Would you be on the side of God's law at all times—the law that upholds your divine right to manifest health, intelligence, useful activity, and joyous accomplishment? It is the precious privilege of men and nations to know and to obey spiritual law that the power of infinite good may be enlisted in their behalf. Christian Science is a heaven-sent revelation of the availability and inviolate authority of divine law, to which all men may turn for protection of their rights and their God-given heritage of freedom. Indeed, Mary Baker Eddy defines this Science in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 1) thus: "As the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of universal harmony."
The opportunity to escape the thralldom of materiality is universal, but the obligation involved rests upon the individual. Each one is responsible for his own thinking. The bewildered and downcast are given comforting assurance in Mrs. Eddy's statement on page 263 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" which reads, "When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, he will no longer grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven." These words of gracious import hold for all a bright promise of deliverance from earthborn cares and burdens. They open new vistas to the needy in every walk of life and to the fearful and distraught in every land.
Nothing can prevent us from making an honest effort to blend our thoughts of existence with the spiritual, for we are divinely supported in this ennobling endeavor. Our Leader's writings, illuming the treasured teachings of the Bible, provide instruction and guidance on this point. Wherever we may be or however unhappy our lot, we can at once turn our thought away from self to God. We can dwell upon the ever-presence of divine Love rather than upon the seeming enormity of our difficulties. We can realize the oneness and allness of God, good, and claim man's birthright of safety and peace in His omnipresence.
Through spiritualization of thought, every honest seeker can prove that the merciful decrees of the all-knowing, all-loving God, the one lawmaker, ensure release from the bondage and misery which beset a material sense of existence. In exchanging material concepts for the spiritual facts of being, we are not ignoring what seem to be pressing problems and troublesome situations; we are bringing God's law to bear upon our thoughts and experiences. God's law, understood and applied, brings liberation from the suffering and despair which sadden earthly experience.
God's law is the activity of what St. Paul terms "that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2). God's will is a law of harmony, completeness, and joyous accomplishment in the here and now of Mind's omnipresence and omnipotence. Purpose and fulfillment coexist in Mind. In human experience the operation of God's law unfolds the immediateness, as well as the infinitude, of Love's bestowals. Divine law is no respecter of persons, but ensures instant provision for all. As we blend our thoughts of existence with the spiritual, we let the law of good assert its harmonizing effect in our lives. The healings wrought in Christian Science furnish concrete evidence of this heartening fact.
The writer's own healing is one such example. Forty-seven years ago she was led to read the Christian Science textbook after seeing a member of her family instantaneously healed through the work of a practitioner. She opened Science and Health with a sense of curiosity, mixed with prejudice and doubt. Sick and discouraged, she entertained no hope of being healed of the difficulty, which had been medically diagnosed as incurable. However, the opening sentence in the Preface to the book brought hope and comfort and an eagerness to continue reading.
The pages seemed illumined with inspired utterances. The writer's thought was uplifted and strengthened, her fears were calmed, and a quiet sense of peace and joy possessed her. Physical improvement quickly became apparent, and complete healing resulted from a few weeks' earnest perusal of the book.
That healing has stood through the years, which have been filled with activity, freedom, and the accomplishment of necessary tasks. The reading of Science and Health had transformed her thinking, causing it to blend, in some degree, with the spiritual sense of existence, and God's law of harmony asserted its authority over the beliefs of lawless material sense manifested in a sick body. As naturally as light dispels gloom, the false beliefs and their objectified manifestation of inharmony were obliterated in the spiritually enlightened sense of being which was imparted.
Verily, the merciful edicts and verdicts of divine Mind, God, afford redress from the cruel impositions of the mortal, or carnal, mind. This so-called mind the Apostle Paul declares to be "enmity against God." Obviously, whatever militates against God, good, is contrary to the law of good, and Christian Science shows us how to be rid of this false, mesmeric state of thinking, which fetters and misleads mankind.
With divine persuasion the Christ, Truth, is calling men from toilsome striving and aimless groping in the wilderness of material-mindedness to the contemplation and demonstration of ever-present, all-embracing Life and Love, omnipotent Principle, which holds man and the universe in the rhythmic order of being. To this end, divine Love mercifully compels us to forsake ephemeral, material viewpoints of existence for the Christ-idea of being which Jesus taught and illustrated in his unparalleled dominion over materiality. His sublime utterances and compassionate healing works betoken a Christly vision of reality which pierced the illusive veil of mortal sense and dissipated its flimsy pretenses. He said (John 5:17), "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." To work only as God works is to be obedient to the will of God, good—to reflect divine law.
