# Science and Health/1 Natural Science

Science and Health.
CHAPTER I.
NATURAL SCIENCE.
A few years since we clipped the following from the reports on Science:
“At the University at Oxford, a prize of one hundred pounds was offered for the best Essay on Natural Science, to refute the materialism of the present age, or the tendency to attribute physical effects to physical causes, rather than to a final spiritual cause.” This demand for metaphysics coming from the very fount of erudition meets the wants of the age, and is the one question towering above all others, insomuch as it relates more intimately to the happiness and perfection of man. The control mind holds over matter becomes no longer a question when with mathematical certainty we gain its proof, and can demonstrate the facts assumed. This proof we claim to have gained, and reduced to its statement in science that furnishes a key to the harmony of man, and reveals what destroys sickness, sin, and death.
Metaphysical science explains cause and effect; removing the veil of mystery and doubt, from Soul and body, and from man and God; it unwinds the interlaced ambiguities of Spirit and matter, and sets free the imprisoned Intelligence; explains the phenomenon man, ​on the basis of his Principle, and how to gain his harmony in science, which seems to us more important morally and physically than the discovery of the powers of steam, the electric telegraph, or any other advanced idea that science has revealed. Views taken on trust cause conflicting opinions and beliefs that emit a poisonous atmosphere of mind more destructive to the harmony of body than the miasma of matter. Understanding cools and purifies this atmosphere, and thus invigorates the body; but before this result is obtained, understanding and belief, or Truth and error must meet in a war of ideas, and the thunderbolt of public opinion burst overhead; but when this outburst of opinion is spent of its fury, like the rain-drops on the earth it will have moistened the parched thought, whereby the rich buds and blossoms that come from the tree of Life may put forth new beauty.
Because Christendom may resist the word science, we shall lose no faith in Christianity, and because we shall apply this word to Truth, Christianity will lose no hold on us. We shall let the Principle of things alone interpret them, and never take an opinion or belief to steady the altar of science. The Principle of the universe and man embraces the understanding, and explanation of Soul and body, and is the basis of all science; but opinions and beliefs regarding God and man, or Soul and body, are the foundations of all error. There is no physical science, the Principle of science is God, Intelligence, and not matter; therefore, science is spiritual, for God is Spirit and the Principle of the universe and man.
We learn from science mind is universal, the first ​and only cause of all that really is; also, that the real and unreal constitute what is, and what is not; that the real is Spirit, which is immortality, and the unreal matter, or mortality. The real is Truth, Life, Love and Intelligence, all of which are Spirit, and Spirit is God, and God, Soul, the Principle of the universe and man. Spirit is the only immortal basis. Matter is mortality; it has no Principle, but is change and decay, embracing what we term sickness, sin, and death. God is not the author of these, hence Spirit is not the author of matter; discords are the unreal that make up the opposite to harmony, or the real that emanates Truth and not error. Spirit never requires matter to aid it, or through which to act; no partnership or fellowship exists between them; matter cannot co-operate with Spirit, the mortal and unreal with the real and eternal, the mutable and imperfect with the immutable and perfect, the inharmonious and self-destroying with the harmonious and undying. Spirit is Truth, matter its opposite; viz., error; and these two forces control man and the universe, and are the tares and wheat that never mingle, but grow side by side until the harvest, until matter is self-destroyed; for not until then do we learn ourselves Spirit, and yield up the ghost of error, that would make substance, Life and Intelligence, matter. God and His idea are all that is real primitively; all is mind, and mind produces mind only, nature, reason and revelation decide, that like produces like; matter does not produce mind, nor, vice versa. We name matter, error, it being a false claim to Life and Intelligence, that returns to dust ignored by Spirit, that is supreme over all, and knows nothing of matter.
​Natural history presents the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms preserving their original species in reproduction; a mineral is not produced by a vegetable, and vice versa; throughout the entire round of universal nature, this rule relating to genus and species holds good; this therefore is science. But error claims the very opposite, viz., that Spirit produces matter; making Spirit, or God, the author of evil as well as good, and harmony the author of discord, evil presenting as much of God as good, which contradicts self-evident Truth. In the science of being we learn all discord, such as sickness, sin or death, is distinct from Spirit, and not produced by God; also, that God is the Soul, or Principle of man, the Truth, unerring and eternal; again, that matter claiming mind, or making itself the basis of mind, is error, and this error, the so-called intelligent body named man, with intelligent nerves, brain, stomach, and so forth. The only reality of being is the Truth of it, and that Life and Intelligence are in matter, is not Truth but its opposite, error; therefore, illusion. Mind and matter are opposites; that mind is in matter, or that matter is the medium through which mind is made manifest is not more real than that a tree embraces a rock in the heart of it, and is the natural medium through which the rock grows, and is identified. Nature and revelation afford no grounds for the belief that Spirit, God, created, or is in a body of sickness, sin, and death, and the only excuse for such a belief is, that the falsity of this opinion of Life is not seen until we begin to learn the science of Life, and enter into our God-being, wherein we learn that Spirit and matter no more commingle, than light and darkness, ​than God and His opposite, called devil, which reduced to their statement in science, are Truth and error; in other words, Spirit and matter, forever distinct, one possessing immortality, the other mortality. Said the Apostle, “The flesh warreth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.”
Mind, the basis of all things, cannot cross its species, and produce matter. But in order to classify mind that is real, from belief or the unreal, we name one mind, and the other matter; but recollect matter is but a belief, and mind the only reality. Error can only be defined as belief, which is not mind but illusion. The belief, that Life, Substance, and Intelligence are where and what they are not, is error. Spirit is the understanding and possession of Truth, Life and Intelligence. Belief and understanding never mingle, more than matter and Spirit; one is error, the other Truth. All discord is what we term matter, and discord is mortal, nothingness; harmony is real and immortal, for it belongs to Spirit, is produced by it and proceeds from it. Immortal mind is Spirit, an utterance of Soul proceeding from harmony and immortality. The mind, that we name matter, is the so-called mind of the body, and what is termed sinful and mortal man; but this man is a myth, neither mind nor matter, but a belief that embraces all error. God, Truth, never produced error; Soul and Intelligence never originated inharmony; and at some future data we shall learn all that is mortal or discordant hath no origin, existence or reality, but is the absence of the real; yea, native nothingness, the chaos and night out of which error would simulate the creations of Truth, from dust instead of Deity. Error ​pre-supposes man both mind and matter, but this is not the science of being, but science disputing personal sense beards so relentlessly our belief, we naturally ask what are we, and what is man? We are Spirit, Soul, and not body, and all is good that is Spirit; God and the idea of God are real, and nothing else is real. Harmony and its results are real, but discord and what comes of it are the unreal. It were well to begin from this hour, as you read these pages, to reckon Life only in what is good and true; putting aside evil as unreal, not the offspring of God, and unworthy to be named man, him whom Spirit produces “the image and likeness of God,” but whom matter claims to create in sin.
Admitting error, produces it; but who or what is it that admits error? Not God, Spirit, for error is not the result of Intelligence; error is a self-admission, and admission of self-hood where man is not, and this is all there is to it; admitting a temptation is the only danger in it. To believe in the possibility of pleasurable sin, makes all that is sin; say then to the whole liturgy of intelligent matter, as Jesus said, “You were a liar from the beginning.”
Mind is Spirit, outside of matter, and this is the only mind or understanding; the mind called brains, or matter, is belief only; hence, the more material man is the stronger belief, and the weaker manifestation of Soul, or understanding. Belief is what we term personal sense, and personal sense is a belief. That matter is intelligent, that nerves feel, brains think, and sin, that a stomach makes man cross, limbs cripple him, and matter kills him, is a belief, and this belief, error, opposed to the Truth of being. Sin, sickness and death proceed ​from the so-called five personal senses that we are taught to revere and cultivate, but which Truth at length destroys, through age, experience or spiritual growth, and in place of sentient bodies, we find sensationless bodies, and immortal Soul, as the recognition of being harmonious and eternal. The body mortal is not man, for man is immortal; but with sensation in the body he is not immortal, and cannot be Spirit, which is Soul.
To admit physical effects is to conclude matter cause and effect, whence it follows there are two causes, viz., mind and matter, else that mind produces matter, or matter produces mind, which contradicts the science of Life in its demonstration, and is like saying dust originated man, and a serpent a dove. Soul is Intelligence, but the so-called mind of body is belief only, the limited and mortal that embraces not the boundless and eternal, for such is Intelligence. Hence we learn that Soul, therefore Spirit, which is God, is not in man, and that man is idea, and Soul the Principle, Life, substance and Intelligence of man.
