Mary Baker Eddy - No and Yes
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Mary Baker Eddy >> No and Yes
It was not to appease the wrath of God, but to show the allness of Love and
the nothingness of hate, sin, and death, that Jesus suffered. He lived that
we also might live. He suffered, to show mortals the awful price paid by
sin, and how to avoid paying it. He atoned for the terrible unreality of a
supposed existence apart from God. He suffered because of the shocking
human idolatry that presupposes Life, substance, Soul, and intelligence in
matter,--which is the antipode of God, and yet governs mankind. The
glorious truth of being--namely, that God is the only Mind, Life,
substance, Soul--needs no reconciliation with God, for it is one with Him
now and forever.
Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only "the kingdom of God is at
hand," but "the kingdom of God is within you." Hence there is no sin, for
God's kingdom is everywhere and supreme, and it follows that the human
kingdom is nowhere, and must be _unreal_. Jesus taught and demonstrated
the infinite as one, and not as two. He did not teach that there are two
deities,--one infinite and the other finite; for that would be impossible.
He knew God as infinite, and therefore as the All-in-all; and we shall know
this truth when we awake in the divine likeness. Jesus' true and conscious
being never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while
mortals believed it was here. He once spoke of himself (John iii. 13) as
"the Son of man which is in heaven,"--remarkable words, as wholly opposed
to the popular view of Jesus' nature.
The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin, disease, and death, and
was conscious only of God, of good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the
human Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the Father, and
there could find rest from unreal trials in the conscious reality and
royalty of his being,--holding the mortal as unreal, and the divine as
real. It was this retreat from material to spiritual selfhood which
recuperated him for triumph over sin, sickness, and death. Had he been as
conscious of these evils as he was of God, wherein there is no
consciousness of human error, Jesus could not have resisted them; nor could
he have conquered the malice of his foes, rolled away the stone from the
sepulchre, and risen from human sense to a higher concept than that in
which he appeared at his birth.
Mankind's concept of Jesus was a babe born in a manger, even while the
divine and ideal Christ was the Son of God, spiritual and eternal. In
human conception God's offspring had to grow, develop; but in Science his
divine nature and manhood were forever complete, and dwelt forever in the
Father. Jesus said, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power
of God." Mortal thought gives the eternal God and infinite consciousness
the license of a short-lived sinner, to begin and end, to know both evil
and good; when evil is temporal and God is eternal,--and when, as a sphere
of Mind, He cannot know beginning or end.
The spiritual interpretation of the vicarious atonement of Jesus, in
Christian Science, unfolds the full-orbed glory of that event; but to
regard this wonder of glory, this most marvellous demonstration, as a
personal and material bloodgiving--or as a proof that sin is known to the
divine Mind, and that what is unlike God demands His continual presence,
knowledge, and power, to meet and master it--would make the atonement to be
less than the _at-one-ment_, whereby the work of Jesus would lose its
efficacy and lack the "signs following."
From Genesis to Revelation the Scriptures teach an infinite God, and none
beside Him; and on this basis Messiah and prophet saved the sinner and
raised the dead,--uplifting the human understanding, buried in a false
sense of being. Jesus rendered null and void whatever is unlike God; but he
could not have done this if error and sin existed in the Mind of God. What
God knows, He also predestinates; and it must be fulfilled. Jesus proved
to perfection, so far as this could be done in that age, what Christian
Science is to-day proving in a small degree,--the falsity of the evidence
of the material senses that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims,
and that God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim. He
established the only true idealism on the basis that God is All, and He is
good, and good is Spirit; hence there is no intelligent sin, evil _mind_ or
matter: and this is the only true philosophy and realism. This divine
mystery of godliness was the rock of Truth, on which he built his Church of
the new-born, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.
This Truth is the rock which the builders rejected; but "the same is become
the head of the corner." This is the chief corner-stone, the basis and
support of creation, the interpreter of one God, the infinity and unity of
good.
In proportion as mortals approximate the understanding of Christian
Science, they take hold of harmony, and material incumbrance disappears.
Having one God, one Mind, one consciousness,--which includes only His own
nature,--and loving your neighbor as yourself, constitute Christian
Science, which must demonstrate the nothingness of any other state or stage
of being.
IS THERE NO INTERCESSORY PRAYER?
All prayer that is desire is intercessory; but kindling desire loses a part
of its purest spirituality if the lips try to express it. It is a truism
that we can think more lucidly and profoundly than we can write or speak.
