One of the passages most frequently quoted by Christian Scientists from their textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"by Mary Baker Eddy, is the definition of "Church," found on page 583. The first paragraph of this definition reads as follows: "Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle."
It is obvious that "the structure of Truth and Love" is the invisible, spiritual Church, which is sometimes referred to as "the Church Universal and Triumphant." It is that Church to which Paul referred in his epistle to the Ephesians, when he said, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." It is "whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." That which proceeds from Principle, Spirit, God, is of course His expression or idea, and is altogether spiritual. It cannot be humanly conceived, but is spiritually discerned. It transcends the finite sense of church, which has need of a human organization through which to function, and a material edifice in which to worship.
The true spiritual Church, being infinite, like its Principle, divine Mind, expresses the quality of omnipresence. One cannot be where Church is not. Church reflects qualities that are spiritual and divine, such as unity, oneness, indivisibility, harmony, eternality, completeness, perfection. It is preserved, sustained, supplied, controlled, directed, and protected by Principle—Life, Truth, Love. The real Church is that to which the Revelator referred when he wrote, "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it," and of which he said, "There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."
