According to Bible history, King David refused to heed God's command not to number the people. Instead, he allowed Satan to "provoke" him into counting the numerical strength of the Israelites, despite the warning of Joab, captain of David's army. It is related further: "And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel."I Chron. 21:7;
God is infinite good and does not punish us. But there is a practical spiritual message behind the warning to David: rely on human personality and material resources and your spiritual capacity to heal is "smitten" by a physical sense of God and man.
Mrs. Eddy, to protect her Church— and its mission to restore primitive Christian healing—from the temptation of the human mind to look at all things materially, wrote a By-Law entitled "Numbering the People." It reads: "Christian Scientists shall not report for publication the number of the members of The Mother Church, nor that of the branch churches. According to the Scripture they shall turn away from personality and numbering the people."Manual of The Mother Church, Art. VIII, Sect. 28;
