Human wisdom therefore can get no farther than to say, He knoweth that we have need of experience. Belief fulfils the conditions of a belief, and these conditions destroy the belief. Hence the verdict of experience: We have need of these things; we have need to know that the so-called pleasures and pains of matter—yea, that all subjective states of false sensation—are unreal.
“And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt, xix. 28.) What is meant by regeneration?
It is the appearing of divine law to human understanding; the spiritualization that comes from spiritual sense in contradistinction to the testimony of the so-called material senses. The phenomena of Spirit in Christian Science, and the divine correspondence of noumenon and phenomenon understood, are here signified. This new-born sense subdues not only the false sense of generation, but the human will, and the unnatural enmity of mortal man toward God. It quickly imparts a new apprehension of the true basis of being, and the spiritual foundation for the affections which enthrone the Son of man in the glory of his Father; and judges, through the stern mandate of Science, all human systems of etiology and teleology.
If God does not recognize matter, how did Jesus, who was “the way, the truth, and the life” cognize it?
Christ Jesus' sense of matter was the opposite of that which mortals entertain : his nativity was a spiritual and immortal sense of the ideal world. His earthly mission was to translate substance into its original meaning, Mind. He walked upon the waves; he turned the water into wine; he healed the sick and the sinner; he raised the dead, and rolled away the stone from the door of his own tomb. His demonstration of Spirit virtually vanquished matter and its supposed laws. Walking the wave, he proved the fallacy of the theory that matter is substance; healing through Mind, he removed any supposition that matter is intelligent, or can recognize or express pain and pleasure. His triumph over the grave was an everlasting victory for Life; it demonstrated the lifelessness of matter, and the power and permanence of Spirit. He met and conquered the resistance of the world.
If you will admit, with me, that matter is neither substance, intelligence, nor Life, you may have all that is left of it; and you will have touched the hem of the garment of Jesus' idea of matter. Christ was “the way;” since Life and Truth were the way that gave us, through a human person, a spiritual revelation of man's possible earthly development.
Why do you insist that there is but one Soul, and that Soul is not in the body?
First: I urge this fundamental fact and grand verity of Christian Science, because it includes a rule that must be understood, or it is impossible to demonstrate the Science. Soul is a synonym of Spirit, and God is Spirit. There is but one God, and the infinite is not within the finite; hence Soul is one, and is God; and God is not in matter or the mortal body.
Second: Because Soul is a term for Deity, and this term should seldom be employed except where the word God can be used and make complete sense. The word Soul may sometimes be used metaphorically; but if this term is warped to signify human quality, a substitution of sense for soul clears the meaning, and assists one to understand Christian Science. Mary's exclamation, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” is rendered in Science, “My spiritual sense doth magnify the Lord;” for the name of Deity used in that place does not bring out the meaning of the passage. It was evidently an illuminated sense through which she discovered the spiritual origin of man. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die,” means, that mortal man (alias material sense) that sinneth, shall die; and the commonly accepted view is that soul is deathless. Soul is the divine Mind—for Soul cannot be formed or brought forth by human thought—and must proceed from God; hence it must be sinless, and destitute of self-created or derived capacity to sin.
Third: Jesus said, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” This statement of our Master is true, and remains to be demonstrated; for it is the ultimatum of Christian Science; but this immortal saying can never be tested or proven true upon a false premise, such as the mortal belief that soul is in body, and life and intelligence are in matter. That doctrine is not theism, but pantheism. According to human belief the bodies of mortals are mortal, but they contain immortal souls! hence these bodies must die for these souls to escape and be immortal. The theory that death must occur, to set a human soul free from its environments, is rendered void by Jesus' divine declaration, who spake as never man spake—and no man can rationally reject his authority on this subject and accept it on other topics less important.
Now, exchange the term soul for sense whenever this word means the so-called soul in the body, and you will find the right meaning indicated. The misnamed human soul is material sense, which sinneth and shall die; for it is an error or false sense of mentality in matter, and matter has no sense. You will admit that Soul is the Life of man. Now if Soul sinned, it would die; for “the wages of sin is death.” The Scripture saith, “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.” The Science of Soul, Spirit, involves this appearing, and is essential to the fulfilment of this glorious prophecy of the master Metaphysician, who overcame the last enemy, death.
Did the salvation of the eunuch depend merely on his believing that Jesus Christ was the Son of God?
It did; but this believing was more than faith in the fact that Jesus was the Messiah. Here the verb believe took its original meaning, namely, to be firm—yea, to understand those great truths asserted of the Messiah; it meant to discern and consent to that infinite demand made upon the eunuch in those few words of the apostle. Philip's requirement was, that he should not only acknowledge the incarnation—God made manifest through man—but even the eternal unity of man and God, as the divine Principle and spiritual idea; which is the indissoluble bond of union, the power and presence, in divine Science, of Life, Truth, and Love, to support their ideal man. This is the Father's great Love that He hath bestowed upon us, and it holds man in endless Life and one eternal round of harmonious being. It guides him by Truth that knows no error, and with supersensual, impartial, and unquenchable Love. To believe is to be firm. In adopting all this vast idea of Christ Jesus, the eunuch was to know in whom he believed. To believe thus was to enter the spiritual sanctuary of Truth, and there learn, in divine Science, somewhat of the All-Father-Mother God. It was to understand God and man: it was sternly to rebuke the mortal belief that man has fallen away from his first estate; that man, made in God's own likeness, and reflecting Truth, could fall into mortal error; or, that man is the father of man. It was to enter unshod the Holy of Holies, where the miracle of grace appears, and where the miracles of Jesus had their birth—healing the sick, casting out evils, and resurrecting the human sense to the belief that Life, God, is not buried in matter. This is the spiritual dawn of the Messiah, and the overture of the angels. This is when God is made manifest in the flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and death—when the brightness of His glory encompasseth all being.
Can Christian Science Mind-healing be taught to those who are absent?
The Science of Mind-healing can no more be taught thus, than can science in any other direction. I know not how to teach either Euclid or the Science of Mind silently; and never dreamed that either of these partook of the nature of occultism, magic, alchemy, or necromancy. These “ways that are vain” are the inventions of animal magnetism, which would deceive, if possible, the very elect. We will charitably hope, however, that some people employ the et cetera of ignorance and self-conceit unconsciously, in their witless ventilation of false statements and claims. Misguiding the public mind and taking its money in exchange for this abuse, has become too common: we will hope it is the froth of error passing off; and that Christian Science will some