Having drawn the line between immortal man, or the reality of being, and the unreal or mortal, that is but a personal recognizance of Life, God, which is impossible, we also learn that pain or pleasure in matter is equally impossible. Things, as they appear from the stand-point of personal sense, are diametrically opposite to science, or immortal man seen from the stand-point of Soul; hence the difficulty sensuous man has to understand this science, and his opposition to it, for “the carnal man is at enmity with God.” Mortal man and personal sense are not mind but belief; mind is ​understanding, belief is ignorance, even the error that Truth consigns to oblivion.
What is deemed Life in vegetable and animal becomes a self-evident falsehood, when all that is left of it is death. The science of being alone reveals Life or Principle, that reverses every position of personal sense; showing also that sickness, sin and death disappear with the understanding of being and our real existence, for in this alone are we harmonious, sinless, and eternal.
Will man lose his identity in conscious infinitude of being? It is impossible that he should lose aught that tends to his completeness, in a state through which he gains all; matter, embracing sickness, sin and death, is all that will ever be lost. Life is not structural and organic, for Life is Spirit, Soul, and not sense, and without beginning and without end. Life is Principle, and not person; joy and not sorrow; holiness, not sin, and harmony, without a tone of discord. In science we learn there is but one God, also that God is Spirit; hence there is but one Spirit, for there is not an evil God. To gain the harmony of being, and be perfect even as the Father, God must be understood, which means, the Principle of man must be understood; believing in God never made a Christian.
The only immortal basis of man is Soul; hence the importance to plant one's self on the basis of being, and work from this to gain our ultimate harmony. Soul and not sense reveals the glorious possibilities of man, even the circumference of his being unlimited by a belief of Life in matter; getting out of material nutshells we get out of error, whereby we learn the last shall be ​first, and the first last; that which was first in matter will be last, alias, nothing in Spirit. Science puts not new wine into old bottles; we cannot adhere to a belief regarding a subject, and at the same time grasp the Truth of it; we must yield the old, or the new is spilled.
Doctrines and opinions based on a personal God are nothing more or less than beliefs of intelligent matter, that we must yield, or spill the inspiration and wine of Truth that enables man to demonstrate Life higher, and to reach practical Christianity that casts out devils and heals the sick.
We will now consider more minutely the Principle, or Soul of man, named God; learn what it is, and how man is harmonious and immortal. The Scriptures inform us, “God is Love,” “Truth and Life,” and these certainly imply He is Principle, not person. Again, Principle explains person, but person cannot explain Principle. God interprets man, but man cannot explain God, Spirit explains matter, but matter cannot define Spirit, Soul explains body, but body cannot interpret Soul. We must commence with God to explain immortal man, remembering God is Spirit, and Spirit the only substance, because it is Intelligence; holding the earth in equipoise, marking out the pathway of the stars, forming the minutia of identity, and comprehending the universe and man in the harmony of being. Spirit believes nothing, because it understands all, and is Life, not subject to death because it is exempt from matter.
It is mind alone that embraces sensation, therefore, the senses are Spirit and not matter, and belong to Soul ​instead of body; they are not personal but Spiritual; Intelligence passes from mind to body, that is, from Principle to its idea, but cannot pass from body to mind, for matter is neither cognizant of evil or good, of pain or pleasure. Soul is not in body, it is the unlimited Intelligence, impossible to limit, and the immortality that mingles not with mortality; as light and darkness are opposites, so are Spirit and matter, without the least affinity; light dwelling in darkness would destroy the darkness; thus would the sinless and immortal destroy the sinning and mortal; but darkness extinguishes not light, and matter cannot destroy Spirit, body cannot destroy Soul, but Soul can and does destroy matter. Man is not matter, brains are not Intelligence, they are not the organ of the infinite. Life and Intelligence are not in matter, nor do they act by means of organization; matter is a creation of belief, a chimera of personal sense that reverses science, as we shall hereafter show.
Idea is inseparable from its Principle; man is idea, and Soul the Principle that produces it, therefore man and his maker are inseparable. Opinions and beliefs have no Principle, they are erring and mortal, neither expressing God nor immortal man; but the offspring of personal sense, embracing sin, sickness and death, yea, the dream of Life in matter. Materia medica, physiology, mesmerism, etc., are opinions and beliefs, predicated on intelligent matter, which is error; and the discord and doubt attending them are owing to the false position they occupy. Ideas, like numbers and notes, admit no opinions or beliefs regarding them, when once their Principle is understood; beliefs are theories that change, and are falsely stated, because they are not ​understood. The identity of every idea is in its Principle where it is learned; immortal man is harmonious and eternal; matter is the offspring of mortal belief; Soul or understanding, has no part in it.
Philosophy in general, finds cause in effect, Soul in body, Principle in idea, and Life and Intelligence in matter. Materia medica seeking cause in effect, would learn of matter what are the conditions of man, examining the liver, heart, lungs, etc., to ascertain how much harmony they are permitting man; thus admitting matter instead of mind, causation, and producing Life or death, pain or pleasure, action or stagnation, without the mind's consent; this would place man and God, or body and Soul, at the disposal and control of matter. Physiology finds mind unequal to matter, cause not master of effect, the so-called laws of nature failing in their fulfillment to give health to man; making the Infinite insufficient to govern the finite, Principle not controlling its idea, and the Intelligence, or Soul of man, unable to govern the body. To prevent disease, or the effects of damp atmospheres, violent exertions, a heavy meal, etc., destroying man; we say, laws of matter are our only hope, leaving Spirit powerless.
Mesmerism, placing Life and Intelligence in electricity, finds matter superior to God, and the governing Principle of man, an aura of brains, the lack or excess, quality or quantity of which, determines his discord or harmony.
Theology would make the supreme Being a person, in other words, matter embracing Spirit; God dwelling in man, Life in the things it creates, cause in effect, Soul in body, the infinite and limitless, within limits. ​With this theory, to be omnipresent, God must pass in personal identity over earth; or possess a body that encompasseth universal space; in which case, what would be the personality of God? Spirit is not matter; nor is it both within and without matter; if such were the case, they would be one in substance and Intelligence, else limited to the range of personal sense, or personal sense raised to the capacity of omnipresence, which is again impossible. Our beliefs of a personal Deity place infinite Life and Love within the stature of a man; make man God, or put God into matter, which is atheism. Error is the basis of all belief; we need, instead, the true idea, based on the understanding of God the impersonal Principle, Truth, and Life of man, which is not body, but Soul.
The artist is not in his painting; the picture is a thought of his, an emanation of Spirit, not matter; the Creator is not what he creates. The potter is not in the clay, but has power over the clay; God produces his own personality, and cannot get into it, because it is in Him the circumference and infinite Soul outside of matter and man. The five personal senses are beliefs of Life, substance, and Intelligence in matter, even the fount of error; all discord proceeds from this false source; in reality, there is no personal sense, for matter is not intelligent. The line of demarkation between the Principle that is Intelligence and Life, and the belief of Life and Intelligence in person, is the boundary between belief and science, otherwise, between error and truth. Science contradicts personal sense in every instance, as we shall hereafter show. Understanding is the only admissible evidence of Truth; ​conclusions drawn from personal sense are foundationless; understanding is a portion of the infinite Principle embracing every idea of Truth. Belief has no Principle; it is a mortal and finite sense of things called knowledge, a lie of limits that would place Soul in body, Life and Intelligence in matter to evolve matter, and call this germination, or nature, seed reproducing itself; not only denying to God the things that are His, but limiting the Infinite, and thinking to fasten Wisdom to discord and decay.
To learn the Truth of things, they must be explained from the basis of Soul, and not sense; personal sense is knowledge, obtained from opinions and beliefs. When our interpretations proceed from the Principle of things, we have them right; but if from observation, or the deductions of personal sense, they are wrong, and beliefs based on the supposition of Life and Intelligence in matter, that are error.
Impressions supposed to proceed from the hearing of the ear, the observations of the eye, from touch, taste, or smell, are these beliefs, but not the ideas of God. Every idea proceeds from Principle, gained through understanding, whereby we arrive at demonstrable Truth. Belief constitutes mistakes, understanding never errs, hence it is necessary to the harmony of mind and body. Inasmuch as belief starts from person, instead of Principle, it is not the Truth of being, but the error called mortal man.
