Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 6

Present salvation

39:18 "_Now_," cried the apostle, "is the accepted time; be- hold, _now_ is the day of salvation," - meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salva- 39:21 tion, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in life. Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleas- 39:24 ures to pa.s.s away, for both are unreal, because impossible in Science. To break this earthly spell, mortals must get the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists 39:27 and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is apprehended slowly, and the interval before its attain- ment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as 39:30 triumphs.

Sin and penalty

Who will stop the practice of sin so long as he believes in the pleasures of sin? When mortals once admit that 40:1 evil confers no pleasure, they turn from it. Remove error from thought, and it will not appear in effect. The ad- 40:3 vanced thinker and devout Christian, perceiv- ing the scope and tendency of Christian healing and its Science, will support them. Another will say: 40:6 "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee."

Divine Science adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted 40:9 it. Science removes the penalty only by first removing the sin which incurs the penalty. This is my sense of divine pardon, which I understand to mean G.o.d's method 40:12 of destroying sin. If the saying is true, "While there's life there's hope," its opposite is also true, While there's sin there's doom. Another's suffering cannot lessen our 40:15 own liability. Did the martyrdom of Savonarola make the crimes of his implacable enemies less criminal?

Suffering inevitable

Was it just for Jesus to suffer? No; but it was 40:18 inevitable, for not otherwise could he show us the way and the power of Truth. If a career so great and good as that of Jesus could not avert a 40:21 felon's fate, lesser apostles of Truth may endure human brutality without murmuring, rejoicing to enter into fellows.h.i.+p with him through the triumphal arch of 40:24 Truth and Love.

Service and wors.h.i.+p

Our heavenly Father, divine Love, demands that all men should follow the example of our Master and his 40:27 apostles and not merely wors.h.i.+p his personal- ity. It is sad that the phrase _divine service_ has come so generally to mean public wors.h.i.+p instead of 40:30 daily deeds.

Within the veil

The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of 41:1 hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has pa.s.sed before us; and 41:3 this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the right- eous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions.

41:6 Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being.

The thorns and flowers

The G.o.d-inspired walk calmly on though it be with 41:9 bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter they will reap what they now sow. The pampered hypo- crite may have a flowery pathway here, but 41:12 he cannot forever break the Golden Rule and escape the penalty due.

Healing early lost

The proofs of Truth, Life, and Love, which Jesus gave 41:15 by casting out error and healing the sick, completed his earthly mission; but in the Christian Church this demonstration of healing was early lost, 41:18 about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient school of philosophy, _materia medica_, or scholastic theol- ogy ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of 41:21 absolute Science.

Immortal achieval

Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science would have before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered 41:24 him not. He fulfilled his G.o.d-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father.

Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about 41:27 doing good deeds, for which they were maligned and stoned. The truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at.

Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing 41:30 to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never made a disciple who could cast out evils and heal the sick.

42:1 Jesus' life proved, divinely and scientifically, that G.o.d is Love, whereas priest and rabbi affirmed G.o.d to be a 42:3 mighty potentate, who loves and hates. The Jewish the- ology gave no hint of the unchanging love of G.o.d.

A belief in death

The universal belief in death is of no advantage. It 42:6 cannot make Life or Truth apparent. Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.

Cruel desertion

42:9 The "man of sorrows" was in no peril from salary or popularity. Though ent.i.tled to the homage of the world and endorsed pre-eminently by the approval 42:12 of G.o.d, his brief triumphal entry into Jerusa- lem was followed by the desertion of all save a few friends, who sadly followed him to the foot of the cross.

Death outdone

42:15 The resurrection of the great demonstrator of G.o.d's power was the proof of his final triumph over body and matter, and gave full evidence of divine 42:18 Science, - evidence so important to mortals.

The belief that man has existence or mind separate from G.o.d is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine 42:21 Science and proved its nothingness. Because of the won- drous glory which G.o.d bestowed on His anointed, temp- tation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus.

