Benediction and blessing are the outflow of demonstration and revelation. Without an understanding of Principle, we can know nothing of God. Without the rule of the Principle, we could not demonstrate a knowledge of God. Without an educated understanding of how to handle the rule of the Principle, we could not pick the jewels from the Rock of Ages; hence we must all be taught of God.
Jesus was a healer, a teacher, and a preacher. So was Paul. It is through the understanding of the Principle and a knowledge of how to use the rule, that we learn how to heal, teach and preach the word of God. It is a noticeable fact that the disciples of Jesus did not preach the Law of Love until they first knew how to heal and teach. The rule is that we first begin to gather the gems of Science through healing; then the footsteps are progressive, and we glean a higher Light through teaching. Rising away from the beliefs of sense thought becomes freer, and we are clothed with the gift of preaching. But the three are one, and they cannot be divided, for as we heal we teach, and as we teach we preach. So the established rule in Science is that no man is called to be a preacher unless he can know his calling to be of God in his ability to heal, teach and preach the word of Life.
It is thus that his discipleship bears the seal of Christ. "Christ has come with healing in his wings," and "we shall all be taught of God," is the mandate of the Scripture. It is the medicine of Mind that heals, teaches and preaches; and we find that the Scripture denounces the healing of matter. "Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines; for thou shalt not be cured." Jer. 46:11. "There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines." Jer. 30: 13. "For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." Jer. 30:17. "Behold I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth." Jer. 33: 6. Here surely, the promise is fruitful. Turning away from matter to Mind, the prophet cried out, "Heal me O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise" Jer. 17: 14. The 58th chapter of Isaiah treats of the abolition of error, and the lifting from oppression and the yoke; the whole chapter is radiant with promised fruit:—"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. . . . And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."
