Chapter IX
255:1Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mor‐tals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought 3Inadequate theories of creationexpands into expression. “Let there be light,” is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the 6music of the spheres. The mythical human theories of creation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprang from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they 9afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by the divine Mind.
Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to be‐12Finite views of Deitylittle Deity with human conceptions. In league with material sense, mortals take limited views of all things. That God is corporeal or material, no man 15should affirm.
The human form, or physical finiteness, cannot be made the basis of any true idea of the infinite Godhead. 18Eye hath not seen Spirit, nor hath ear heard His voice.
256256:1 Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of ac‐3No material creationtion, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the in‐spirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. All 6things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the creator. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man.
9 The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a per‐Tritheism impossiblesonal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polythe‐ism, rather than the one ever-present I am. 12“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.”
The everlasting I am is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can 15No divine corporealityHe be understood aright through mortal con‐cepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance in comparison with the sublime ques‐18tion, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?
Who is it that demands our obedience? He who, in the language of Scripture, “doeth according to His will 21in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest Thou?”
24 No form nor physical combination is adequate to rep‐resent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God leads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit of 27Christianity.
A limitless Mind cannot proceed from physical limita‐tions. Finiteness cannot present the idea or the vast‐30Limitless Mindness of infinity. A mind originating from a finite or material source must be limited and finite. Infinite Mind is the creator, and creation is the 257 257:1infinite image or idea emanating from this Mind. If Mind is within and without all things, then all is Mind; 3and this definition is scientific.
If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit, matter’s unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce 6Matter is not substancesubstance. The theory that Spirit is not the only substance and creator is pantheistic het‐erodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is 9the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soul governed by the body and a mind in matter. This be‐lief is shallow pantheism.
12 Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the sub‐stance of an idea is very far from being the supposed sub‐stance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind 15 is not the father of matter. The material senses and human conceptions would translate spiritual ideas into material beliefs, and would say that an anthropomorphic 18God, instead of infinite Principle, — in other words, divine Love, — is the father of the rain, “who hath begotten the drops of dew,” who bringeth “forth Mazzaroth in his sea‐21son,” and guideth “Arcturus with his sons.”
Finite mind manifests all sorts of errors, and thus proves the material theory of mind in matter to be the 24Inexhaustible divine Loveantipode of Mind. Who hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human want and woe, — to still the desires, to satisfy the aspira‐27tions? Infinite Mind cannot be limited to a finite form, or Mind would lose its infinite character as inexhaustible Love, eternal Life, omnipotent Truth.
30 It would require an infinite form to contain infinite Mind. Indeed, the phrase infinite form involves a con‐tradiction of terms. Finite man cannot be the image and 258 258:1likeness of the infinite God. A mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of 3Infinite physique impossiblelimitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a 6material belief in a physical God and man. The insuffi‐ciency of this belief to supply the true idea proves the falsity of material belief.
9 Man is more than a material form with a mind inside, Infinity’s reflectionwhich must escape from its environments in order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, 12and this reflection is the true idea of God.
God expresses in man the infinite idea forever develop‐ing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from 15a boundless basis. Mind manifests all that exists in the infinitude of Truth. We know no more of man as the true divine image and likeness, than we know of 18God.
The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses 21have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in propor‐tion as humanity gains the true conception of man and 24God.
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him 27Individual permanencybelongs eternal Life. Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his 30high estate.
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the 259 259:1generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and God’s man discernedman cannot lose his individuality, for he re‐3flects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, soli‐tary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.
6 In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted 9their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of 12scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Prin‐ciple and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.
15 If man was once perfect but has now lost his perfection, then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image The divine image not lostof God. The lost image is no image. The 18true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection. Understanding this, Jesus said: “Be ye there‐fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 21perfect.”
