases to be unreal. To material sense it is
plain also that the error of the revolution of the sun around the earth is
more apparent than the adverse but true Science of the stellar universe.
Copernicus has shown that what appears real, to material sense and feeling,
is absolutely unreal. Astronomy, optics, acoustics, and hydraulics are all
at war with the testimony of the physical senses. This fact intimates that
the laws of Science are mental, not material; and Christian Science
demonstrates this.
SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING
The rule of divinity is golden; to be wise and true rejoices every heart.
But evil influences waver the scales of justice and mercy. No personal
considerations should allow any root of bitterness to spring up between
Christian Scientists, nor cause any misapprehension as to the motives of
others. We must love our enemies, and continue to do so unto the end. By
the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts, and blot it out of
others.
Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened to see every
error they possess, and the way out of it; and they will "flee as a bird to
your mountain," away from the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, and
every imperfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge in
Truth and Love.
Every loving sacrifice for the good of others is known to God, and the
wrath of man cannot hide it from Him. God has appointed for Christian
Scientists high tasks, and will not release them from the strict
performance of each one of them. The students must now fight their own
battles. I recommend that Scientists draw no lines whatever between one
person and another, but think, speak, teach, and write the truth of
Christian Science without reference to right or wrong personality in this
field of labor. Leave the distinctions of individual character and the
discriminations and guidance thereof to the Father, whose wisdom is
unerring and whose love is universal.
We should endeavor to be long-suffering, faithful, and charitable with all.
To this small effort let us add one more privilege--namely, silence
whenever it can substitute censure. Avoid voicing error; but utter the
truth of God and the beauty of holiness, the joy of Love and "the peace of
God, that passeth all understanding," recommending to all men fellowship in
the bonds of Christ. Advise students to rebuke each other always in love,
as I have rebuked them. Having discharged this duty, counsel each other to
work out his own salvation, without fear or doubt, knowing that God will
make the wrath of man to praise Him, and that the remainder thereof He will
restrain. We can rejoice that every germ of goodness will at last struggle
into freedom and greatness, and every sin will so punish itself that it
will bow down to the commandments of Christ,--Truth and Love.
I enjoin it upon my students to hold no controversy or enmity over
doctrines and traditions, or over the misconceptions of Christian Science,
but to work, watch, and pray for the amelioration of sin, sickness, and
death. If one be found who is too blind for instruction, no longer cast
your pearls before this state of mortal mind, lest it turn and rend you;
but quietly, with benediction and hope, let the unwise pass by, while you
walk on in equanimity, and with increased power, patience, and
understanding, gained from your forbearance. This counsel is not new, as
my Christian students can testify; and if it had been heeded in times past
it would have prevented, to a great extent, the factions which have sprung
up among Scientists to the hindrance of the Cause of Truth. It is true that
the mistakes, prejudices, and errors of one class of thinkers must not be
introduced or established among another class who are clearer and more
conscientious in their convictions; but this one thing can be done, and
should be: let your opponents alone, and use no influence to prevent their
legitimate action from their own standpoint of experience, knowing, as you
should, that God will well regenerate and separate wisely and finally;
whereas you may err in effort, and lose your fruition.
Hoping to pacify repeated complaints and murmurings against too great
leniency, on my part, towards some of my students who fall into error, I
have opposed occasionally and strongly--especially in the first edition of
this little work--existing wrongs of the nature referred to. But I now
point steadfastly to the power of grace to overcome evil with good. God
will "furnish a table in the wilderness" and show the power of Love.
Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the cabalistic insignia of
philosophy; it excludes all error and includes all Truth. More mistakes are
made in its name than this period comprehends. Divinely defined, Science is
the atmosphere of God; humanly construed, and according to Webster, it is
"knowledge, duly arranged and referred to general truths and principles on
which it is founded, and from which it is derived." I employ this
awe-filled word in both a divine and human sense; but I insist that
Christian Science is demonstrably as true, relative to the unseen verities
of being, as any proof that can be given of the completeness of Science.
The two largest words in the vocabulary of thought are "Christian" and
"Science." The former is the highest style of man; the latter reveals and
interprets God and man; it aggregates, amplifies, unfolds, and expresses
the ALL-God. The life of Christ is the predicate and postulate of
all that I teach, and there is but one standard statement, one rule, and
one Principle for all scientific truth.
