tendencies, and relinquished the belief of substance-matter, and the “I” had become one with the Father. Then it was that our Master gained the solution of being, and learned of demonstration that there is but [ 46 ] one Mind, and he had no other. The Jews who sought to kill this man of God called themselves highly religious, but they show very plainly that their material views were the parent of their wicked deeds, for when Jesus spake of reproducing his own body—knowing, as he did, that Mind was the builder—and said, “Though you destroy this temple, yet will I build it again,” they thought he referred to a material temple. To them Spirit, God, was a mere ghost, unseen and unfamiliar, and the body they had laid in a sepulchre was substance. Through this materialism they lost sight of Jesus, just as Mary the penitent saw him, when he presented more than ever the true idea of God, of Life and substance; and because of their material and sinful beliefs, this idea was imperceptible to them. The higher Jesus demonstrated divine science, and wrought the problem of being, and made upon man the demands of its Principle—Truth and Love—the more odious he became to the world of belief that depends on doctrines and material law to save them from sin and sickness, and submits to death as the inevitable, even when Jesus proved it a falsity, and said, “They that believe on me shall never see death.”
That saying of our Master, “I and Father are one,” separated him from theology and the rabbis. His better understanding of God rebuked them; he knew there was but one Mind and laid no claim to any other; he knew that the “I” was Mind instead of body, and that sin and evil were not Mind; and because of his understanding of this divine science, it brought down upon him the anathemas of the world. It was their reversed views that hid from the eyes of the rabbis Jesus' sonship with God. They could not discern spiritual being; their carnal [ 47 ] minds were at enmity with it, and their thoughts were filled with mortal error instead of God's idea as presented by Jesus. The image and likeness of God we lose sight of through sin that beclouds the spiritual sense of Truth, and regain this likeness only as we subdue sin and obtain “dominion over earth,” even the liberty of the Elohim, or sons of God. The voice of Truth still calls, “Adam, where art thou?” Art thou believing that Mind is in matter, that evil is an intelligence, or art thou having no other Mind but God, and keeping the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other God before me”? Until it is learned that Mind is God and He governs man, mortal belief will be afraid, as its type was represented being, when the Adam hid itself from the inquiry, “Where art thou?” Do you regard intelligence as both good and evil? Every supposed pain and pleasure of material sense answers that inquiry with dismay and reckons against thy course Spiritward. “Adam, where art thou?” is met with reply from the head, heart, stomach, blood, nerves, etc. Lo, here thou art looking for happiness and Life in thy body, but finding a belief only of pleasure and of pain, sin, sickness, and death.
Life, Truth, and Love are not attributes of Deity; they are the highest terms we can employ to express God; they are primitives and not derivatives; nothing can be wiser than Wisdom nor truer than Truth. Life and Love have no superlatives. Goodness is not equal to the Principle of goodness.
The Hebrew lawgiver, Moses, said he was slow of speech, and despaired of making the people understand what was revealed to him through metaphysical science; even that all is Mind and there is no matter. But his [ 48 ] divine intuitions bade him cast down his rod and it became a serpent; then he was afraid and fled before it, but returned and handled the serpent and his fear fled; the actual of science was seen when the serpent became a symbol or rod. His belief that the rod was a serpent lost its power to alarm him when he understood that all he saw was but the different phases of belief. The test of leprosy, as a thing of mortal fear instead of matter, was conclusive when he put his hand into his bosom, and drew it forth leprous as snow, and again put it into his bosom and took it out, and behold it was as other flesh. Then was metaphysical science discerned, and it became to him the voice of God, and it said, “It shall come to pass if they will not hear thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter.” And so it was in the coming centuries when the science of being was demonstrated by Jesus; and he taught his students the power of Mind, and changed the water into wine, taught them how they could handle serpents and take deadly drugs unharmed, heal the sick, etc., and they understood the supremacy of Spirit and the Truth of being.
The mission of Jesus confirmed the prophecy and explained the miracle in the history of Moses, and the demonstration of that divine power established his claim as the Messiah. In reply to John's inquiry, “Art thou He that should come?” He returned a brief affirmative by recounting his deeds instead of words, confident that his exhibition of the divine power to heal would answer that question to one who had prophesied of its appearing. Hence his reply, “Go and show John again these things ye see and hear—the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, etc., and blessed is he who shall not be offended in [ 49 ] me,” in other words, who shall not deny that such effects resulting from Mind proved his unity with God, the divine Principle that brings out the harmony of being. Again, Jesus instructed his students, as proof of their Christianity, to heal the sick through Mind instead of matter, knowing, as he did, that Truth casting out error must heal. In the Latin, disciple signifies student, showing that healing was not a gift to them but the understanding that he imparted of the divine science which he taught; therefore, said he, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them who shall understand through the word.”
In the original Scriptures metaphor abounded, and names were significant of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished theologians in Europe and America, among whom are Dean Stanley, J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D. W. Marks, Professor of Hebrew, etc., agree that the Scriptures have both a spiritual and material signification. In Smith's Bible Dictionary they write, “The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest upon both the literal and moral,” and quote the following original text, “Jehovah said, My spirit shall not forever be humble in men, seeing that they are or in their error, they are but flesh.” The spiritual fact of being, namely, man's eternal and harmonious existence as idea instead of matter, as a thought of God, and that thought governed by Him, was not forever to be humbled with the admission or belief that man is flesh and in matter, for in that error man is mortal.
The divine science of the original texts came through inspiration, and must be taught by the inspired to be understood; hence the misapprehension of the spiritual meaning and the misstatement of the word in some instances by the uninspired writer. A misplaced [ 50 ] preposition would change the sense and misstate the science of the Scripture, for instance, the Love of God instead of “God is Love,” the Truth of God when God is Truth, the Life of God, when it is plainly declared, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The way is straight and narrow that leads to the understanding that God is Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, whereby we conquer sin, sickness, and death, now or hereafter, but certainly before we can reach the goal of Spirit, or Life, which is God. The only correct rendering of the Scripture is its spiritual sense. Before knowledge increased, spiritual sense, more than what is termed material sense, governed man. The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God consciously, even as others, through a supposed material sense, hear what is not Truth and talk with error. When Jacob wrestled with a man it was not a personality but a sensual belief, and he wrestled “until daybreak,” until the light of divine science revealed the great fact of being, that there are no material senses, and man is spiritual and pure as his Maker, that a material conception of Life is an error and is not the Truth of being. When this divine science dawned upon him he saw that man was the image and likeness of God, of purity, and perfection, and he also saw that as such he could not be maimed or lose one jot of his completeness. Then Jacob rose in the majesty of his Maker, the One Mind, to destroy the error of material belief, that there are minds many, and thus to reflect his spiritual origin. Then he healed the shrunk sinew. The result of his struggle then appeared: he had conquered those material beliefs with the understanding of Spirit, God, and of spiritual being, and it changed the man, and his name was [ 51 ] no longer called Jacob but Israel, and he was to become the father of such as followed this spiritual demonstration and Christian healing, and the children of earth who followed his example should be called the children of Israel. And if these children should go astray and forget the spiritual foundation of God's people, and thus lose the divine