In the welter of conflicting material interests, it is not always easy to distinguish God's will from our own. But in the inner sanctuary of prayerful listening, the clamor of pride and self-will is silenced and we become receptive to the law of Love. With searching insight into the tenacity of the human will, or carnal mind, our Leader says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 208), "Mortals have only to submit to the law of God, come into sympathy with it, and to let His will be done." And a few lines farther on she continues: "But who is willing to do His will or to let it be done? Mortals obey their own wills, and so disobey the divine order."
We sometimes fetter our experience with circumscribed human outlining, which obscures the wide horizon of good that Love is waiting to unfold. We can safely trust the unerring wisdom of Him who keepeth watch over the universe and leave the disposal of events to Him. Right ideas cannot fail in the accomplishment of their Principle-directed purpose, for the law of good preserves, protects, and defends them. They are safe in Mind and must ultimately be accepted and utilized in correcting discordant situations.
When assailed by beliefs of cruel injustice and disadvantage, we need to remember that God, Love, is the all-encompassing Principle of man's being, imparting life, health, intelligence, and supply in balanced abundance. His measureless mercies cannot be monopolized or dissipated through faulty distribution. Spiritual power is ever present, as available to one as to another. All true good is universal and impartial and can be instantly discerned and used by everyone. There is not more health in one place than in another, for health is the consciousness of man's wholeness and completeness; and this is man's God-bestowed consciousness here and now. There is not more advantage or opportunity in one corner of the universe than in supposedly less-favored places. The universe of Mind expresses the equipoise and equipollence of good.
The immediateness of perfection is the forever fact of being. Matter does not express perfection, and the Christian Scientist does not expect to find perfection in matter. Matter is a false concept of life and substance; therefore it is temporal, transitory, unreal. Perfect man and perfect universe exist as a present spiritual fact in Mind. Mind expresses itself in ideas which are intelligent, harmonious, beautiful, practical, adaptable to specific needs. Mind teems with spiritual intuitions which impart the benisons of heaven to receptive hearts in every land. There is no iron curtain of ignorance, opposition, hate, or fear to obscure Mind's ever-present, saving ideas. The ready hand of omnipotence knows no hindrance or delay.
In the radiance of Mind's revelation of intelligent ideas, material concepts or gloomy mortal mind pictures are obliterated and a more harmonious consciousness of life and substance unfolds. It matters not whether the material concept be objectified as a lonely, sick mortal or as a chaotic world of conflicting ideologies involving millions of mortals. Through holy upliftment of thought to the discernment of spiritual truths, the law of Love is brought to bear upon our troubled sense of existence. God's law dispels false evidence and establishes in our consciousness the spiritual sense of man's harmonious existence as the idea of Mind. Divine law is universal, ageless, changeless, forever unfolding all-harmonious Life and its immortal manifestation in the beauty and order of being.
Exercising our God-given ability to think rightly, we can dismiss fruitless wondering and wishful wandering and turn our mental footsteps homeward to the divine order of being. Thus, every inhabitant of earth can find within his own transformed consciousness of existence the heaven of his hopes and prayers. He can know with certainty that he is on the side of the law of God. Glimpsing the happy status of man under the government of divine Principle, he can experience the security expressed in the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 37:23, 31): "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. ...The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide."
Assurance and expectancy of good permeate these words. The truth they so simply express operates as a law of annulment to the belief that the way of progress is a hard way, marked by earth-bound footsteps, missteps, and mistakes, all of which are unknown to Mind and its perfect idea, man. The law of good provides for the ceaseless unfoldment of Love's ideas, illuming our upward way. Therefore, when mortal mind presents its frightening pictures for our acceptance, let us blend our thoughts of existence with the spiritual, work only as God works, and reason from the standpoint of perfection, not imperfection. We can confidently claim and assuredly prove that the law of good holds man at the standpoint of receptivity to the manifold bestowals of His love.
The man of God's creating includes in his being all that is essential to blissful living—health, capacity, freedom, harmony, joy, and prestige. Man is the spiritual idea of perfect Mind, and the spiritual idea is inseparable from its creator. The understanding that man reflects infinite intelligence enables us under all circumstances to think clearly, correctly, and fruitfully. Through divinely empowered thoughts God unfolds ever-present good. The attainment of man's noble destiny of harmony and sinless joy is our God-given right.
Would we demonstrate our true status as sons of God? Then let us blend our thoughts of existence with the spiritual and work only as God works. Let us obey the law of good, and God's law will uphold us in all our ways. Thus we shall find that we are on the side of God's law, the law of good, of Principle.