Knowledge is power, even the force that depends on organizations for strength, it is neither moral suasion, moral might, idea, nor Principle; but a faith, supposition, or belief. Repulsion, attraction, cohesion, and ​power supposed to belong to matter, are constituents of mind; knowledge gives these properties to matter, but science gives them to Intelligence, the Principle of all; to find inherent properties in matter that act independent of mind is impossible. There is no inertia in Intelligence; but science alone determines whence cometh action, from its harmonious Principle, i. e., from Soul to body, or from belief prolific of error.
Science reveals all action proceeding from God, the universal cause that produces harmony only; and that discord, sickness, sin, and death, are neither action, nor being, but beliefs, or error. The absence of Truth, we name error, but whence cometh error, from God? No; “the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter water.” Error is not an idea, it has neither Principle, nor identity; it is not definable as a person, place, or thing; as an agent, or actor; and being without substance, Life, or Intelligence, and neither Principle nor identity, we learn it came not! but is illusion. Again, what is belief? Nothing real or true, and to understand this is the only fact concerning it. Sickness, sin, and death, all that is the opposite and absence of God, is belief and error presupposing good and evil in matter and man. But is the question answered, whence cometh belief? It has no origin, it is neither Principle nor idea; but illusion, without any real cause or creation.
We say disease is a reality, and identity, but science finds it a belief only; disappearing with mortality, and cognizant only to personal sense; not to Soul. “God made all that was made;” there is but one Principle and its infinite idea; harmony and immortality that belong to man, are perceived through spiritual sense, but ​not personal. Belief has no Intelligence, having neither Principle nor understanding, therefore it is error, and error is the so-called mind of mortal man! totally depraved, sinning, suffering, and dying; this is the absence of God. Man has no mind in matter; the belief that he has, is error. There is but one Intelligence, even God, the infinite Love, Truth, and Life; and God is not man. Matter is not intelligent; brains are not mind; and man is not Soul, a separate God or Intelligence. Jesus laid much stress on this point: “Thou shall have no other gods before Me;” while we daily behold in belief the zeal of error to gain the opposite point, viz.: “I will make ye as gods.”
Science informs us immortal mind is Spirit; but personal sense would have mind both Spirit and matter; a moral impossibility. Spirit cannot act through matter, they are diametrically opposed to each other, and never mingle; personal sense is the only foundation for the theory that Spirit and matter mingle, and time and eternity are wearing away this support. Mind is not confined to organization, nor limited by materiality.
Immortal mind is the atmosphere of Soul pervading all space; and regarding even “the sparrow's fall;” no power can compress it within a skull-bone! matter confines it not, the strongest barrier opposed to Intelligence is as nothing; the only clog, or limit given mind, is mortal belief, error's synonym; understanding constructs not, and has no cognizance of limits; it is finite belief that would limit mind; and there is no finite Intelligence. There is finite error, that pre-supposes mind in matter; but this is the evil and not the good, the belief and not the reality; yea, the error, and not the Truth of man.
​Spiritual sense belongs to Soul, and is the only real sense; it takes no cognizance of substance in matter, of suffering, sin, or death; Spiritual sense recognizes all that is Truth, Life, and Love; hence there is nothing left personal sense to enjoy or suffer. Personal sense is the dream of Life in matter, a supposition only of reality and substance, of Life and Intelligence, of good and evil, that would limit Soul, and doom all things to decay. Sensation in matter is one of its beliefs, and belief is the opinion, personal, that supports only what is untrue, selfish, or debased; all these mistakes are but the error we name mortal man. God and man will never be understood, until we listen alone to the senses attached to Principle instead of person, to Soul instead of body.
Personal sense being error, all evidence obtained therefrom is belief without Principle, or immortal proof. Spiritual, in contradistinction to personal sense, reveals man idea; not substance; his Life and Intelligence, God, in other words, Soul, and not body; and thus secure from chance and change he is harmonious and eternal. The demonstration of this statement will destroy sickness, sin and death, and because of this, it is important to understand at present as well as hereafter, the great Truth which must displace the opposite error that brought sin and death into the world, shutting out the pure sense of immortality; and which ought to be learned to-day.
God is, and was, and ever will be; and if this Intelligence exists, there is also the idea of it, named man, that cannot be separated for a single moment from this, its principle and Soul. We look on a corpse, or the ​body called man, but is it man? No! Is Soul in it? certainly not; has Soul escaped? No! where was the outside, infinite Spirit, if Spirit was in man? Can Soul be lost? impossible, for the immortal is without end; and Soul is Spirit, and Spirit, God. Is man lost? not if Soul be left! for Soul is Principle, and man its idea, and these forever inseparable; God would be lost, if man was blotted out, for entity signifies the particular nature of being; and God, without the idea, image, and likeness of Himself, would be a nonentity! Man is the complex idea of God, hence, they cannot be separated.
Contemplating a corpse, we behold the going out of a belief; we have been accustomed to this belief of mind in matter, but not the Truth of man, whose Soul is God and his body the harmonious idea of Him. The belief of Life in matter is all that dies. The Principle, Soul, and Life of man, is not in the body, and cannot die. When Paul's optical sense yielded to science, the vision of Soul, he realized nothing could separate him from God; understanding as he did that the real man is never separated from the sweet sense and presence of Life and Love.
A sick man is not a sinner above all others; and yet he is not the idea of God; weary of matter that claims so much suffering, the sick become more spiritually inclined, inasmuch as the belief of Life in matter begins to give up its ghosts; all error must finally yield to the Truth of man.
A wicked man is not an idea of God; he is nothing more than the belief that hatred, malice, pride, envy, hypocrisy, etc., are coupled with Life, God! but Life, ​Love, and Truth, never made a sick man, nor a sinner! the same fountain sendeth not forth sweet and bitter water. Life and its idea, are neither sick, nor sinning, but eternal and harmonious; never mingling with mortal man. The Scripture saith mortal man “is conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity;” his origin is error, hen, is it not? and this error the belief that man is an Intelligence, and creator, after “all was made that was made!” If all that worketh a lie is ultimately destroyed, this man must perish.
The understanding of Truth, and its demonstration, is eternal Life; a belief can never attain this. Contradicting all accepted theories on this subject, and diametrically opposing the evidences of personal sense, science comes “laying the axe at the root of the tree,” and cutting down all that brings not forth good fruit; thence healing the sick, and casting out error. There is no escape from sin, sickness, and death, except on the Principle that God is the only Life and Intelligence of man. So long as we admit Life, sensation, and Intelligence in matter, man will be governed by his body, and at the mercy of death, sickness, and sin.
Harmony is not at the mercy of matter; nor happiness at the disposal of sense; nor Life at the command of death. Do you ask what proof have you there is no sensation in matter, or in other words, no personal sense? We have tested this statement in healing the sick sufficiently to find its Principle invariable. Our position is taken from proofs obtained through our own demonstration; and allowing their Principle to point higher, and acknowledging the relationship between the lower and higher demonstrations with the same logic, ​we say, three and three trillions are six trillions; in that we prove with smaller numbers that three added to three, make six. Because we believe sensation is nerves, it by no means proves this to be the case; the inebriate believes he finds pleasure in alcoholic drinks, and the sinner in sin. The thief believes he has made a gain in stealing; and the hypocrite in hiding himself; but the science of Life contradicts these false positions, and names them simply belief and error; thence, inferring, belief is error, and to understand God and man would destroy all belief, and give us the understanding of what constitutes being.
That pain and pleasure belong to the body is the error of earth, that never enters heaven where nothing is found that worketh a lie. Soul is the only living consciousness, and Soul neither sins, nor suffers; it is immortal, and error is mortal; but sin, sorrow, and sickness, are mortal, destroying themselves, because they are error. Sickness and death are not the manifestations of Soul, Truth, or Life, hence they are not of God, and there is no other causation. The tares and wheat must be separated, the real and unreal blend not; happiness is real, and Truth is real, but error is unreal; sin and holiness, sickness and health, Life and death, proceed not from the same source. Life, health, and holiness, together with all harmonies, are Truth; sin, sickness, and death, are error, the opposite of Truth, harmony and Life, and these opposites never blend.
Electricity is not a vital fluid; but an element of mind, the higher link between the grosser strata of mind, named matter, and the more rarified called mind. The so-called destructive forces of matter, and the ​ferocity of man and beast are animal beliefs, that admit evil because they understand not good. All that is good is Soul; and its opposite is personal sense; the emanations of Soul are purity, harmony, and immortality; those of personal sense, impurity, discord, and death. Science brings to light Truth, and its supremacy, universal harmony, God's entirety, and matter's nothingness.
