A Good many Christian people are familiar with the statement that "man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever;" in other words, that this is the purpose for which man exists. In this connection Mrs. Eddy says: "God, without the image and likeness of Himself, would be a nonentity, or Mind unexpressed. He would be without a witness or proof of His own nature" (Science and Health, p. 303) Unfortunately, much of the religious teaching of the past has tended to make men believe that they were glorifying God when their words and actions were in marked contrast to the divine nature, and thus the divine purpose was to a large extent lost sight of. The perpetual declaration that man is a miserable sinner could reflect little credit upon the character of an all-wise creator, of whom it is written, "He doeth according to his will . . . among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" Here it is well to recall the statement of our text-book that "perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,"—should ever be "the basis of thought and demonstration" (Science and Health, p. 259)
In Christian Science we need to guard against the false humility which would degrade man and thus deny the divine likeness, and at the same time we must keep equally clear of the "presumptuous sins" which would lead one to claim a likeness to God while disobedient to His law. Christ Jesus defined most unequivocally the right mental attitude in his demand, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." When he was challenged for his bold declarations as to the spiritual man's unity with God, and when his opponents threatened to stone him for these declarations, he attempted to show them that this great truth was the basis of his healing work. He also appealed to their accepted religious teaching in these words: "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" He added, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not."
Here the student of Christian Science may well pause and ask himself whether he is following in the Master's footsteps, by holy living and Christlike activity, in such a way as to justify his claim to divine sonship. Christ Jesus certainly never sought to limit or restrict the unfoldment of man's unity with God, for he prayed, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." On this point our revered Leader says. "The more I understand true humanhood, the more I see it to be sinless, — as ignorant of sin as is the perfect Maker" (Unity of Good, p. 49). On page 52 she shows "the need that human consciousness should become divine, in the coincidence of God and man, in contradistinction to the false consciousness of both good and evil, God and devil, — of man separated from his Maker."
