ONE of the many reasons for which the Christian Scientist has a deep and continuing sense of gratitude is this: his religion demonstrates that neither disease nor sin originates in what is called matter or physical structure. Contrariwise, divine Science proves beyond question in this age, as Christ Jesus proved centuries ago, that all baneful and restrictive bodily conditions are fundamentally mental and not material.
These valuable scientific truths are made accessible to humanity now through Christian Science, discovered and founded by Mary Baker Eddy. In Science and Health, she states (Pref., p. xi), "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."
The foregoing quotation renders groundless the mistaken suggestion that the physical and moral healings accomplished by Christ Jesus and his disciples and those demonstrated today in the practice of Christian Science healing are even remotely connected with materially mental methods attempting to show the superiority of mind over matter. In divine Science the ministrations of the one pure divine Mind, God, are the all-inclusive and the all-exclusive means of purifying, healing, uplifting, and governing human consciousness.
The instantaneous healing of the leper by the Saviour is a perfect example of Christian healing and its purifying spiritual effects on mind and body. As is recorded in the eighth chapter of Matthew this man humbly approached Jesus with a resolute faith that God's chosen messenger, Christ Jesus, could by spiritual means alone heal him. He said to the Master (verse 2), "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean."
Jesus lovingly replied, asserting his God-bestowed spiritual nature, "I will; be thou clean."
Here was the divine influence shining forth through the pure spiritual consciousness of the Master and reflected in the receptive human consciousness of the leper. The natural result was that the dread disease was proved unreal, and it vanished from thought, leaving the man in his natural state of wholeness.
Today, as aforetime, the mentally fettering belief of the carnal or mortal mind that one's individual life, true sensation, and intelligence are physical in origin and content fades into its native nothingness before the light of divine Truth expressed in receptive spiritualized human consciousness. Then ignorance of good and the deleterious suggestions of fear and its related sufferings lose their hold on thought, and health, joy, progress, and happiness result naturally in daily experience.
The teachings of Christian Science are proved to be a heaven-born gift to humanity. They are as demonstrable as are the inspired teachings of the Scriptures. The divine facts of spiritual being revealed to Mrs. Eddy have no merely traditional origin or ritualistic nature. Contrariwise, spiritual Science represents the Comforter, who, as Christ Jesus promised, would lead all men who honestly and humbly seek Christ, Truth, into a demonstrable understanding of man's present, perfect, and eternal nature as God's changeless image and likeness.
The tender healing and redeeming Christ, Truth, constantly knocks at the door of human consciousness for admission. It is therein that the Christ delivers its messages from God to men and brings healing of sin and sickness on its wings.
When, through meekness and pure desires for good, Truth is admitted to human consciousness, the natural and glorious relation of Christ and true humanhood becomes actively and fruitfully apparent. Then a closer relationship between the divine realities of spiritual being, created by God, Spirit, and heaven-bound human consciousness inevitably results. The transformation which the divine ideas of God bring to receptive thought is the harbinger of mental and bodily vigor, wholesome living, happiness, and longevity.
Christian Science is not a mere system of asceticism. However, it does emphasize the advantages gained by the consistent conformity to this beatitude imparted by the Way-shower (Matt. 5:8): "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Pure-mindedness, a natural quality of true manhood and womanhood, enables its possessor to express good naturally and joyously in daily doings. It makes one feel good, reflect good, and accomplish good progressively and selflessly.
Before an increasing sense that being is spiritual, born of Spirit, God, so-called faulty, morose, and sullen dispositional beliefs and tendencies disappear. Moreover, one is mentally alerted to the dangers which self-indulgence imposes and which are inimical to spiritual progress and to the true satisfaction such progress brings to one's human experience. An increasing understanding of divine Love's ability and willingness to satisfy every human need in the most desirable and wholesome manner enables one to exercise daily purity of thought and action.
Aggressive and highly misleading advertising of liquor, tobacco, and material remedies as salutary and helpful does not mislead the thought that is conscious of God's gifts of health, happiness, and an abundance of that which is actually substantial and completely satisfying.
The teachings of true Christianity reveal that divine blessings emanating from God meet all human needs and supply every good thing to mankind individually and collectively. Christ Jesus proved this in his feeding the multitudes and healing all manner of ills among the people. God and His Christ are indeed as near and dear to us today as in times past. Our Leader continues on the page of the Preface of Science and Health from which a sentence was quoted earlier in this article: "Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or 'God with us,'— a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised."
Every earnest desire to obey God's will is blessed by the Father and Mother of all. God's divinely operative, impartial impulsion sparks such desire and brings it to fruition. Jesus was keenly mindful of God's purpose for each of us: to fulfill the divine command to understand and practice divine Love's healing power, and he urged each of us to go and preach the Word of God to all mankind. What joy and satisfaction come to those who obey this divine demand and through Christian Science preach to receptive hearts man's at-one-ment with God and the ever-presence of His Christ, which heals and saves!
Spiritual sense, developed through the study and application of divine Science, is found to be man's original, and actually perpetual, God-given sense of being. As one daily exercises spirituality, vistas of man's eternal unity with his Maker, divine Life and Love, unfold in all their glory and usefulness in human consciousness and experience.
Beliefs of mental or physical stagnation or of impairment cannot enter such an exalted sense of being. Spiritualized consciousness builds a more harmonious body, an improved, more unselfed sense of home and human relationships; thus a more progressive manner of daily living generally becomes axiomatic.
We are spiritually endowed here and now with the joyous privilege of daily becoming more aware of and more responsive to the divine influence in human consciousness of ever-present, omniactive, divine Life and Love. The all-inclusive presence of divine Mind is also the all-exclusive power to everything unlike itself. These divinely scientific facts are a law of elimination to present so-called aggressive evils—personal, political, malicious, ignorant, resentful, retaliatory, or dominating.
In Christian Science, power is proved to be created and maintained exclusively by God, who is divine, changeless good and is expressed in ever-present Christ, Truth. This power is ours to manifest as children of the one Father-Mother. On page 160 of Miscellany, our beloved Leader writes, "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science."