Doctrines, theories, and knowledge, are but opinions and beliefs, the impressions and observations of personal sense, based on no Principle or fundamental Truth by which to work out harmony. When we reach immortality, we shall all learn Life is God, that matter is mortal, and that Spirit alone survives the wreck of time. Personal sense will make war on science, until Truth determines the conquest on the side of immutable right. Science reveals Truth; whereas, personal sense takes no cognizance of it; also, it reverses all the positions of sense, and tears away its foundations; hence, the enmity of mankind towards science, until it battles its way up by putting beliefs down. Deductions from a matter-basis are necessarily error; but science taking its positions from Intelligence, reaches man with harmony, and bears the reports only of Truth. These different causes are appreciated better when witnessing the effects of both, and taking science to heal the sick in contradistinction to drugs, electricity, etc., we learn the opposite results of Truth and Error. Systems of medicine, like narcotics, leave man worse, for the stupor they induce; while science demanding demonstration for its proof invites progress, and uses the understanding like a two-edged sword, to amputate error on all ​sides. After this surgery, mankind will find themselves better.
Doctrines, opinions and belief are the “tree of knowledge” against which Wisdom warned man; knowledge is obtained from false premises, from personal sense, that affords only the mortal evidences of man, presupposing Soul's audience-chamber the brain, falsely claiming the prerogatives of Intelligence, God. Reasoning from such stand-points produces all the discords of mind and body, that must eventually go down, obedient to the mandate, “Thou shalt surely die.” Researches after Truth ought to leave matter for Principle, and bring the contemplation of Life outside of sense, thus gathering us nearer harmony and immortality, and proportionately away from sickness, sin, and death.
Soul is not in the body. The belief that Intelligence is in matter is error in the premises and conclusions of man. Life, Intelligence, or substance, is not in or of matter, neither can they be aught but Soul, and because we shall ultimately prove this science to individual consciousness, we should begin its first lessons to-day. In order to gain the understanding of God and man, Soul and body, harmony and immortality, we must base all our conclusions of man on Principle instead of person, on Soul instead of body, or we shall never reach the science of being.
Truth, Life, and Love are God, the Soul of the universe and man, and the only substance and Intelligence: these are not mixed with change, sin, or death, nor with matter, the body mortal; the erring, changing and dying blend not with that which is the same yesterday, ​to-day, and forever. Life is Intelligence, the Principle that is Soul or Spirit, and there is but one Spirit or Soul of the universe and man. If Life was in man, matter would govern itself, and Spirit would be a portion of matter; therefore, God would be Spirit and matter. No portion of the Infinite can enter the finite; Life and Intelligence that are infinite are not mortal man. But may there not be a portion of God in man and matter? This is equally impossible, for the least part of Spirit would destroy matter, for matter is non-Intelligence, not a power matched against Spirit; it is mortality only, and the immortal is Spirit.
God is Principle, — the Truth, and Soul of man, and man is “the image and likeness of God.” Again, God is substance and Life, hence man is but the image and likeness of these; man is not Truth, Life, or Love. God is Spirit, and man the image and likeness of Him; therefore, man is not matter, but idea, and idea no more contains its Principle than figures embrace the rule of mathematics. We have no resort but to reduce God to a level with man, or look away from man for his Substance, Life, and Intelligence, all of which must be outside of matter, or at the mercy of sin, sickness, and death. Darkness may hide the sun, but cannot put it out. Sickness, sin, and death are darkness, or moral ignorance that hide Truth, Life, and Love, but cannot extinguish them, or their idea, cannot destroy God or man. The stand-point whence to reckon man is not matter, but Spirit. The Soul of man is never lost, insomuch as it is God, Principle, and man its idea, and both are eternal; hence the immortality of Soul and body. Infinite Soul embraces perfect understanding, ​he light that neither diminishes nor increases, for “no night is there.” Day declines, and shadows hide the sun, but darkness flees when the earth has turned on its axis; because the solar centre is the same. Thus the darkness of belief hides, but cannot put out the light of science.
Soul is self-existent and eternal; that immortal man is tributary to Soul instead of body, is the science of being, but we shall never understand it, believing Soul is in the body, or that matter embraces Intelligence and Life. If we understood the Truth of being it would prove Principle and its idea, that is, Soul and body immortal; and instead of requiring laws of health that never yet made man immortal, to save Life, we should be a law of Life and Truth to our own bodies, even that higher law of Soul that prevails over sense, and gives harmony and immortality to all it controls. “Man hath sought out many inventions,” but none of them can solve a problem without its Principle; numbers are harmonious only when governed by Intelligence, outside the figures; but ignorance might deny this fact did not self-evident proof force the conclusion. Understanding the science of Life, we gain unfailing evidence of its correctness in healing, etc. Those who obtain even glimpses of it are convinced of its Truth, and those who advance higher are more undoubting than of other proofs.
How can a belief of Life in matter find Life, God? This is not more possible than “for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.” To inquire of our bodies what prospect we have for health or Life, is taking the thing out of the hands of God altogether.
​To suppose we find pleasure or pain, happiness or misery, Life or death in the body, is not finding God our Life, and “a present help in times of trouble;” also, to admit the same fountain sendeth forth sweet and bitter water, is contrary to our Master's teachings. Life supposed to originate in soil and seed, in animalty, or the earth, is a belief of Life only, and not the Principle that is Life, without beginning or end of days. Belief is mortality's self, nothing whatever but illusion; we have no doubt but belief could make its mortal man an amphibious animal. Phenomena illustrative of our views will appear as the ages waken from the dream of Life in matter: belief can adopt any position, strange and new, but Life will be found less at the mercy of matter, as belief gives up the ghost, and the science of Life is sufficiently understood to be fairly demonstrated; then man will be found immortal.
Spirit controls matter; when this is fairly understood, phenomena at present so unaccountable to a belief holding Soul pent up in body, will be explained, and mystery and miracle fast disappear. A belief of Life in matter leaves man at the mercy of death, for if this belief should change to one of death he is supposed to die, but the fact remains that man is immortal, and if death in matter or the body, be proved false, Life in matter or the body is proved false also.
The true relation of Soul to body is that of God to man; in other words, of Principle to its idea; these are forever inseparable; and when the true idea, which is the immortal body, is perceptible, we shall have become acquainted with its Principle; “therefore, acquaint now thyself with God.”
​A sweet combination of sounds informs man this is not governed by chance; that harmony is not accident; we have undeniable proof that the Intelligence producing music, separating light from darkness, etc., guides and controls all. The belief that man is the Intelligence that governs sound, would destroy harmony; for music left to personal sense is at the mercy of misapprehension and discord; controlled by belief instead of the understanding, it would be lost; even thus man would be discord and death without a governing Principle, or left to personal sense. God and man are Principle and idea, and God is the Truth, Life and Love controlling this idea. Then what can separate man from harmony and immortality? St. Paul says: “Neither height nor depth nor any other creature can separate me from the love of God.” Love cannot be debarred a manifestation, and is joy and not sorrow, good and not evil, Life and not death; hence the perfect idea God gave of Himself in immortal man, the object of divine affections.
Soul and body are Principle and idea, or God and man united indissolubly, but the man of God is the good and perfect idea of Him governed by Soul instead of sense. This idea expresses the sinless and infinite; not the finite and dying.
Anatomy and theology never defined the man of God; the first, explains the man of man; the second, how to make this man a Christian, whose life held in matter is separated from God. These are some of the beliefs that serve as mile-stones to point out the rough places science must make smooth. The man of sin, sickness, and death is not “the image and likeness” of Love, ​Truth and Life; and all the vanity of the Gentiles, and doctrines preached under the sun, can never make that man immortal, or the image of God. Science lays the axe at the root of error and cutting down the belief of Life in matter, of Soul in body, and God in man, exchanges fable for fact, turns thought into new channels away from personality to Principle, through which alone man is able to reach Life.
For Life to be eternal, it must be self-existent, therefore independent of matter; even the “I am” that was, and is, and that nothing can efface. Christ said, “I am the resurrection and Life.” Man is not saved in matter, but out of it in God. Denying personal sense, having but one God, taking up the cross and following Christ, Truth, is the only Christianity, but doctrines and creeds have little to do with this.
Life, substance, and Intelligence are Soul outside of personal sense; what appears to be these in man, is simply a belief and dream of Life in matter; the unreal, that is the opposite of the real. The figurative “Tree of Life” was the Principle of man bringing forth fruits of immortality. Sin, sickness, and death are the fruits of the “tree of knowledge;” and the Scripture instructs us to judge of the tree by its fruits.
