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CSEC ON-LINE REFERENCE LIBRARY |
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MARY BAKER EDDY
The Scriptures require more than a simple admission and feeble acceptance of the truths they present; they require a living faith, that so incorporates their lessons into our lives that these truths become the motive-power of every act. Our chosen text is one more frequently used than many others, perhaps, to exhort people to turn from sin and to strive after holiness; but we fear the full import of this text is not yet recognized. It means a full salvation, — man saved from sin, sickness, and death; for, unless this be so, no man can be wholly fitted for heaven in the way which Jesus marked out and bade his followers pursue. In order to comprehend the meaning of the text, let us see what it is to believe. It means more than an opinion entertained concerning Jesus as a man, as the Son of God, or as God; such an action of mind would be of no more help to save from sin, than would a belief in any historical event or person. But it does mean so to understand the beauty of holiness, the character and divinity which Jesus presented in his power to heal and to save, that it will compel us to pattern after both; in other words, to "let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." (Phil. ii. 5.) Mortal man believes in, but does not understand life in, Christ. He believes there is another power or intelligence that rules over a kingdom of its own, that is both good and evil; yea, that is divided against itself, and therefore cannot stand. This belief breaks the First Commandment of God. Let man abjure a theory that is in opposition to God, recognize God as omnipotent, having all-power; and, placing his trust in this grand Truth, and working from no other Principle, he can neither be sick nor forever a sinner. When wholly governed by the one perfect Mind, man has no sinful thoughts and will have no desire to sin. To arrive at this point of unity of Spirit, God, one must commence by turning away from material gods; denying material so-called laws and material sensation, — or mind in matter, in its varied forms of pleasure and pain. This must be done with the understanding that matter has no sense; thus it is that consciousness silences the mortal claim to life, substance, or mind in matter, with the words of Jesus: "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own." (John viii. 44.) When tempted to sin, we should know that evil proceedeth not from God, good, but is a false belief of the personal senses; and if we deny the claims of these senses and recognize man as governed by God, Spirit, not by material laws, the temptation will disappear. On this Principle, disease also is treated and healed. We know that man's body, as matter, has no power to govern itself; and a belief of disease is as much the product of mortal thought as sin is. All suffering is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of both good and evil; of adherence to the "doubleminded" senses, to some belief, fear, theory, or bad deed, based on physical material law, so-called as opposed to good, — all of which is corrected alone by Science, divine Principle, and its spiritual laws. Suffering is the supposition of another intelligence than God; a belief in self-existent evil, opposed to good; and in whatever seems to punish man for doing good, — by saying he has overworked, suffered from inclement weather, or violated a law of matter in doing good, therefore he must suffer for it. God does not reward benevolence and love with penalties; and because of this, we have the right to deny the supposed power of matter to do it, and to allege that only mortal, erring mind can claim to do thus, and dignify the result with the name of law: thence comes man's ability to annul his own erring mental law, and to hold himself amenable only to moral and spiritual law, — God's government. By so doing, male and female come into their rightful heritage, "into the glorious liberty of the children of God."
by Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 196 - 199 |
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