We learn from Holy Writ that the idea of God, named Jesus, was scourged, scoffed, and coupled with crime by the pharasaical churches, even when it was proven, bearing their infirmities, healing the sick, casting out error, raising the dead, uplifting their beliefs, dead in trespasses [ 53 ] and sin, from the basis of matter to the perception of Spirit and Truth. Of old the Pharisee thrust the spiritual idea of God out of his synagogue, and retained his material beliefs of Him; and to-day church and state, unconscious of the reappearing of this spiritual idea as it came of yore, casting out error and healing the sick, shut the door upon it, and would trample it under the feet of law and gospel. Prophesying this very rejection of the true idea and demonstration of Truth Jesus said, “When I come again shall I find faith on earth?”
Paul had a clear sense of the power of Truth upon mortals, physically and spiritually, when he said, “Present your bodies holy and acceptable, which is your only reasonable service.” But he could not reach the divine heights his Master trod—he who was begotten of the beliefs of the flesh, or a servant to them. The time cometh when the spiritual origin of man will be understood and demonstrated; but Truth, like the light, shineth on darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. Our false beliefs of Life, substance, and intelligence hide the reality of them, and the scientific origin of man and his Principle as God. The creative Principle or Mind is eschewed by our material theories. Materia medica substitutes drugs for the power of God, even the might of Mind to heal the body. The science of being is the only curative agent; and while it divests drugs, matter, of all imaginary power, it clothes Spirit with its native supremacy to destroy every ill that flesh is heir to. This science is yet the stranger within our gates that is not remembered even when its elevating effects are proving practically its divine origin. Theology includes no creed or faith sufficient to heal the sick; while our Master's first article of faith was healing, [ 54 ] and he proved that faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Our systems of religion are governed by our systems of medicine. Idolatry and priestcraft have uprooted faith in God, Spirit, and instituted faith in matter. The schools have rendered it fashionable to have faith in drugs instead of Deity, and to trust matter to destroy material discord; therefore such systems are devoid of Christianity and its vital points, wherein sense becomes the servant of Soul.
Jesus never spake of disease as difficult or dangerous; and when his students brought to him cases they could not heal, he said unto them, “Oh, ye of little faith!” implying that the only difficulty was in mind and not matter. He urged no obedience to the so-called laws material, but acted in direct disobedience thereto. He uttered things that had been “secret from the foundations of the world,” since ever knowledge had usurped the creative principle, and insisted on the power of error and the insignificance of Truth. But the Master forebore not to declare the whole Truth; to tell us just what will destroy sickness, sin, and death; although that truth set households at variance and brought to their material beliefs not peace, but a sword. Whoever, therefore, shall declare the Truth that he taught shall share the hatred of error until wisdom is justified of her children, and this blessed benediction rests upon the warfare, “If the world hate you, ye may know that it hated me before it hated you,” and “Lo, I am with you alway.”
When the sharp experiences of this supposed life in matter, its disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us as a tired child to the bosom of Love, then are we fit to begin Life in divine science; but without this weaning [ 55 ] process who, by searching, can find out God? It is easier for belief to desire Truth, and try to trust in it, than to rid itself of error. Mortals may seek, but shall not be able to enter into the understanding of metaphysical science, the spiritual facts of man's harmony and immortality. They must do more than that; they must strive to enter in: and this strife consists in destroying our beliefs of intelligent matter, sentient bodies, and another Mind than God. Through the wholesome chastisements of Love we learn this divine Principle, and arrive at righteousness and purity—the footsteps of metaphysical science. Then pausing before the infinite task of reaching Truth, we rest only for a moment, and struggle on, until enraptured thought walks boundless, and conception unconfined finds wings to reach the infinite. Only the true idea of God takes away the sting of death, masters sickness and sin, and the lion lies down with the lamb, the beliefs that would rob God fall at the feet of Love.
The identity of our Master was not less tangible or real to him because it was spiritual, and his Life not at the mercy of matter. Understanding that metaphysical fact made him more real and formidable, as the idea of Truth, and enabled him to triumph over death, and present to his students the self-same Jesus. To the material belief of Thomas, that turned to matter instead of Spirit for God's idea, and to the evidences of body more than Soul for proofs of immortality, Jesus furnished the evidence to his senses or belief that he was the same immediately after as before his crucifixion, and remained thus until he rose higher through the triumph he obtained over death, and disappeared, to the stupid apprehension of [ 56 ] Thomas, to whom nothing but the beliefs of matter could then make existence apparent. To call matter substance was no task, but to understand the substance of Spirit was hard, to know that no substance can rule out Mind from piercing it with Truth, and immortality, wherein Spirit is found substance, was more difficult. What is termed personal sense can lie about being, but spiritual sense must tell the facts of it. To a material sense, the falsehood of being is the fact, until that belief is rebuked by science. Belief is the sum total of mortal man; and if this belief says “I am wretched,” it is so, and no circumstance can change it until the belief changes; and if it says “I am happy,” no circumstance can make or mar the situation until the belief changes. It is as necessary for a belief of health to be instructed out of itself into the understanding of Life, as for a belief of sickness to be destroyed; for a change in either belief makes health or sickness. Mortal mind determines the results in both cases, until science establishes the conditions of Truth; and it is a step toward science that makes us more the master of the situation to know this.
Man made theories remedies for soul and body. Laws of matter, etc., are nothing more than laws of mortal belief. Jesus never taught or practised theology, physiology, or materia medica, but he healed the sick and reformed sinners. Paul was not the disciple of Jesus, but he followed his example and teachings, and the result was he healed the sick and introduced Christianity into Rome. If we would follow Christ, Truth, it must be in the way of its appointment; and Jesus said, “The works that I do ye shall do.” He that would reach Truth, and [ 57 ] find this divine source a remedy for every ill, must not climb up some other way and rob God. Theology teaches us to love God with all the heart; but we cannot love Spirit supremely and garner our affections in spiritual things while we are loving the material, going to drugs instead of God to heal our sickness, and seeking Truth of formula, dogma, and ritualism; asking a personal God, instead of the Principle that is God, for Truth, and for the divine science that reveals this Principle and demonstrates it, casting out error, healing the sick, and destroying death. A little leaven leavens the whole lump, the least understanding of this science proves all that we have stated of it; and because we cannot walk the wave and raise the dead through divine science, we have no right to question its power to do that, since Jesus proved it, and left it as our example of Christianity. We should attempt no more than we understand, and we should prove our understanding by our works. Man should not tarry in the storm if the body is freezing, or stand in the flames that are devouring it, to prove his power to prevent those results; for unless he could prevent them he should avoid their occasion; to do otherwise were a no less blunder than for a pupil in addition to attempt to solve a problem of Euclid, and because he has not reached thus far in mathematics and fails in demonstration, to deny the Principle of the problem.
All theories of a personal God are based on finite premises, therefore they cannot apprehend the infinite; and this limited sense of God limits our faith and divides it between matter and Spirit, the finite and the infinite, then we turn away from the infinite Principle that heals to the inanimate drug, and have other gods before