My hygienic system rests on Mind, the eternal Truth. What is termed matter,
or relates to its so-called attributes, is a self-destroying error. When a
so-called material sense is lost, and Truth restores that lost sense,--on
the basis that all consciousness is Mind and eternal,--the former position,
that sense is organic and material, is proven erroneous.
The feasibility and immobility of Christian Science unveil the true
idea,--namely, that earth's discords have not the reality of Mind in the
Science of being; and this idea--dematerializing and spiritualizing
mortals--turns like the needle to the pole all hope and faith to God, based
as it is on His omnipotence and omnipresence.
Eternal harmony, perpetuity, and perfection, constitute the phenomena of
being, governed by the immutable and eternal laws of God; whereas matter
and human will, intellect, desire, and fear, are not the creators,
controllers, nor destroyers of life or its harmonies. Man has an immortal
Soul, a divine Principle, and an eternal being. Man has perpetual
individuality; and God's laws, and their intelligent and harmonious action,
constitute his individuality in the Science of Soul.
In its literary expression, my system of Christian metaphysics is hampered
by material terms, which must be used to indicate thoughts that are to be
understood metaphysically. As a Science, this system is held back by the
common ignorance of what it is and what it does, and (worse still) by those
who come falsely in its name. To be appreciated, Science must be understood
and conscientiously introduced. If the Bible and Science and Health had the
place in schools of learning that physiology occupies, they would
revolutionize and reform the world, through the power of Christ. It is true
that it requires more study to understand and demonstrate what these works
teach, than to learn theology, physiology, or physics; because they teach
divine Science, with fixed Principle, given rule, and unmistakable proof.
Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principle
of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it. Revelation shows this
Principle, and will rescue reason from the thrall of error. Revelation must
subdue the sophistry of intellect, and spiritualize consciousness with the
dictum and the demonstration of Truth and Love. Christian Science
Mind-healing can only be gained by working from a purely Christian
standpoint. Then it heals the sick and exalts the race. The essence of this
Science is right thinking and right acting--leading us to see spirituality
and to be spiritual, to understand and to demonstrate God.
The Massachusetts Metaphysical College and Church of Christ, Scientist, in
Boston, were the outgrowth of the author's religious experience. After a
lifetime of orthodoxy on the platform of doctrines, rites, and ceremonies,
it became a sacred duty for her to impart to others this new-old knowledge
of God.
The same affection, desire, and motives which have stimulated true
Christianity in all ages, and given impulse to goodness, in or out of the
Church, have nerved her purpose to build on the new-born conception of the
Christ, as Jesus declared himself,--namely, "the way, the truth, and the
life." Living a true life, casting out evil, healing the sick, and
preaching the gospel of Truth,--these are the ends of Christianity. This
divine way impels a spiritualization of thought and method, beyond doctrine
and ritual; and in nothing else has she departed from the old landmarks.
The unveiled spiritual signification of the Word so enlarges our sense of
God that it makes both sense and Soul, man and Life, immaterial, though
still individual. It removes all limits from divine power. God must be
found all instead of a part of being, and man the reflection of His power
and goodness. This Science rebukes sin with its own nothingness, and thus
destroys sin quickly and utterly. It makes disease unreal, and this heals
it.
The demonstration of moral and physical growth, and a scientific deduction
from the Principle of all harmony, declare both the Principle and idea to
be divine. If this be true, then death must be swallowed up in Life, and
the prophecy of Jesus fulfilled, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me
shall never die." Though centuries passed after those words were originally
uttered, before this reappearing of Truth, and though the hiatus be longer
still before that saying is demonstrated in Life that knows no death, the
declaration is nevertheless true, and remains a clear and profound
deduction from Christian Science.
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE OF THE SAME LINEAGE AS SPIRITUALISM OR
THEOSOPHY?
Science is not susceptible of being held as a mere theory. It is hoary with
time. It takes hold of eternity, voices the infinite, and governs the
universe. No greater opposites can be conceived of, physically, morally,
and spiritually, than Christian Science, spiritualism, and theosophy.
