IN a very wonderful chapter, the second chapter of First Corinthians, St. Paul sets forth a fundamental truth of Christian Science. He says, "Eye [sense testimony] hath not seen, nor ear [sense testimony] heard, neither have entered into the heart of [mortal] man, the things which God hath [already] prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." "Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual."
St. Paul declares that "the wisdom of God . . . even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory," is not to be understood, or in any degree found out, through sense-testimony, or through reasoning based on sense-testimony; but this wisdom—the glorious "things which God hath prepared"—is revealed "unto us by His Spirit," even "the deep things of God," "that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."
The practical question arises, What is the wisdom which the Holy Ghost teacheth? It is to be arrived at by accepting the revealed and intuitively perceived nature and characteristics of God, and, recognizing God as the only creator, by logically deducing from His nature and characteristics the nature of man and the universe, thus "comparing spiritual things with spiritual," and not letting sense-testimony, which is the "wisdom of this world," enter into the process at all. All Christians are agreed that, among other characteristics, God is Spirit, and is eternal and perfect. Since He would naturally make man, His child, in His own likeness, and since the Scriptures declare that He did so make man, it follows that man must be spiritual, eternal and perfect. This is part of the wisdom "which the Holy Ghost teacheth." If we take the testimony of the senses as evidence, and accept the conclusions arrived at from the basis of this testimony, thus comparing material things with material, we shall conclude that man is material, temporal, and imperfect,—a prey of ignorance, sickness, and sin.