The silent intercession and unvoiced imploring is an honest and potent
prayer to heal and save. The audible prayer may be offered to be heard of
men, though ostensibly to catch God's ear,--after the fashion of Baal's
prophets,--by speaking loud enough to be heard; but when the heart prays,
and not the lips, no dishonesty or vanity influences the petition.
Prophet and apostle have glorified God in secret prayer, and He has
rewarded them openly. Prayer can neither change God, nor bring His designs
into mortal modes; but it can and does change our modes and our false sense
of Life, Love, and Truth, uplifting us to Him. Such prayer humiliates,
purifies, and quickens activity, in the direction that is unerring.
True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to
include all mankind in one affection. Prayer is the utilization of the love
wherewith He loves us. Prayer begets an awakened desire to be and do good.
It makes new and scientific discoveries of God, of His goodness and power.
It shows us more clearly than we saw before, what we already have and are;
and most of all, it shows us what God is. Advancing in this light, we
reflect it; and this light reveals the pure Mind-pictures, in silent
prayer, even as photography grasps the solar light to portray the face of
pleasant thought.
What but silent prayer can meet the demand, "Pray without ceasing"? The
apostle James said: "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, to
consume it on your lusts." Because of vanity and self-righteousness,
mortals seek, and expect to receive, a material sense of approval; and they
expect also what is impossible,--a material and mortal sense of spiritual
and immortal Truth.
It is sometimes wise to hide from dull and base ears the pure pearls of
awakened consciousness, lest your pearls be trampled upon. Words may belie
desire, and pour forth a hypocrite's prayer; but thoughts are our honest
conviction. I have no objection to audible prayer of the right kind; but
the inaudible is more effectual.
I instruct my students to pursue their mental ministrations very sacredly,
and never to touch the human thought save to issues of Truth; never to
trespass mentally on individual rights; never to take away the rights, but
only the wrongs of mankind. Otherwise they forfeit their ability to heal in
Science. Only when sickness, sin, and fear obstruct the harmony of Mind and
body, is it right for one mind to meddle with another mind, and control
aright the thought struggling for freedom.
It is Truth and Love that cast out fear and heal the sick, and mankind are
better because of this. If a change in the religious views of the patient
comes with the change to health, our Father has done this; for the human
mind and body are made better only by divine influence.
SHOULD CHRISTIANS BEWARE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE?
History repeats itself. The Pharisees of old warned the people to beware of
Jesus, and contemptuously called him "this fellow." Jesus said, "For which
of these works do ye stone me?" as much as to ask, Is it the work most
derided and envied that is most acceptable to God? Not that he would cease
to do the will of his Father on account of persecution, but he would repeat
his work to the best advantage for mankind and the glory of his Father.
There are sinners in all societies, and it is vain to look for perfection
in churches or associations. The life of Christ is the perfect example; and
to compare mortal lives with this model is to subject them to severe
scrutiny. Without question, the subtlest forms of sin are trying to force
the doors of Science and enter in; but this white sanctuary will never
admit such as come to steal and to rob. Through long ages people have
slumbered over Christ's commands, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel;" "Heal the sick, cast out devils;" and now the Church seems almost
chagrined that by new discoveries of Truth sin is losing prestige and
power.
The Rev. Dr. A.J. Gordon, a Boston Baptist clergyman, said in a sermon:
"The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and it is doing it to-day; and as
the faith of the Church increases, and Christians more and more learn
their duty to believe all things written in the Scriptures, will such
manifestations of God's power increase among us." Such sentiments are
wholesome avowals of Christian Science. God is not unable or unwilling to
heal, and mortals are not compelled to have other gods before Him, and
employ material forms to meet a mental want. The divine Spirit supplies all
human needs. Jesus said to the sick, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; rise up
and walk!" God's pardon is the destruction of all "the ills that flesh is
heir to."
All power belongs to God; and it is not in all the vain power of dogma and
philosophy to dispossess the divine Mind of healing power, or to cast out
error with error, even in the name and for the sake of Christ, and so heal
the sick. While Science is engulfing error in bottomless oblivion, the
material senses would enthrone error as omnipotent and omnipresent, with
power to determine the fact and fate to being. It is said that the devil is
the ape of God. The lie of evil holds its own by declaring itself both true
and good. The path of Christian Science is beset with false claimants,
aping its virtues, but cleaving to their own vices. Denial of the
authorship of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" would make a
lie the author of Truth, and so make Truth itself a lie.
A distinguished clergyman came to be healed. He said: "I am suffering from
nervous prostration, and have to eat beefsteak and drink strong coffee to
support me through a sermon." Here a skeptic might well ask if the
atonement had lost its efficacy for him, and if Christ's power to heal was
not equal to the power of daily meat and drink. The power of Truth is not
contingent on matter. Our Master said, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Truth rebukes error; and
whether stall-fed or famishing, theology needs Truth to stimulate and
sustain a good sermon.