The resistance to metaphysical science will yield slowly but surely; we had sanguine hopes of its present prosperity until we learned its vastness, the fixedness of folly, and man's hatred of Truth. Not through the footsteps of personal sense do we gain Wisdom; the infinite is achieved only as we turn from the finite, and from the personal error to the impersonal Truth of being. Until the scientific relationship between God and man ​is perceived, and its radical points admitted, we cannot reach the demonstration of which it is capable. Exchange our stand-point of Intelligence and Life, from matter to Spirit, and we shall gain the perfect Life; and the control that Soul holds over body; and receive Christ, Truth, in Principle and not person, and through the understanding and not belief. This is the difficult point, but it must be achieved before man is harmonious and immortal, and to gather our thoughts in this direction to-day is highly important, in view of the vast amount to be accomplished before the final recognition of Life outside of matter. If we make no progress toward the science of Life here, the hereafter will strip off our rags of error, leaving us naked, until we are clothed upon by Truth, the immortality of man.
Not understanding the Principle of being, we shall seek in another world happiness in sense, and then, as now, receive sorrow instead of gladness because of this error; pain, sickness, sin, and death, will continue so long as the belief remains of Life, happiness, and Intelligence in the body. If the change called death dispossessed man of the belief of pleasure and pain in the body, universal happiness were secure at the moment of dissolution; but this is not so: “they that are filthy shall be filthy still”; every sin and error we possess at the moment of death, remains after it the same as before, and our only redemption is in God, the Principle of man that destroys the belief of intelligent bodies. When we gain the freedom of the Sons of God, we shall master sense with Soul. As progress compels this ripening process through which man resigns the belief of ​Life and Intelligence in matter, there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning.
When pleasures of sense perish, they are taken away through anguish, even the amputation of right hands, and plucking out of right eyes. Man at ease in error, when stricken suddenly down by death, cannot understand Life. Mortal man knows nothing about Life that is learned by relinquishing pleasure and pain of sense; and how long the pangs necessary for error's amputation continue, depends on the tenacity of the belief of happiness in personal sense. When remembering God is our only Life, and contemplating our present adherence to the belief of Life in matter, we may well tremble for the days in which we shall say, “I have no pleasure in them.” The false views entertained of pardoned sin, or universal and immediate happiness in the midst of sin, or, that we are changed in a moment from sin to holiness, are grave mistakes. To suddenly drop our earthly character, and become partakers of eternal Life, without the pangs of a new birth, is morally impossible. We know, “all will be changed in the twinkling of an eye when the last trump shall sound,” but the last call of Wisdom is not the first call in the growth of Christian character; while man is selfish, unjust, hypocritical and sensual, to conclude the last call of Wisdom has been heard that awakens him to glorified being, is preposterous! Science forbids such feats of imagination, and looks us in the face with reason and revelation.
“As the tree falleth, so shall it lie;” as man goeth to sleep so shall he waken; when the belief of death closes our eyes on this phase of the dream of Life in ​matter, we shall waken, not to a final judgment or resurrection, not with a single change in character, but for the same judgment of Wisdom to go on in process of purification as before, until Truth finally destroys error. When the final triumph of Soul over sense is achieved, the last trump has sounded, and not until then; this hour “no man knoweth, not the son but the Father;” here prophecy stops and proof is wanting; but science sees beyond the grave the certainty of immortality. The science of Life is the only certainty of existence. Truth is harmony and immortality. Universal salvation holds its grounds on the basis of progression, in which case man cannot commence too soon the severest lessons of science, whereby to gain happiness and immortality. Heaven is not a local habitation, but the harmony of mind and body; and we obtain this not of belief, but understanding, not of sense, but science. From the sudden surprise of finding all that is mortal, unreal, a belief only, without creation or Truth, the question arises, who or what is it that believes. We have before said God is the only Intelligence and cannot believe because He understands. There is neither substance nor Intelligence, in the mountain mirage that seemeth what it is not, and such is mortal man; nor in a face reflected from the mirror; but such is not immortal man the image of God. Intelligence is Soul and not sense, Spirit and not matter, and God is the only Intelligence, and there is but one God, hence there are no believers! So far as this statement is understood will it be admitted, and the true idea of God, which is the only real man, will appear to the understanding, and the old belief of Intelligence and Life in matter, named ​by Paul “the old man,” will disappear or “be put off,” for “dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return;” man never dies, it is only a belief of man.
Apprehending God the only Life and Intelligence of man, is the foundation of harmony, but to gain this understanding of Soul, the Principle that gave man dominion over earth, 't is necessary to understand one's-self Spirit, and not matter. Jesus established his demonstration in healing the sick, etc., on this very basis, thereby holding all being and prerogative Soul, and not personal sense. Reason is right only when starting from cause instead of effect, from Soul instead of sense; conclusions based on the evidences of personal sense are drawn from mortality.
'Ology and 'ism tend to the conviction that God who is universal cause, is effect also, insomuch as they all make Intelligence moral and physical, or mind and matter. The time has come to separate the belief of personal sense on the one hand, from science on the other; hitherto man has called on man to interpret God, and on matter and its supposed laws, to heal the sick; but as progress compels the change, we shall seek outside of personal sense in the Principle of things, their true interpretation and remedy. To seek Truth through belief is to ask the changing and erring for the immutable and immortal; or to call belief Truth, is ignorance of God. We learn from the Scripture “God is Love,” and this certainly is Principle instead of a person; hence God should be understood and demonstrated: belief can neither explain Principle nor demonstrate God. To understand, instead of believe, what most concerns our happiness, is essential, and to know we are right cannot be construed irreverence to Truth.
​Our Master ventured to say he was “Truth and Life, and no man cometh unto the Father” (the Principle of his being) “except through me,” Truth. Principle is the Father of man, and science alone reveals Principle, hence it is the “Comforter” that leads into all Truth. Jesus regarded himself Principle instead of person: hear his words: “I am the way, the Truth, and Life.”
God is the Soul of man and the only Intelligence, Life or Substance: and man is the reflex shadow of God. Belief is error, and mortal man is a belief: understanding is Intelligence; belief is personal sense, the so-called mind of matter; understanding is Soul, which is Spirit, belief is knowledge and that which said “I will make ye as gods,” is mortal error, alias mortal man. Wisdom said of knowledge, “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Christianity is God understood and demonstrated. There is no death in Truth, and vice versa. Error is mortal; the very opposite of Truth and its idea which is the perfect and immortal man and universe. Doctrines and theories placing God in man, Soul in body, are founded on belief, and are the offspring of personal sense. We entertain no belief with regard to what we understand, and cannot demonstrate what is not understood. When Soul is accepted as the only Intelligence, we shall depend on this ever-present Truth to control its own body; and to understand this Principle of man, is indispensable to his harmony; to know we are Soul and not body is starting right.
Matter is not substance, if God is substance; for matter and Spirit are not one. Which shall be substance, the erring, mutable and mortal, or the ​changeless, unerring and immortal. Soul is Spirit and Spirit the only substance, insomuch as it is the Principle of man, and the universe. To regard matter a law of itself, or produced by Intelligence is error. Matter is change, decay, and death, and Principle is not in decay, Life is not in death, Soul is not in body. God is not in the things He hath made, and all that he hath made is “good.” If Soul was in body, Spirit and matter were one; but Soul is not personal sense, and vice versa. God is the Principle, or Soul of all that is real, and nothing is real that does not express Him and is controlled by Him, and immortal. Soul is lost sight of by personal sense, but cannot be lost in science. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay to Soul: these are the mutations of sense, the clouds before Soul that we call substance, but they are only vapor. Metaphysically speaking, a belief of Life in matter is what might be termed a loss of Soul; for seeking Life and happiness in error, we lose sight of Truth. The idea of God, is the heaven, earth, and immortal man that is unerring, and eternal, because they are controlled by Principle, that is, by Soul, and not sense, by understanding and not belief. That which is mortal, is a dream of Life, Intelligence and substance in matter; a belief that idea creates Principle, and shadow substance! In this error Truth is lost; in other words, error loses sight of Soul or the Principle of man, and a belief of intelligent matter takes the place of the science of man. Soul is self-existent, the forever “I am,” that enters not into sin and mortality. The parent of all discord is this strange hypothesis, that Soul is in body, and Life in matter; this error spreads its table with sickness, sin and death, ​and partakes of its own bounty. In the resurrection of understanding, Life, Soul, and substance will be recognized one and outside of matter, and the Intelligence of all that is immortal. The idea of Life is embraced in Soul and not sense, in the immortal and not the mortal.
