July
26, 2026 The
canonical writings, together with the word
of our textbook, corroborating and
explaining the Bible texts in their
spiritual import and application to all
ages, past, present, and future,
constitute a sermon undivorced from truth,
uncontaminated and unfettered by human
hypotheses, and divinely
authorized. Subject:
TRUTH Responsive
Reading: — Psalms 89:1, 8, 9,
14-19, 26, 27, 34. The
following Citations comprise our Sermon.
From
the Christian Science Quarterly, July 29,
1917
Originally published in the early
years of the Christian Science movement,
these lessons are comprised of citations
from the Bible (King James Version) and
the Christian Science textbook, Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy.
EXPLANATORY NOTE:
Friends:
The Bible and the Christian Science
textbook are our only preachers. We shall
now read Scriptural texts, and their
correlative passages from our
denominational textbook; these comprise
our sermon.
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Golden
Text: III John 1:4. I have no
greater joy than to hear that my children
walk in truth.
1 I will sing of the mercies of the
Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make
known thy faithfulness to all
generations.
8 O Lord God of hosts, who is a
strong Lord like unto thee? or to thy
faithfulness round about thee?
9 Thou rulest the raging of the
sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou
stillest them.
14 Justice and judgment are the
habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth
shall go before thy face.
15 Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord,
in the light of thy countenance.
16 In thy name shall they rejoice
all the day: and in thy righteousness
shall they be exalted.
17 For thou art the glory of their
strength: and in thy favour our horn shall
be exalted.
18 For the Lord is our defence; and
the Holy One of Israel is our king.
19 Then thou spakest in vision to
thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help
upon one that is mighty; I have exalted
one chosen out of the people.
26 He shall cry unto me, Thou art
my father, my God, and the rock of my
salvation.
27 Also I will make him my
firstborn, higher than the kings of the
earth.
34 My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my
lips.
Section
One
Section
Two
Section
Three
Section
Four
Section
Five
Section
Six
This lesson
was prepared by early students of Christian Science to
reinforce the class teaching given by Mary Baker Eddy in the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880s and 1890s.
Consistent with the outline used in her teaching, the six
sections of the early lessons usually followed a general
outline: Section
One: The relation of the subject to
God.
Section
Two: The relation of the subject to man or Christ Jesus.
Section Three: The presentation of Christian Science
through a relative law, as related to the
subject.
Section
Four: The application of the relative law presented in
section three. Section Five: The demonstration of the
relative law from section three. Section Six: The
triumph or victory of the relative law, leaving the student
in the kingdom of God. For more information, visit our
Bible
Lessons
information page.
Study Guide
(2)
Deut 32:4 (3) Ps
31:1, 5, 19 (4)
Zech 8:7, 8 (2)
287:10-15 (3)
140:4-12 (4)
286:1 (5)
454:4-9
The Holy Bible
King
James Version
(1)
Isa 25:1, 9
O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt
thee, I will praise thy name; for thou
hast done wonderful things; thy counsels
of old are faithfulness and truth. And it
shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our
God; we have waited for him, and he will
save us: this is the Lord; we have waited
for him, we will be glad and rejoice in
his salvation.
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for
all his ways are judgment: a God of truth
and without iniquity, just and right is
he.
In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me
never be ashamed: deliver me in thy
righteousness. Into thine hand I commit my
spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God
of truth. Oh how great is thy goodness,
which thou hast laid up for them that fear
thee; which thou hast wrought for them
that trust in thee before the sons of
men!
Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Behold, I
will save my people from the east country,
and from the west country; And I will
bring them, and they shall dwell in the
midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my
people, and I will be their God, in truth
and in righteousness.
Science
and Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by
Mary Baker Eddy
(1)
275:12-14
Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one,
— and are the Scriptural names for
God.
In Science, Truth is divine, and the
infinite God can have no
unlikeness. Did God, Truth, create error?
No! "Doth a fountain send forth at the
same place sweet water and bitter?" God
being everywhere and all-inclusive, how
can He be absent or suggest the absence of
omnipresence and omnipotence?
