Part 37 (1/2)
the very opposite of that Maker, by claiming that G.o.d is [1]
Spirit, while man is matter; that G.o.d is good, but man is evil; that Deity is deathless, but man dies. Science and sense conflict, from the revolving of worlds to the death of a sparrow.
The Word will be made flesh and dwell among mortals, only when man reflects G.o.d in body as well as in mind.
The child born of a woman has the formation of his parents; the man born of Spirit is spiritual, not material.
Paul refers to this when speaking of presenting our bodies [10]
holy and acceptable, which is our reasonable service; and this brings to remembrance the Hebrew strain, ”Who healeth all thy diseases.”
If man should say of the power to be perfect which he possesses, ”I am the power,” he would trespa.s.s upon [15]
divine Science, yield to material sense, and lose his power; even as when saying, ”I have the power to sin and be sick,” and persisting in believing that he is sick and a sinner. If he says, ”I am of G.o.d, therefore good,” yet persists in evil, he has denied the power of Truth, and [20]
must suffer for this error until he learns that all power is good because it is of G.o.d, and so destroys his self-de- ceived sense of power in evil. The Science of being gives back the lost likeness and power of G.o.d as the seal of man's adoption. Oh, for that light and love ineffable, [25]
which casteth out all fear, all sin, sickness, and death; that seeketh not her own, but another's good; that saith Abba, Father, and _is_ born of G.o.d!
John came baptizing with water. He employed a type of physical cleanliness to foreshadow metaphysical purity, [30]
even mortal mind purged of the animal and human, and submerged in the humane and divine, giving back the
[Page 185.]
lost sense of man in unity with, and reflecting, his Maker. [1]
None but the pure in heart shall see G.o.d,-shall be able to discern fully and demonstrate fairly the divine Principle of Christian Science. The will of G.o.d, or power of Spirit, is made manifest as Truth, and through righteousness,- [5]
not as or through matter,-and it strips matter of all claims, abilities or disabilities, pains or pleasures. Self- renunciation of all that const.i.tutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual ident.i.ty as the child of G.o.d, is Science that [10]
opens the very flood-gates of heaven; whence good flows into every avenue of being, cleansing mortals of all uncleanness, destroying all suffering, and demon- strating the true image and likeness. There is no other way under heaven whereby we can be saved, and man [15]
be clothed with might, majesty, and immortality.
”As many as received him,”-as accept the truth of being,-”to them gave he power to become the sons of G.o.d.” The spiritualization of our sense of man opens the gates of paradise that the so-called material senses [20]
would close, and reveals man infinitely blessed, upright, pure, and free; having no need of statistics by which to learn his origin and age, or to measure his manhood, or to know how much of a man he ever has been: for, ”as many as received him, to them gave he power to become [25]
the sons of G.o.d.”
_And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;_ _the last Adam was made a quickening spirit._-1 COR. xv. 45.
When reasoning on this subject of man with the Corin- thian brethren, the apostle first spake from their stand- [30]
point of thought; namely, that creation is material:
[Page 186.]
he was not at this point giving the history of the spiritual [1]
man who originates in G.o.d, Love, who created man in His own image and likeness. In the creation of Adam from dust,-in which Soul is supposed to enter the embryo-man after his birth,-we see the material self- [5]
const.i.tuted belief of the Jews as referred to by St. Paul.
Their material belief has fallen far below man's original standard, the spiritual man made in the image and like- ness of G.o.d; for this erring belief even separates its conception of man from G.o.d, and ultimates in the opposite [10]
of _im_mortal man, namely, in a sick and sinning mortal.
We learn in the Scriptures, as in divine Science, that G.o.d made all; that He is the universal Father and Mother of man; that G.o.d is divine Love: therefore divine Love [15]
is the divine Principle of the divine idea named man; in other words, the spiritual Principle of spiritual man.
Now let us not lose this Science of man, but gain it clearly; then we shall see that man cannot be separated from his perfect Principle, G.o.d, inasmuch as an idea cannot [20]
be torn apart from its fundamental basis. This scien- tific knowledge affords self-evident proof of immortality; proof, also, that the Principle of man cannot produce a less perfect man than it produced in the beginning. A material sense of existence is not the scientific fact of [25]
being; whereas, the spiritual sense of G.o.d and His universe is the immortal and true sense of being.
As the apostle proceeds in this line of thought, he undoubtedly refers to the last Adam represented by the Messias, whose demonstration of G.o.d restored to mortals [30]
the lost sense of man's perfection, even the sense of the real man in G.o.d's likeness, who restored this sense by