The most scientific man of whom we have any record, Jesus of Nazareth, called the mortal body that we suppose substance, “ghost”; and his body that others called spirit, “flesh and bones”; showing that substance to his understanding was the deathless Principle that embraces man and is forever inseparable from Soul. But the Jews, strongly material, called the real idea of God, even the body that was not matter, a spirit or ghost; and the body they laid in a sepulchre, substance. By this error they lost logic and Truth, therefore lost sight of Jesus at the very moment when he presented more than ever the real idea of God, and because of this belief, the idea was taken from them. The higher he wrought the problem of being through spiritual science, the more odious he became to the materialistic world that understood him not. Life, Intelligence and substance to them were matter, but to him they were God, the Truth of man; therefore he reckoned himself not matter but Spirit; not sense, but Soul. Said he, “Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” but this he said three days after his burial, before relinquishing the belief of substance-matter; after that, his disciples even could not see him. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one,” and this separated him from theology and the Rabbis: understanding himself Soul instead of body, and that Soul was God, brought down upon him the anathemas of a world. This statement of himself ​understood in science, was, that Life, substance, and Intelligence, are not man, but God, not body, but Soul; reversing this, belief could not see the idea of Truth or harmonious man; and the sinning, sick and mortal error that crucified Jesus, occupied the place of God's idea. Mortal and sinful man is not the product of God; sin and death never proceeded from Life, Love and Truth.
Matter being unintelligent, there is no material law governing man and the universe, and Spirit is free by divine right. Soul is the master of man and matter. Truth is not learned through laws of matter; for there are no such laws: matter is not a law-giver. Wisdom demanded man “to hold dominion over earth,” and all things therein, making him obedient only to higher law. The Truth of man saith he is superior to matter; but the opposite error says, he is inferior to it. Truth says: “I give you power over all things, that nothing shall by any means harm you;” “power to handle serpents, to take deadly drugs,” etc. But while our missionaries are carrying the Bible to Hindostan, and explaining it according to a belief, hundreds are dying annually of the bite of serpents. Creeds and ritualism never enable us to follow Jesus' example, and give the demonstration he gave of God. Life cannot be separated from its idea; therefore Soul and body, God and man, are inseparable. All good proceeds from God in the order and harmony of science; evil is its opposite, or knowledge, that proceeds from personal sense, and usurps the place of Wisdom.
The thirty thousand different readings given the Old, and the three hundred thousand the New Testament, account for the discrepancies that sometimes appear in ​the Scriptures. The science of the Bible is manifest from Genesis to Revelations, and the demonstration that Jesus gave, conclusive evidence of its entire Truth. The opposite of sickness, sin, and death, Jesus knew was alone able to destroy them, and bring to light immortality. This was the platform on which he labored, and cast out devils, viz.; destroy the belief of Intelligence and Life in matter, and it casts out all error, and heals the sick. This was Truth, and “the stone the builders rejected,” while yet it must become the head of the corner, this the rock on which Christ, Truth, built its church, that the gates of hell (the beliefs of man) cannot prevail against.
“The image and likeness of God” was lost sight of through belief, and is regained only through understanding. To suppose laws of matter control man, is the error it would be to say that figures govern numbers, when we should find examples wrought on this plan would cause the figures to be erased that the Principle might be allowed to reproduce its own idea. Harmonious man is the immortal idea of God; but the inharmonious is mortal belief. The voice of Truth, calls: “Man, where art thou?” and who will meet this inquiry to-day, with the answer of science? Man is safe in Soul, the Principle of being, but out of this he is “a reed shaken with the wind,” the ignis fatuus of belief, tossed about with every wind of doctrine; until the body is sensationless through science, man is not safe; every feeling there betrays where he holds himself; every pain and pleasure of sense, every hope, ambition, and joy that has its foundation in matter, reckons against the science of our course, and must be destroyed. Man, ​where art thou? is met with reply from the head, the heart, stomach, blood, nerves, etc.; “Lo! here thou art;” looking for happiness and Life in matter, but finding pain and death.
To conclude Life, Love, and Truth are attributes of a personal Deity, implies there is something in person superior to Principle. But nothing is wiser than Wisdom, or truer than Truth; and Life, and Love, have no superlatives, they are primitives and not derivatives. Person is not the Principle of goodness, and the reality, or Spirit, is ours only as we are good. Jesus sought Wisdom of no man, and said: “Call no man Father, for one is your Father, even God,” thus regarding man begotten of Soul, and not sense; and controlling matter and triumphing over disease and death, he brought to light his Principle and the immortality of man.
To test our understanding is to put it in practice; if we possess Truth, we shall live truly, but personal sense never aids man in this direction, but wars against spirituality. 'T is not in all the vanity of the Gentiles to send a drop of rain, or to make a mortal body the idea of God. The example Jesus presented for us to follow, and the Principle he demonstrated in healing, etc., was beyond question, science; but the error of past and present ages is our wrong interpretation, of Jesus and Christ, or man and God. Taught by some doctrine, or belief, that Principle is in person, and Soul in body, we have “gods many,” and our standard of Truth changes hands. Our Master taught his students the demonstration of Christianity was not alone in the beatitudes of the Mount, but in healing the sick, also.
When Moses, the ancient law-giver of Wisdom, ​despaired of making the people understand what God, through science, said to him, the supreme Soul bade him cast down his rod, and it became a serpent, and he fled at first before the serpent, but afterwards took it up, proving his power over it. And “the hand that was made leprous as snow,” he put into his bosom again and plucked it out, and behold it was as his other flesh, and Wisdom said: “It shall come to pass if they will not hear thee, neither harken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter;” that is, they will listen to its interpretation, when they see its demonstration in healing. Jesus also said in his answer to John's inquiry, “Art thou he that should come?” “Go and show John again these things ye see and hear; the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, etc., and blessed is he who shall not be offended in me;” in other words, who shall not deny that this is the demonstration of Truth. Jesus said to his followers: “Go ye into all the world, heal the sick,” etc., and this was enjoined not on his disciples alone, but on all Christendom; wherefore, said he: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them, who shall understand through the word.” “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God,” the Principle of all being; hence it was not a person, to be understood, or that healed the sick, neither mediumship, mesmerism, nor drugs, but the Principle, that is, Life and Truth.
In the original Scriptures, metaphor abounded, and proper names were significant of spiritual ideas, The authors of Smith's Bible Dictionary say, “The spiritual interpretation of the Scripture must rest upon both the literal and moral.” In the original it was written: ​“Jehovah said, my spirit shall not forever be humbled in man, seeing that they are, or in error they are but flesh.” The science of man was not forever to be cast aside in explaining him, seeing that man in error was mortal. But how are we to escape from flesh, or mortality, except through the change called death? By understanding we never were flesh, that we are Spirit and not matter.
When the belief that we inhabit a body is destroyed, we shall live, but our body will have no sensation. We shall find God in God, that is, Spirit in Spirit, and Intelligence in itself, there will be no loss of science as in mixing different species; and not until the belief that Soul is in body, and Intelligence in matter, is destroyed, will man be found immortal. The so-called man that is mortal, is a compound error made up of many beliefs, and while the science of being is mastering one, another presents itself. In these chemical changes we find it not so easy to overcome sin as sickness, for the dream continues of pleasure in personal sense, when the belief of pain is willingly relinquished, and vice versa. Thus the way is straight and narrow that leads to Life, inasmuch as it is a warfare with the flesh.
The science of the original word not being apprehended by the age in which the Scriptures were written, was not explained; a single misplaced preposition would change its scientific meaning from Principle to person; e. g., wisdom the principle of God; instead of Wisdom, the Principle, God. From the original quotations, it appears the Scriptures were not understood by those who re-read and re-wrote them. The true rendering was their spiritual sense. Before knowledge increased ​some of the Soul-inspired patriarchs gave good proofs of understanding God. Jacob wrestled with a man, that is, strove against the belief of Life and Intelligence in matter, “until day-break;” until the light of science shone upon his understanding, enabling him to restore the shrank sinew; this was the spiritual sense; the literal — the hour of dawn. The shrank sinew he restored, understanding simply that he possessed control over matter, and that man is immortal, the image and likeness of God, that cannot lose one jot of its completeness. When Jacob became the demonstrator, even in a limited capacity of this Truth, he was named Israel, the chosen of Wisdom, and thereafter those building on this foundation, were of the house of Israel.