42:24 Let men think they had killed the body! Afterwards he would show it to them unchanged. This demonstrates that in Christian Science the true man is governed by 42:27 G.o.d - by good, not evil - and is therefore not a mortal but an immortal. Jesus had taught his disciples the Science of this proof. He was here to enable them to 42:30 test his still uncomprehended saying, "He that believ- eth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." They must understand more fully his Life-principle by casting 43:1 out error, healing the sick, and raising the dead, even as they did understand it after his bodily departure.

Pentecost repeated

43:3 The magnitude of Jesus' work, his material disappear- ance before their eyes and his reappearance, all enabled the disciples to understand what Jesus had 43:6 said. Heretofore they had only believed; now they understood. The advent of this understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy Ghost, - that 43:9 influx of divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecos- tal Day and is now repeating its ancient history.

Convincing evidence

Jesus' last proof was the highest, the most convincing, 43:12 the most profitable to his students. The malignity of brutal persecutors, the treason and suicide of his betrayer, were overruled by divine Love to 43:15 the glorification of the man and of the true idea of G.o.d, which Jesus' persecutors had mocked and tried to slay.

The final demonstration of the truth which Jesus taught, 43:18 and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. Those who slew him to stay his influence perpetu- ated and extended it.

Divine victory

43:21 Jesus rose higher in demonstration because of the cup of bitterness he drank. Human law had condemned him, but he was demonstrating divine Science.

43:24 Out of reach of the barbarity of his enemies, he was acting under spiritual law in defiance of mat- ter and mortality, and that spiritual law sustained him.

43:27 The divine must overcome the human at every point.

The Science Jesus taught and lived must triumph over all material beliefs about life, substance, and intelli- 43:30 gence, and the mult.i.tudinous errors growing from such beliefs.

Love must triumph over hate. Truth and Life must 44:1 seal the victory over error and death, before the thorns can be laid aside for a crown, the benediction follow, 44:3 "Well done, good and faithful servant," and the suprem- acy of Spirit be demonstrated.

Jesus in the tomb

The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge 44:6 from his foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days' work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time.

44:9 He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the mas- ter of hate. He met and mastered on the basis of Chris- tian Science, the power of Mind over matter, all the claims 44:12 of medicine, surgery, and hygiene.

He took no drugs to allay inflammation. He did not depend upon food or pure air to resuscitate wasted 44:15 energies. He did not require the skill of a surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and lacerated feet, that he might use those hands to remove 44:18 the napkin and winding-sheet, and that he might employ his feet as before.

The deific naturalism

Could it be called supernatural for the G.o.d of nature 44:21 to sustain Jesus in his proof of man's truly derived power?

It was a method of surgery beyond material art, but it was not a supernatural act. On 44:24 the contrary, it was a divinely natural act, whereby divinity brought to humanity the understanding of the Christ- healing and revealed a method infinitely above that of 44:27 human invention.

Obstacles overcome

His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas he was alive, demon- 44:30 strating within the narrow tomb the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense.

There were rock-ribbed walls in the way, and a great 45:1 stone must be rolled from the cave's mouth; but Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law 45:3 of matter, and stepped forth from his gloomy resting-place, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory.

Victory over the grave

45:6 Our Master fully and finally demonstrated divine Sci- ence in his victory over death and the grave. Jesus'

deed was for the enlightenment of men and 45:9 for the salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and death. Paul writes: "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to G.o.d by the [seeming] death 45:12 of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Three days after his bodily burial he talked with his disciples. The persecutors had failed to hide im- 45:15 mortal Truth and Love in a sepulchre.

The stone rolled away

Glory be to G.o.d, and peace to the struggling hearts!

Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of hu- 45:18 man hope and faith, and through the reve- lation and demonstration of life in G.o.d, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual 45:21 idea of man and his divine Principle, Love.

After the resurrection