Part 46 (1/2)

Israel the new name

The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit 309:9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.

He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, - a prince of G.o.d, or a soldier of G.o.d, who had fought 309:12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children 309:15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.

If these children should go astray, and forget that Life 309:18 is G.o.d, good, and that good is not in elements which are not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back 309:21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter, even as the gospel teaches.

Life never structural

309:24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for in- finite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to have an intelligence separate from his Maker.

309:27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life, when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is 309:30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never struc- tural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its own formations.

Thought seen as substance

310:1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the artist's thought objectified. The human belief fancies 310:3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?

Matter is made up of supposit.i.tious mortal mind-force; 310:6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments. The potter is not in 310:9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.

G.o.d is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

The central intelligence

Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees 310:12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun is not affected by the revolution of the earth.

So Science reveals Soul as G.o.d, untouched 310:15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence around which circle harmoniously all things in the sys- tems of Mind.

Soul imperishable

310:18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If 310:21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh in- stead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of mate- rial sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die.

310:24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and 310:27 if Spirit should lose Life as G.o.d, good, then Spirit, which has no other existence, would be annihilated.

Mind is G.o.d, and G.o.d is not seen by material sense, 310:30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot dis- cern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense, 311:1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth of being.

311:3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. G.o.d is Mind: all that Mind, G.o.d, is, or hath made, is good, and He 311:6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

Sin only of the flesh

Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no ele- ment of self-destruction. Is man lost spiritually? No, 311:9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in 311:12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul, which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

Soul impeccable

Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense 311:15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spir- itual truth. This state of error is the mortal 311:18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in 311:21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be- ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law 311:24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through har- mony and immortality.

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not 311:27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as 311:30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelli- gence, but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by these phases of mortality.

Sense-dreams

312:1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is 312:3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in Science. That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. What to material 312:6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense- dream vanishes and reality appears.

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as 312:9 matter. People say, ”Man is dead;” but this death is the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter. The matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he 312:12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that matter has caused his death.

Vain ecstasies

People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal 312:15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their hearts; yet G.o.d _is_ love, and without Love, G.o.d, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try 312:18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet G.o.d _is_ Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in 312:21 a finite personal G.o.d; while G.o.d is infinite Love, which must be unlimited.