That God is a corporeal being, nobody can
truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as
saying: "Thou canst not see My face; for
there shall no man see Me, and live." Not
materially but spiritually we know Him as
divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We
shall obey and adore in proportion as we
apprehend the divine nature and love Him
understandingly, warring no more over the
corporeality, but rejoicing in the
affluence of our God.
To seek Truth through belief in a human
doctrine is not to understand the
infinite. We must not seek the immutable
and immortal through the finite, mutable,
and mortal, and so depend upon belief
instead of demonstration, for this is
fatal to a knowledge of Science. The
understanding of Truth gives full faith in
Truth, and spiritual understanding is
better than all burnt
offerings.
Teach your students the omnipotence of
Truth, which illustrates the impotence of
error. The understanding, even in a
degree, of the divine All-power destroys
fear, and plants the feet in the true
path, — the path which leads to the
house built without hands "eternal in the
heavens."
(6)
James 3:11-14 (7)
207:16 (8)
455:28 (9)
466:13-16 (10)
538:3
(5)
Matt 13:24-30
Another parable put he forth unto them,
saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened
unto a man which sowed good seed in his
field: But while men slept, his enemy came
and sowed tares among the wheat, and went
his way. But when the blade was sprung up,
and brought forth fruit, then appeared the
tares also. So the servants of the
householder came and said unto him, Sir,
didst not thou sow good seed in thy field?
from whence then hath it tares? He said
unto them, An enemy hath done this. The
servants said unto him, Wilt thou then
that we go and gather them up? But he
said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the
tares, ye root up also the wheat with
them. Let both grow together until the
harvest: and in the time of harvest I will
say to the reapers, Gather ye together
first the tares, and bind them in bundles
to burn them: but gather the wheat into my
barn.
Doth a fountain send forth at the same
place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig
tree, my brethren, bear olive berries?
either a vine, figs? so can no fountain
both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a
wise man and endued with knowledge among
you? let him shew out of a good
conversation his works with meekness of
wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and
strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie
not against the truth.
(6)
539:19
It is false to say that Truth and error
commingle in creation. In parable and
argument, this falsity is exposed by our
Master as self-evidently wrong. Disputing
these points with the Pharisees and
arguing for the Science of creation, Jesus
said: "Do men gather grapes of thorns?"
Paul asked: "What communion hath light
with darkness? And what concord hath
Christ with Belial?"
The Science of being repudiates
self-evident impossibilities, such as the
amalgamation of Truth and error in cause
or effect. Science separates the tares and
wheat in time of harvest.
This strong point in Christian Science is
not to be overlooked, — that the same
fountain cannot send forth both sweet
waters and bitter. The higher your
attainment in the Science of mental
healing and teaching, the more impossible
it will become for you intentionally to
influence mankind adverse to its highest
hope and achievement.
Truth is immortal; error is mortal. Truth
is limitless; error is limited. Truth is
intelligent; error is non-intelligent.
Moreover, Truth is real, and error is
unreal.
Truth should, and does, drive error out of
all selfhood. Truth is a two-edged sword,
guarding and guiding. Truth places the
cherub wisdom at the gate of understanding
to note the proper guests. Radiant with
mercy and justice, the sword of Truth
gleams afar and indicates the infinite
distance between Truth and error, between
the material and spiritual, — the
unreal and the real.
(8)
Prov 3:3, 4 (9) Rom
12:17 (10) II
Cor 13:7, 8 (12)
448:10-19 (13)
129:5-10 (14)
458:23-28
(7)
Ps 15:1, 2
Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that
walketh uprightly, and worketh
righteousness, and speaketh the truth in
his heart.
Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind
them about thy neck; write them upon the
table of thine heart: So shalt thou find
favour and good understanding in the sight
of God and man.
Recompense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest in the sight of all
men.
Now I pray to God that ye do no evil; not
that we should appear approved, but that
ye should do that which is honest, though
we be as reprobates. For we can do nothing
against the truth, but for the
truth.