Why Jesus of Nazareth stood higher in the scale of being, and rose proportionately beyond other men in demonstrating God, we impute to his spiritual origin. He was the offspring of Soul, and not sense; yea, the Son of God. The science of being was revealed to the virgin mother, who, in part proved the great Truth, that God is the only origin of man. The conception of Jesus illustrated this Truth, and finished the example of creation. Jesus was the idea of this Principle, but born of woman, that is, having in part a personal origin, he blended the idea of Life, that is God, with the belief of Life in matter, and became the connecting link between science and personal sense; “and took upon himself flesh,” became apparent as the half-way position of positive science; thus to mediate between God and man; in other words, to present the idea of God that revealed Life outside of matter, in ​contradistinction to the belief of Life in matter, and demonstrated the Truth that man is idea and not substance, that God is all and in all, and the Principle of man that controls matter. Jesus walked the wave, stilled the tempest, and yet, this idea of God was not comprehended by those who deemed God a person, and Life in matter, and man substance and Intelligence.
Paul said:—“And if Christ (Truth) be not risen, then is my preaching vain;” that is, if it be not understood that God is the only Life, then are the explanations of Jesus vain. Again, the Scriptures saith, “I am the resurrection and Life, he that believeth in me shall not see death;” in other words, he that understands Soul is God, the only Life and Intelligence of man, that the body has not a separate being, but hath Life abiding only in Spirit, shall never die. This idea of Truth was literally scourged by the Rabbis, over eighteen centuries ago; “despised and rejected of men,” while yet it bore their infirmities, healed their sicknesses, raised the dead, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, was embraced in the Principle of man, that wrought out the harmony of the universe. As of old, the Pharisees thrust this idea from their synagogues, and the learned Jews sought to kill Jesus; so to-day, church and state unconscious of the re-appearing of this idea of Truth, would silence what cometh, as of old, doing good to its enemies, casting out error, healing the sick and bringing freedom and salvation to man. Prophesying its rejection, Christ said, “when I come again, shall I find faith on earth?”
To control our bodies, Paul said, was our only reasonable service, but who can presume to reach the ​sublime nights of our Master, who is begotten of sense, or a servant to it? The time cometh when the true origin of man will be regained, being understood. Truth, like the light, shineth on darkness, that is, first on belief and opinions, and the darkness (or belief) comprehendeth it not, then on the advanced thought, etc., until it is understood. Truth is ruled out by belief, inasmuch as it rules out a personal God, and Life, and Intelligence in matter, and restores the scientific origin of man, and the only true demonstration of God; it is ruled out by materia medica, insomuch as it rules out drugs, one of the errors that saith, Intelligence and Life are in matter. The science of man and the universe understood, would divest drugs of all efficacy, control matter, and bear man over the wave despite the fable of solids and fluids; but alas! who can test the Principle of this saying to-day; this Truth is the stranger within our gates that is not remembered, while its elevating proof is ready to show practically its honest merit.
Jesus never spake of disease as difficult or dangerous, but of having authority over it. He recommended not obedience to the so-called laws of matter, and in his opposite teachings the Scripture saith:—“He uttered things that had been secret from the foundation of the world,” unperceived since knowledge had usurped man's government; hence, Truth cometh to-day bringing not peace, but a sword. Our master forbore not to declare the whole Truth; even the impersonal God, though it severely amputated error, set households at variance, etc. Whosoever, therefore, shall declare what he taught, must accept the hatred of error, and find peace and confidence in the realization that Wisdom is ​acknowledged only by her children. Realizing all tins, the Master said, “If the world hate you, ye may know that it hated me before it hated you.” This was the blessed test, benediction and consolation he offered his followers.
Doctrines, opinions and beliefs, the so-called laws of matter, remedies for Soul and body, physiology, theology, materia medica, etc. are error, the very opposites of what Jesus taught and demonstrated, regarding Soul and body, or God and man. This may seem severe, but is said with honest convictions of its Truth, with reverence for God and love for man. The door to the sheep-fold through which we gain God shuts them all out. Those who would follow Christ, Truth, heal the sick, etc., through doctrines and beliefs, or matter remedies, are climbing up another way, and unconsciously, though it be, robbing God. Life, Love, and Truth, our Father which art in heaven, teaches man health, happiness, and immortality. Our only rightful law-giver is God, fulfilling all law in righteousness, and visiting not on man the penalty of sin, except for moral transgression; but destroying sin, and death, and triumphing over the grave.
Materia medica, anatomy, and physiology, together with every belief that spake from “the tree of knowledge,” would give death and the grave victory over man. But Jesus said to his followers:—“I give you power over all things, that nothing shall by any means harm you;” the true idea of God took away the sting of death, mastered sickness and sin, and caused the lion to lie down with the lamb, even the beliefs that would rob God, to fall at the feet of Love.
​If man tarries in the storm until the body be frozen; or rushes into the flames and it be devoured; this is not obedience to the Wisdom that gave him “dominion over earth;” unless we understand how to avoid such results, we should keep from their occasion; to do otherwise is the blunder a pupil in addition would make to attempt to solve a problem of Euclid, and because he has not reached this point in mathematics, to fail in his demonstration, and others perceiving this, to deny the Principle of the problem. Jesus taught Truth, and demonstrated it, and the result of this was, it healed the sick, and cast out error.
Christ is God, the Principle and Soul of the man Jesus; constituting Christ-Jesus, that is, Principle and idea. But the person of our Master was not less tangible or real, because “his Life was hid with Christ in God,” that is, because he held Life, Soul, and not sense; this put all things under his feet, giving him triumph over matter, and the body, over sin, sickness, and death. Holding himself in science, death was lost to Him in infinite Life, and Jesus the idea of Christ, Truth, was as deathless as this its Principle. This scientific understanding of being gave him control over matter, enabling him to heal the sick and cast out the opposite belief that makes matter, or the body, the master of man; turned the water into wine; fed the multitude, etc.; and finally triumphed over death, and presented to his students the body they thought buried in a sepulchre; that body, however, had not risen, which was their dead belief of him. The print of the nails and spear alone convinced Thomas, who would lean on personal sense instead of Soul, for proofs of immortality; ​but when partially aroused from the error, or dream of Life in matter, to the scientific understanding of Soul and body, or God and man, exclaimed, in awe, “My Lord, and my God!”
Man is the idea of his Principle, and only as the image and likeness of Intelligence and Life, substance and Spirit, is he beyond the reach of death, in the science of being, where nothing can harm or destroy him; of that which is materialized it can only be said, “dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return.”
When the sharp experiences of supposed Life in matter, its disappointments, and ceaseless woes, turn us from it as a tired child to a home in the bosom of Love, then are we fit to understand Life apart from vanity and lies; but without this weaning process, “who by searching can find out God?” If through the wholesome discipline of chastisement we become His children, understanding in part, righteousness and purity, we behold the Truth of spiritual science, where enraptured thought walks boundless, and conception unconfined has wings to reach its glory. But to gain Truth and Life, we must not only seek, but “strive to enter in;” and the strife consists in destroying the error of personal sense; but here we learn 't is easier to desire Truth than to get rid of error.
Theories of a personal God, based on the false premises of Life and Intelligence in matter, must yield to science; and the dream of sense, to the Life that is Soul. We must leave the foundations of time-honored systems, to gain Christ, Truth; come out from the world and be separate, or we have no part and lot in this matter. The so-called laws material, presuppose body and ​Soul one for a period, until separated by a temporary law of divorcement to come together again at some uncertain future, and in a manner wholly unknown; which is even less logical than annihilation.
To be sure, the Sadducees reasoned falsely on the resurrection, but not more so than the Pharisees! When we admit the immortality of Soul, we have admitted the immortal body, also, for if Soul can be separated from man, Principle can be severed from its idea, which is fatal to a self-existent Intelligence, and equal to saying there may be a time when God is without a single expression of Himself. We ask instinctively for something beyond the things of personal sense, and whence cometh these unsatisfied cravings for immortality?
Pleasures of sense are broken reeds, that pierce us to the heart; but the joys of Soul are imperishable, and attainable even here, for the hereafter commences here; to-morrow grows out of to-day. We cannot realize the Truth of being in a moment; but we can let go somewhat the belief that would fasten immortal Soul within a mortal body. The motive to realize Life and happiness apart from sense, may be gained to-day, and this point won, we have started right to admit a greater influx of light. The realization of Truth is sometimes sudden and severe, as it came of old to Saul of Tarsus, when personal sense was blind he beheld the vision of Soul, “what eye hath not seen or ear heard.”