A lady said: "Only He who knows all things can estimate the good your books
are doing."
A distinguished Doctor of Divinity said: "Your book leavens my sermons."
The following extract from a letter is a specimen of those received daily:
"Your book Science and Health is healing the sick, binding up the
broken-hearted, preaching deliverance to the captive, convicting the
infidel, alarming the hypocrite, and quickening the Christian."
Christian Science Mind-healing is dishonored by those who take it up from
mercenary motives, for wealth and fame, or think to build a baseless fabric
of their own on another's foundation. They cannot put the "new wine into
old bottles;" they can never engraft Truth into error. Such students come
to my College to learn a system which they go away to disgrace. Stealing or
garbling my statements of Mind-science will never prevent or reconstruct
the wrecks of "_isms_" and help humanity.
Science often suffers blame through the sheer ignorance of people, while
envy and hatred bark and bite at its heels. A man's inability to heal, on
the Principle of Christian Science, substantiates his ignorance of its
Principle and practice, and incapacitates him for correct comment. This
failure should make him modest.
Christian Science involves a new language, and a higher demonstration of
medicine and religion. It is the "new tongue" of Truth, having its best
interpretation in the power of Christianity to heal. My system of
Mind-healing swerves not from the highest ethics and from the spiritual
goal. To climb up by some other way than Truth is to fall. Error has no
hobby, however boldly ridden or brilliantly caparisoned, that can leap into
the sanctum of Christian Science.
In Queen Elizabeth's time Protestantism could sentence men to the dungeon
or stake for their religion, and so abrogate the rights of conscience and
choke the channels of God. Ecclesiastical tyranny muzzled the mouth lisping
God's praise; and instead of healing, it palsied the weak hand outstretched
to God. Progress, legitimate to the human race, pours the healing balm of
Truth and Love into every wound. It reassures us that no Reign of Terror or
rule of error will again unite Church and State, or re-enact, through the
civil arm of government, the horrors of religious persecution.
The Rev. S.E. Herrick, a Congregational clergyman of Boston, says:
"Heretics of yesterday are martyrs to-day." In every age and clime, "On
earth peace, good will toward men" must be the watchword of Christianity.
Jesus said: "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them
unto babes."
St. Paul said that without charity we are "as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal;" and he added: "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; ... doth not
behave itself unseemly, ... thinketh no evil, ... but rejoiceth in the
truth."
To hinder the unfolding truth, to ostracize whatever uplifts mankind, is of
course out of the question. Such an attempt indicates weakness, fear, or
malice; and such efforts arise from a spiritual lack, felt, though
unacknowledged.
Let it not be heard in Boston that woman, "last at the cross and first at
the sepulchre," has no rights which man is bound to respect. In natural law
and in religion the right of woman to fill the highest measure of
enlightened understanding and the highest places in government, is
inalienable, and these rights are ably vindicated by the noblest of both
sexes. This is woman's hour, with all its sweet amenities and its moral and
religious reforms.
Drifting into intellectual wrestlings, we should agree to disagree; and
this harmony would anchor the Church in more spiritual latitudes, and so
fulfil her destiny.
Let the Word have free course and be glorified. The people clamor to leave
cradle and swaddling-clothes. The spiritual status is urging its highest
demands on mortals, and material history is drawing to a close. Truth
cannot be stereotyped; it unfoldeth forever. "One on God's side is a
majority;" and "Lo, I am with you alway," is the pledge of the Master.
The question now at issue is: Shall we have a practical, spiritual
Christianity, with its healing power, or shall we have material medicine
and superficial religion? The advancing hope of the race, craving health
and holiness, halts for a reply; and the reappearing Christ, whose
life-giving understanding Christian Science imparts, must answer the
constant inquiry: "Art thou he that should come?" Woman should not be
ordered to the rear, or laid on the rack, for joining the overture of
angels. Theologians descant pleasantly upon free moral agency; but they
should begin by admitting individual rights.
The author's ancestors were among the first settlers of New Hampshire. They
reared there the Puritan standard of undefiled religion. As dutiful
descendants of Puritans, let us lift their standard higher, rejoicing, as
Paul did, that we are _free born_.
Man has a noble destiny; and the full-orbed significance of this destiny
has dawned on the sick-bound and sin-enslaved. For the unfolding of this
upward tendency to health, greatness, and goodness, I shall continue to
labor and wait.