(11)
453:16-17
Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is
human weakness, which forfeits divine
help.
Evasion of Truth cripples integrity, and
casts thee down from the pinnacle.
Christian Science rises above the evidence
of the corporeal senses; but if you have
not risen above sin yourself, do not
congratulate yourself upon your blindness
to evil or upon the good you know and
do not. A dishonest position is far
from Christianly scientific. "He that
covereth his sins shall not prosper: but
whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall
have mercy."
Truth is ever truthful, and can tolerate
no error in premise or conclusion. If you
wish to know the spiritual fact, you can
discover it by reversing the material
fable, be the fable pro or
con, — be it in accord with
your preconceptions or utterly contrary to
them.
The Christianly scientific man reflects
the divine law, thus becoming a law unto
himself. He does violence to no man.
Neither is he a false accuser. The
Christian Scientist wisely shapes his
course, and is honest and consistent in
following the leadings of divine
Mind.
(12) Ps
25:5, 10 (13)
Matt 7:13, 14 (16)
326:16-27 (17)
451:8-16 (18)
30:30 (19)
254:10-12 (15)
Gal 5:1, 7 (16) II
Tim 2:15, 22, 23 (17)
Eph 5:1, 11, 17 (21)
325:20-24 (22)
37:27-9 (23)
233:1 (24)
184:12 (26)
229:28-8 (27)
142:4, 31 (28)
150:4
(11)
Ps 119:30, 35, 37, 45, 105
I have chosen the way of truth: thy
judgments have I laid before me. Make me
to go in the path of thy commandments; for
therein do I delight. Turn away mine eyes
from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me
in thy way. And I will walk at liberty:
for I seek thy precepts. Thy word is a
lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my
path.
Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for
thou art the God of my salvation; on thee
do I wait all the day. All the paths of
the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as
keep his covenant and his
testimonies.
Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide
is the gate, and broad is the way, that
leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat: Because strait is the
gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth
unto life, and few there be that find
it.
(15)
241:23-27
One's aim, a point beyond faith, should be
to find the footsteps of Truth, the way to
health and holiness. We should strive to
reach the Horeb height where God is
revealed; and the corner-stone of all
spiritual building is purity.
The purpose and motive to live aright can
be gained now. This point won, you have
started as you should. You have begun at
the numeration-table of Christian Science,
and nothing but wrong intention can hinder
your advancement. Working and praying with
true motives, your Father will open the
way. "Who did hinder you, that ye should
not obey the truth?" Saul of Tarsus beheld
the way — the Christ, or Truth —
only when his uncertain sense of right
yielded to a spiritual sense, which is
always right. Then the man was changed.
Thought assumed a nobler outlook, and his
life became more spiritual.
Students of Christian Science, who start
with its letter and think to succeed
without the spirit, will either make
shipwreck of their faith or be turned
sadly awry. They must not only seek, but
strive, to enter the narrow path of Life,
for "wide is the gate, and broad is the
way, that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be which go in thereat." Man walks
in the direction towards which he looks,
and where his treasure is, there will his
heart be also.
We cannot choose for ourselves, but must
work out our salvation in the way Jesus
taught. In meekness and might, he was
found preaching the gospel to the poor.
Pride and fear are unfit to bear the
standard of Truth, and God will never
place it in such hands.
When we wait patiently on God and seek
Truth righteously, He directs our
path.
(14)
Prov 23:23
Buy the truth, and sell it not; also
wisdom, and instruction, and
understanding.
Stand fast therefore in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be
not entangled again with the yoke of
bondage. Ye did run well; who did hinder
you that ye should not obey the
truth?
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth. Flee
also youthful lusts: but follow
righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with
them that call on the Lord out of a pure
heart. But foolish and unlearned questions
avoid, knowing that they do gender
strifes.
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear
children; And have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather
reprove them. Wherefore be ye not unwise,
but understanding what the will of the
Lord is.