Mortal thought transmits its own images, and forms its offspring after human illusions. God, Spirit, works 24Immortal modelsspiritually, not materially. Brain or matter never formed a human concept. Vibration is not intelligence; hence it is not a creator. Immortal 27ideas, pure, perfect, and enduring, are transmitted by the divine Mind through divine Science, which corrects error with truth and demands spiritual thoughts, divine 30concepts, to the end that they may produce harmonious results.
Deducing one’s conclusions as to man from imperfec‐260260:1tion instead of perfection, one can no more arrive at the true conception or understanding of man, and make him‐3self like it, than the sculptor can perfect his outlines from an imperfect model, or the painter can depict the form and face of Jesus, while holding in thought the character 6of Judas.
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through 9Spiritual discoverymany generations human beliefs will be attain‐ing diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God’s creation will finally be seen as 12the only true conception of being.
Science reveals the possibility of achieving all good, and sets mortals at work to discover what God has already 15done; but distrust of one’s ability to gain the goodness desired and to bring out better and higher results, often hampers the trial of one’s wings and ensures failure at the 18outset.
Mortals must change their ideals in order to improve Requisite change of our idealstheir models. A sick body is evolved from 21sick thoughts. Sickness, disease, and death proceed from fear. Sensualism evolves bad physical and moral conditions.
24 Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one’s self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation of 27perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal 30nature.
If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, 261 261:1we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Thoughts are thingsLook away from the body into Truth and Love, 3the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the endur‐ing, the good, and the true, and you will bring these 6into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
The effect of mortal mind on health and happiness is 9seen in this: If one turns away from the body with such Unreality of painabsorbed interest as to forget it, the body experiences no pain. Under the strong im‐12pulse of a desire to perform his part, a noted actor was accustomed night after night to go upon the stage and sustain his appointed task, walking about as actively 15as the youngest member of the company. This old man was so lame that he hobbled every day to the theatre, and sat aching in his chair till his cue was spoken, — a signal 18which made him as oblivious of physical infirmity as if he had inhaled chloroform, though he was in the full pos‐session of his so-called senses.
21 Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning Immutable identity of manof God, or good, and the nature of the immu‐24table and immortal. Breaking away from the mutations of time and sense, you will neither lose the solid objects and ends of life nor your own iden‐27tity. Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a 30skyward flight.
We should forget our bodies in remembering good and the human race. Good demands of man every hour, in 262 262:1which to work out the problem of being. Consecration to good does not lessen man’s dependence on God, but 3Forgetfulness of selfheightens it. Neither does consecration di‐minish man’s obligations to God, but shows the paramount necessity of meeting them. Christian 6Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but it ascribes to Him the entire glory. By putting “off the old man with his deeds,” mortals “put on immortality.”
9 We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God’s creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse our feeble flutterings — our efforts to find 12life and truth in matter — and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the God-15like man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.
Job said: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the 18ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee.” Mortals will echo The true senseJob’s thought, when the supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate. They 21will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God. 24Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontane‐ously, even as light emits light without effort; for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
27 The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man’s origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Every Mind the only causeconcept which seems to begin with the brain 30begins falsely. Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence. Cause does not exist in matter, in mortal mind, or in physical forms.
263263:1 Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be independent workers, personal authors, and even privi‐3Human egotismleged originators of something which Deity would not or could not create. The creations of mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man 6alone represents the truth of creation.
When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, 9Mortal man a mis-creatorhe will no longer grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven. Carnal beliefs defraud us. They make man an involun‐12tary hypocrite, — producing evil when he would create good, forming deformity when he would outline grace and beauty, injuring those whom he would bless. He 15becomes a general mis-creator, who believes he is a semi-god. His “touch turns hope to dust, the dust we all have trod.” He might say in Bible language: “The 18good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
There can be but one creator, who has created all. 21Whatever seems to be a new creation, is but the discovery No new creationof some distant idea of Truth; else it is a new multiplication or self-division of mor‐24tal thought, as when some finite sense peers from its cloister with amazement and attempts to pattern the infinite.
