Rudimental Divine Science | Page 4

yourself and others.
You must feel and know that God alone governs man; that His government is harmonious; that He is too pure 6 to behold iniquity, and divides His power with nothing evil or material; that material laws are only human be- liefs, which govern mortals wrongfully. These beliefs arise 9 from the subjective states of thought, producing the be- liefs of a mortal material universe, -- so-called, and of material disease and mortality. Mortal ills are but errors 12 of thought, -- diseases of mortal mind, and not of matter; for matter cannot feel, see, or report pain or disease,
Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body; 15 and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true sense that God is Love, -- and that Love punishes nothing 18 but sin, -- and the patient can then look up to the loving God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His 21 spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an 24 error which Truth will destroy.
You must learn to acknowledge God in all His ways. It is only a lack of understanding of the allness of God, 27 which leads you to believe in the existence of matter, or that matter can frame its own conditions, contrary to the 1 law of Spirit.
Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ; 3 first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipo- tent; and finally to the understanding of God and man in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good, 6 and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of goodness. Therefore good is one and All.
This brings forward the next proposition in Christian 9 Science, -- namely, that there are no sickness, sin, and death in the divine Mind. What seem to be disease, vice, and mortality are illusions of the physical senses. These 12 illusions are not real, but unreal. Health is the conscious- ness of the unreality of pain and disease; or, rather, the absolute consciousness of harmony and of nothing else. 15 In a moment you may awake from a night-dream; just so you can awake from the dream of sickness; but the demonstration of the Science of Mind-healing by no means 18 rests on the strength of human belief. This demonstra- tion is based on a true understanding of God and divine Science, which takes away every human belief, and, 21 through the illumination of spiritual understanding, re- veals the all-power and ever-presence of good, whence emanate health, harmony, and Life eternal. 24
The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous opera- 27 tions of the human frame. He never talks about the structure of the material body. He never lays his hands 1 on the patient, nor manipulates the parts of the body sup- posed to be ailing. Above all, he keeps unbroken the Ten 3 Commandments, and practises Christ's Sermon on the Mount.
Wrong thoughts and methods strengthen the sense of 6 disease, instead of cure it; or else quiet the fear of the sick on false grounds, encouraging them in the belief of error until they hold stronger than before the belief that 9 they are first made sick by matter, and then restored through its agency. This fosters infidelity, and is mental quackery, that denies the Principle of Mind-healing. If 12 the sick are aided in this mistaken fashion, their ailments will return, and be more stubborn because the relief is unchristian and unscientific. 15
Christian Science erases from the minds of invalids their mistaken belief that they live in or because of matter, or that a so-called material organism controls the health 18 or existence of mankind, and induces rest in God, divine Love, as caring for all the conditions requisite for the well- being of man. As power divine is the healer, why should 21 mortals concern themselves with the chemistry of food? Jesus said: "Take no thought what ye shall eat."
The practitioner should also endeavor to free the minds 24 of the healthy from any sense of subordination to their bodies, and teach them that the divine Mind, not material law, maintains human health and life. 27
A Christian Scientist knows that, in Science, disease is unreal; that Mind is not in matter; that Life is God, 1 good; hence Life is not functional, and is neither matter nor mortal mind; knows that pantheism and theosophy 3 are not Science. Whatever saps, with human belief, this