(20)
170:14-15
The demands of Truth are spiritual, and
reach the body through Mind.
Paul had a clear sense of the demands of
Truth upon mortals physically and
spiritually, when he said: "Present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your
reasonable service."
Hear these imperative commands: "Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect!" "Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel
to every creature!" "Heal the
sick!" Why has this Christian demand
so little inspiration to stir mankind to
Christian effort? Because men are assured
that this command was intended only for a
particular period and for a select number
of followers. This teaching is even more
pernicious than the old doctrine of
foreordination, — the election of a
few to be saved, while the rest are
damned; and so it will be considered, when
the lethargy of mortals, produced by
man-made doctrines, is broken by the
demands of divine Science.
Every day makes its demands upon us for
higher proofs rather than professions of
Christian power. These proofs consist
solely in the destruction of sin,
sickness, and death by the power of
Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is
an element of progress, and progress is
the law of God, whose law demands of us
only what we can certainly
fulfil.
Truth, Life, and Love are the only
legitimate and eternal demands on man, and
they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing
obedience through divine
statutes.
(18)
Mark 5:21-23, 35, 36, 38-42
And when Jesus was passed over again by
ship unto the other side, much people
gathered unto him: and he was nigh unto
the sea. And, behold, there cometh one of
the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by
name; and when he saw him, he fell at his
feet, And besought him greatly, saying, My
little daughter lieth at the point of
death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands
on her, that she may be healed; and she
shall live. While he yet spake, there came
from the ruler of the synagogue's house
certain which said, Thy daughter is dead:
why troublest thou the Master any further?
As soon as Jesus heard the word that was
spoken, he saith unto the ruler of the
synagogue, Be not afraid, only believe.
And he cometh to the house of the ruler of
the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and
them that wept and wailed greatly. And
when he was come in, he saith unto them,
Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel
is not dead, but sleepeth. And they
laughed him to scorn. But when he had put
them all out, he taketh the father and the
mother of the damsel, and them that were
with him, and entereth in where the damsel
was lying. And he took the damsel by the
hand, and said unto her, Talitha cumi;
which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say
unto thee, arise. And straightway the
damsel arose, and walked; for she was of
the age of twelve years. And they were
astonished with a great
astonishment.
(25) 146:23
Divine Science derives its sanction from
the Bible, and the divine origin of
Science is demonstrated through the holy
influence of Truth in healing sickness and
sin. This healing power of Truth must have
been far anterior to the period in which
Jesus lived. It is as ancient as "the
Ancient of days." It lives through all
Life, and extends throughout all
space.
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. If sickness is real, it
belongs to immortality; if true, it is a
part of Truth. Would you attempt with
drugs, or without, to destroy a quality or
condition of Truth? But if sickness and
sin are illusions, the awakening from this
mortal dream, or illusion, will bring us
into health, holiness, and immortality.
This awakening is the forever coming of
Christ, the advanced appearing of Truth,
which casts out error and heals the
sick.
Anciently the followers of Christ, or
Truth, measured Christianity by its power
over sickness, sin, and death; but modern
religions generally omit all but one of
these powers, — the power over sin.
We must seek the undivided garment, the
whole Christ, as our first proof of
Christianity, for Christ, Truth, alone can
furnish us with absolute evidence. Truth
is God's remedy for error of every kind,
and Truth destroys only what is untrue.
Hence the fact that, to-day, as yesterday,
Christ casts out evils and heals the
sick.
To-day the healing power of Truth is
widely demonstrated as an immanent,
eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal
exhibition. Its appearing is the coming
anew of the gospel of "on earth peace,
good-will toward men." This coming, as was
promised by the Master, is for its
establishment as a permanent dispensation
among men; but the mission of Christian
Science now, as in the time of its earlier
demonstration, is not primarily one of
physical healing. Now, as then, signs and
wonders are wrought in the metaphysical
healing of physical disease; but these
signs are only to demonstrate its divine
origin, — to attest the reality of
the higher mission of the Christ-power to
take away the sins of the
world.