THE word "chasten" is defined, in part, in Webster's International Dictionary in the following words: "To purify from errors or faults; to refine."
On page 322 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science. Without this process of weaning, 'Canst thou by searching find out God?'"
Whether his disobedience be willful or due to the influence of his associates, a child's failure to heed the instruction of his human parent may result in his experiencing trouble; and in this manner he may quickly learn the need and value of right thinking and acting. Thus, while there may not have been direct correction by the parent, who may indeed have been entirely ignorant of the happening, a chastened child generally emerges corrected from the experience.
God's government and protection of His universe inhere in His unchanging law, which absolutely and perfectly controls all true being. This law requires of us, in our thinking and living, positive adherence to Truth and expression of "the fruit of the Spirit," such as love, joy, strength, serenity, peace, restfulness, and every specific quality of God required to overcome every specific form of error that in belief may appear to assail us.
Failure to think the thoughts that God imparts makes one appear to express much that is not Godlike, although it is only to mortal consciousness that this false sense of things appears real. To reward sinful action with good would not be in accordance with divine justice; and if one were to remain governed by mortal thinking instead of by spiritual understanding, one could not receive the reward of spiritual peace, power, and freedom which must always accompany true spiritual thinking.
God, however, does not punish, since He knows only perfection; neither does He send affliction in order that mankind may become purified through suffering. Affliction is the result of error, belief in something apart from God, good, destroying itself. God, being unchanging good, could neither create nor send anything foreign to His own nature; and spiritual man receives, reflects, and expresses nothing unlike Him. Sin, sickness, and lack—conditions neither of nor from God—are the result of failure to express goodness, health, and plenty, man's God-given attributes, which belong to him by decree of divine law. This law is always operative; and whenever one turns confidently, understandingly, and unreservedly to it, he can demonstrate its power over every untoward material and physical condition.
Mrs. Eddy writes (ibid., p. 261), "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts." If undenied by the application of one's knowledge of divine Science, the collective thinking of mortals may have its effect on the individual's thought; and this influence may be either known or unknown to him. The general thinking of mankind brings its effect into manifestation as a physical or material fact; but since material thinking is not from God, the result is not spiritually true. Genuine, unified thinking, however, can never be other than spiritual.
There is no truly unified material thinking; and the teaching of one sect or school is contradicted by adherents of some other material theory or belief. Opposing trends of human thought cause doubt, uncertainty, inharmony, and fear, with apparent physical manifestations, such as strife, war, disease, and death. Happily, by God's law of progress, human thought is purified and chastened as it receives spiritual enlightenment. Eventually, collective right thinking will fully express the truth about God's entire creation—will bring true being into human experience here and now; the so-called physical realm will yield to harmony; and, finally, sin, lack, disease, death, all materiality, will be unknown.
One of the religious tenets of Christian Science is as follows (ibid., p. 497; Manual, p. 15): "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts." "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth," that is, purifies from error. God loves understanding, ceaselessly, all that He has created. Human concepts of His creation are chastened —purified—through the Christ, the ever present manifestation of God. This deliverance from error is experienced as "demonstration," the responding of human thought to God's law, the manifestation in chastened human consciousness of spiritual power over material resistance.
God's response to prayer is realized by men whenever their desire is spiritually lawful; when their mental work conforms to scientific rule. Prayer should be based on perfect confidence in the absolute and immutable goodness of God, and an understanding of man's relation to Him. To be spiritually lawful, desire must be chastened, purified from selfishness and enmity. Thus, receptivity, understanding, and love are essential qualities of prayer. Jesus said: "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. And when ye stand praying, forgive."
When God purifies the heart by faith, the market is sacred as well as the sanctuary; neither remaineth there any work or place which is profane.
