In their Scriptural order, among the most inspiring and important documents ever written are the record of Abraham's life, the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount. They show the primal and progressive appearing on earth of the eternal Christ-idea with its spiritual revelation of the truth of man, the way of its unfoldment, and the method of its demonstration among men.
The unfolding of this idea was evidenced when Abraham founded a nation and Moses advanced it Spiritward through his understanding of the moral law. In due course the full advent of this Messianic appearing came with the healing ministry of Christ Jesus to mankind. Here was a teacher endowed with the ideal Truth and possessed of a fuller, deeper, more demonstrable understanding of God than had heretofore been known in this world. This was evidenced in his Sermon on the Mount, the new dispensation of spiritual Love revealing the man of spiritual origin and parentage stated in the text (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."'
Christian Science now presents and elucidates this teaching of the Christ; and Christian Science practice, following the rule of perfection stated in the Sermon on the Mount, is always the law of divine reflection in operation. As Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 259), "The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea,—perfect God and perfect man,—as the basis of thought and demonstration." Christian Science recognizes no opposition to omnipotence, no unlikeness to the infinite God, good. Through our spiritual understanding of this Science we see man as the expression of perfect Life, divine Spirit. We know that he cannot assume a mortal status or manifest a discordant condition. In the universe of Truth's creating no such deflection of God's being has any entity or existence.