27 The multiplication of a human and mortal sense of per‐sons and things is not creation. A sensual thought, like an atom of dust thrown into the face of spiritual im‐30mensity, is dense blindness instead of a scientific eternal consciousness of creation.
The fading forms of matter, the mortal body and ma‐264264:1terial earth, are the fleeting concepts of the human mind. They have their day before the permanent facts and their 3Mind’s true cameraperfection in Spirit appear. The crude crea‐tions of mortal thought must finally give place to the glorious forms which we sometimes behold in the 6camera of divine Mind, when the mental picture is spir‐itual and eternal. Mortals must look beyond fading, finite forms, if they would gain the true sense of things. 9Where shall the gaze rest but in the unsearchable realm of Mind? We must look where we would walk, and we must act as possessing all power from Him in whom we 12have our being.
As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were 15Self-completeness invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-com‐18pleteness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.
Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. 21Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. Sin Spiritual proofs of existenceis unsustained by Truth, and sickness and death were overcome by Jesus, who proved 24them to be forms of error. Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace 27which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.
When we learn the way in Christian Science and rec‐ognize man’s spiritual being, we shall behold and under‐30stand God’s creation, — all the glories of earth and heaven and man.
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings, 265 265:1and its government is divine Science. Man is the off‐spring, not of the lowest, but of the highest qualities of 3Godward gravitationMind. Man understands spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward, 6their affections and aims grow spiritual, — they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, — in order that sin and mortality 9may be put off.
This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity 12 and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man en‐larged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent 15peace.
The senses represent birth as untimely and death as irresistible, as if man were a weed growing apace or a 18Mortal birth and deathflower withered by the sun and nipped by untimely frosts; but this is true only of a mortal, not of a man in God’s image and likeness. The 21truth of being is perennial, and the error is unreal and obsolete.
Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained 24stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after Blessings from painheavenly good comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss 27of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is 30spiritual.
The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections 266 266:1from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good, Decapitation of error“rejoicing the heart.” Such is the sword of 3Science, with which Truth decapitates error, materiality giving place to man’s higher individuality and destiny.
6 Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be Uses of adversitysolitary, left without sympathy; but this 9seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will 12force you to accept what best promotes your growth. Friends will betray and enemies will slander, until the lesson is sufficient to exalt you; for “man’s extremity 15is God’s opportunity.” The author has experienced the foregoing prophecy and its blessings. Thus He teaches mortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality. 18This is done through self-abnegation. Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.
The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the 21saint his own heaven by doing right. The opposite per‐secutions of material sense, aiding evil with evil, would deceive the very elect.
24 Mortals must follow Jesus’ sayings and his demonstra‐tions, which dominate the flesh. Perfect and infinite Beatific presenceMind enthroned is heaven. The evil beliefs 27which originate in mortals are hell. Man is the idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He 30is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with God and the universe.
267267:1 Every object in material thought will be destroyed, but the spiritual idea, whose substance is in Mind, is eternal. 3The infinitude of GodThe offspring of God start not from matter or ephemeral dust. They are in and of Spirit, divine Mind, and so forever continue. God is one. The 6allness of Deity is His oneness. Generically man is one, and specifically man means all men.
It is generally conceded that God is Father, eternal, self-9created, infinite. If this is so, the forever Father must have had children prior to Adam. The great I am made all “that was made.” Hence man and the spiritual uni‐12verse coexist with God.
Christian Scientists understand that, in a religious sense, they have the same authority for the appellative 15mother, as for that of brother and sister. Jesus said: “For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and 18mother.”
When examined in the light of divine Science, mortals present more than is detected upon the surface, since 21Waymarks to eternal Truthinverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is bor‐rowed from a higher source than matter, and 24by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth. The robes of Spirit are “white and glistering,” like the raiment 27of Christ. Even in this world, therefore, “let thy gar‐ments be always white.” “Blessed is the man that en‐dureth [overcometh] temptation: for when he is tried, 30[proved faithful], he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.” (James i. 12.)