Science and Health has effected a revolution in the minds of thinkers on
the subject of mediumship, and given impulse to reason and revelation,
goodness and virtue. A theory may be sound in spots, and sparkle like a
diamond, while other parts of it have no lustre. Christian Science is
sound in every part. It is neither warped nor misconceived, when properly
demonstrated. If a spiritualist medium understood the Science of
Mind-healing, he would know that between those who have and those who have
not passed the transition called death, there can be no interchange of
consciousness, and that all sensible phenomena are merely subjective states
of mortal mind.
Theosophy is a corruption of Judaism. This corruption had a renewal in the
Neoplatonic philosophy; but it sprang from the Oriental philosophy of
Brahmanism, and blends with its magic and enchantments. Theosophy is no
more allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree is to the
sweet breath of springtide, or the brilliant coruscations of the northern
sky are to solar heat and light.
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM BENEATH, AND NOT FROM ABOVE?
Hear the words of our Master: "Go ye into all the world"! "Heal the sick,
cast out devils"! Christian Scientists, perhaps more than any other
religious sect, are obeying these commands; and the injunctions are not
confined to Jesus' students in that age, but they extend to this age,--to
as many as shall believe on him. The demand and example of Jesus were not
from beneath. Are frozen dogmas, persistent persecution, and the doctrine
of eternal damnation, from above? Are the dews of divine Truth, falling on
the sick and sinner, to heal them, from beneath? "By their fruits ye shall
know them."
Reading my books, without prejudice, would convince all that their purpose
is right. The comprehension of my teachings would enable any one to prove
these books to be filled with blessings for the whole human family.
Fatiguing Bible translations and voluminous commentaries are employed to
explain and prop old creeds, and they have the civil and religious arms in
their defense; then why should not these be equally extended to support the
Christianity that heals the sick? The notions of personality to be found in
creeds are far more mystic than Mind-healing. It is no easy matter to
believe there are three persons in one person, and that one person is cast
out of another person. These conceptions of Deity and devil presuppose an
impotent God and an incredible Satan.
IS CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PANTHEISTIC?
Christian Science refutes pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor in
the modes of mortal mind. It shows that matter and mortal mind have neither
origin nor existence in the eternal Mind. Thinking otherwise is what
estranges mortals from divine Life and Love. God is All-in-all. He is
Spirit; and in nothing is He unlike Himself. Nothing that "worketh or
maketh a lie" is to be found in the divine consciousness. For God to know,
is to be; that is, what He knows must truly and eternally exist. If He
knows matter, and matter can exist in Mind, then mortality and discord must
be eternal. He is Mind; and whatever He knows is made manifest, and must be
Truth.
If God knows evil even as a false claim, this knowledge would manifest evil
in Him and proceeding from Him. Christian Science shows that matter, evil,
sin, sickness, and death are but negations of Spirit, Truth, and Life,
which are positives that cannot be gainsaid. The subjective states of evil,
called mortal mind or matter, are negatives destitute of time and space;
for there is none beside God or Spirit and the idea of Spirit.
This infinite logic is the infinite light,--uncomprehended, yet forever
giving forth more light, because it has no darkness to emit. Mortals do not
understand the All; hence their inference of some other existence beside
God and His true likeness,--of something unlike Him. He who is All,
understands all. He can have no knowledge or inference but His own
consciousness, and can take in no more than all.
The mists of matter--sin, sickness, and death--disappear in proportion as
mortals approach Spirit, which is the reality of being. It is not enough to
say that matter is the substratum of evil, and that its highest attenuation
is mortal mind; for there is, strictly speaking, _no_ mortal mind. Mind is
immortal. Death is the consequent of an antecedent false assumption of the
realness of something unreal, material, and mortal. If God knows the
antecedent, He must produce its consequences. From this logic there is no
escape. Matter, or evil, is the absence of Spirit or good. Their
nothingness is thus proven; for God is good, ever-present, and All.
"In Him we live, and move, and have our being;" consequently it is
impossible for the true man--who is a spiritual and individual being,
created in the eternal Science of being--to be conscious of aught but good.
God's image and likeness can never be less than a good man; and for man to
be more than God's likeness is impossible. Man is the climax of creation;
and God is not without an ever-present witness, testifying of Himself.
Matter, or any mode of mortal mind, is neither part nor parcel of divine
consciousness and God's verity.