We will specify three of the footsteps that enter in by the door, or enable us to become receptive of Truth. First. To become as a little child in that we are willing to leave the old for the new, and look beyond ​landmarks, theories, doctrines, and beliefs, pleasures or pains of sense; but here we must watch that we receive not Truth from person, but Principle; the test being, that whatever cometh from Truth is demonstrable, and brings forth good fruits; our lives must testify to this. Secondly. Purity is the foundation of the science of Life; “None but the pure in heart shall see God.” Inspiration is the highest means to convey messages from Principle to idea, i. e., from God to man; but these messages are never borne into matter, therefore to be recipient of Truth, we must begin to recognize ourselves Soul, and not body, and receive and impart the teachings of Spirit. Such messages are angels, but not winged messengers; they are the aroma of Soul passing to man, the impressions that guide him aright, and are demonstrable when understood, and not understood unless demonstrated. Thirdly. To rightly apprehend and receive more Truth, we must put into practice what we already possess. This higher understanding of the relationship between God and man will not be recognized by the opposite belief of Life and Intelligence in matter. And the explanations or the wholesome rebukes of our Father, even Wisdom and Love, will often be deemed severity; but we must avoid the yielding to error demanded by error; remembering Love often moves the sinner to hate, in that it stirs this opposite element before destroying it; and not until the sinner and the sick feel their need of Truth to save them from sickness or sin, will they become receptive of it.
It will be seen in scientific statement that gender belongs to Principle, and not person; that all formation is ​through Intelligence, because Life is Soul outside of sense. This is the stepping-stone to the understanding of Soul which, to know aright is eternal Life; man is immortal only as the idea of God, and not as a belief of Life or Soul in the body. Love is God; but error would couple Love and hate together; vainly thinking to mingle good and evil. Soul's attraction is Truth; but the attraction of sense is error. The former elevates and immortalizes man, the latter debases and makes mortal. The two cannot blend; one rules out the other as light shuts out darkness and darkness light. God is not in matter, and there is neither Life, Intelligence nor Truth where He is not; the body we call man is matter. Love is safe in Truth, but not in man, safe in Principle, but not person.
Does Wisdom find pleasure in drunkenness? But personal sense does! and you cannot make the inebriate we call man averse to foul besottedness until this belief is destroyed; when he will turn as naturally from his cup, as the dreamer from incubus. Tell a man intoxication will kill him, cause him to believe this, and possibly it will deter him from listening to this lie of personal sense, viz., that there is pleasure in intoxication; but is he reformed? Abstinence, if it cherishes the desire for intemperance, is not reformation; and this so-called man will fall again whenever the fear is removed. The fear of punishment in time or eternity never made an honest man; it is not a scientific position; moral courage instead of fear is requisite to overcome sin and sickness. But how reform the sensualist through conscience? He traffics little in this commodity; has even less Soul because he has more personal ​sense than some of the lower animals. They could teach him affection! but convince his reason that is above the brutes, of the nothingness of personal sense, and you have saved him.
Reasoning incorrectly on Soul and body, leads to error of action; understanding the science of being explains personal sense and also destroys it; in science you cannot be a hypocrite in secret even; you will become spiritual, find happiness in the moral resources of being and in Love that is Truth; even as the babe finds peace and nutriment from the mother's bosom. To waken from the dream of personal sense, or pleasure and pain in matter, is the work of time and eternity. The greater your error the harder its struggle will be with Truth when it touches it. The aged are not old when the vail lifts, and sense gives place to Soul. But the hoary error must be met and mastered in time or eternity, and would have been easier controlled in its youth. Man never obtains immortality until the standpoint whence he reckons himself in all the summing up of Life and Intelligence, is Soul and not sense. What a pitiful sight is malice finding pleasure in revenge! 't is sad to think evil is man's highest belief of good until his grasp on goodness grows stronger. We should naturally shrink from madness that rushes forth to clamor with midnight and the tempest. All error is the image of the beast that must be effaced by the sweat of agony, before the crown is laid upon the brow.
A picture on the camera, or a face reflected from the mirror is not substance; then why do we name man substance, and contradict the Scripture that saith man is the image and likeness of God? We know the face ​and form of a man reflected from the mirror is not man, that he is not in the shadow of himself; hence the error to suppose the Intelligence, substance and Life of man, are man, or in him. Again, who believes that gender belongs to the man in the mirror? Gender is Principle and not person, and man is shadow and not substance; why he is mortal to personal sense, is because it supposes him substance, Life and Intelligence. Mortal man is but a dream of Intelligence, substance and Life in matter, not the man of God, but the man of man, and shadow of shadows, therefore he reflects no Principle,and is without any real basis. To personal sense science is presumptive logic; nevertheless it reveals Truth: the ultimatum of being corroborates the statement that man is shadow and not substance; we are daily hastening to this proof, and must reach its recognition to gain immortality, for the Truth of man alone makes him immortal. The belief, that Soul is in body, turns to matter instead of Spirit for help in times of trouble, and with reluctant consent acknowledges a supreme being.
Theology embraces no creed or faith sufficient to heal the sick, while our master made this the first article of his faith, and proved that faith by works.
It seems ancient Christianity adhered more to Jesus' teachings than modern systems of religion do. Diplomas have rendered it fashionable to appeal to drugs before God; and the result is stereotyped beliefs originating in knowledge, “that forbidden tree,” and wanting in the vital point whereby Jesus demonstrated Christianity in the control Soul holds over sense.
The so-called man, born to-day and dying to-morrow, ​as if something was newly created, and lost, is a dream and illusion! and this definition of him is not more contradictory to personal sense than science demands. The Scriptures inform us clearly on this point, John declares “All things were made by God, and without Him there was nothing made that was made.” This plainly denies any new existence in the past or present, or any creation except what sprang directly from God, the Intelligence that made man; hence we have the authority of Scripture for saying, mortal man and woman since appearing are unreal, a belief only, and illusion.
The question is, did John understand the science that was the basis of his statement? He certainly foresaw its Principle and partly demonstrated it, thus proving his claim to make that statement. The master instructs us, our proof of Truth is the fruit it bears; and the science of being destroying sin, sickness, and death, demonstrates itself Truth.
It is presumptuous to conclude Love, Wisdom and Truth created what is unfit to be eternal. And when did Truth ever destroy its own idea. God cannot destroy man because he is the reflection of God, therefore Christ, Truth, casting out sin, healing the sick, and destroying death, proves these are not of God. The only certainty of immortality is found in the relationship between Principle and idea, i.e., God and man, Soul and body; Life, Love and Truth, the triune Principle, created nothing to be blotted out; because God made man he is immortal. That the sick, sinning, and dying are not “made by Him,” we learn of the science of being, and through the demonstrations of Jesus.
​There are but two realities, viz., God, and the idea of God; in other words, Spirit, and what it shadows forth. Theology teaches supreme love to God, and this is a glorious privilege, but we cannot love God supremely and personal sense or matter more. God is Love, and affections are the offspring of Soul. The understanding of Life outside of matter is the basis of Christianity by which the flesh is denied, the cross taken up, and the guidance of personal sense exchanged for Principle that makes perfect. Doctrines and theories of Life in matter, Soul in body, and God in man, are virtually atheism that must fall to the ground, and those are the days wherein there will be tribulations, such as has not been since the beginning of this belief. Earth will echo back the shock when the cry goes forth, “Why art thou (Truth) come hither to torment me before the time?” The belief of Life in matter results in the belief of death. Life demonstrates Life, and not death, but Life is God, and none but the pure in heart shall see God. Personal sense affords no evidence, not the smallest idea of Truth, Life or Love. Messages of Soul are man's teachers, and these are inspirations not borne into matter, but the outside Intelligence, where Spirit is, and speaks to man. We must recognize ourself Soul, and not body, and outside the body, else Soul is deemed subject to matter, mortality, sin, and death. But in order to do this we must grow away from all that is error and become pure in Spirit to receive or impart the lessons of Spirit.
The messages from God to man, in other words, from Principle to idea, are purity, the atmosphere of Soul, not winged messengers, but that whereby we gain the ​idea of spiritual man, in the science of his being; the inspirations of truth that are demonstrable when understood, and never understood until demonstrated. Truth is practical, not theoretical, and we shall never have more until we practice what we already have. Not until the sick and the sinner feel their need of Truth that saves from sickness, sin and death, will they apprehend it. Understanding the Truth of Man's being is all that can make him harmonious or immortal, and is the stepping-stone to the understanding of God, the giver of every good, “whom to know aright is life eternal.” Man is immortal only as the idea of God, the representative of Spirit and not matter, of Soul and not body. As a belief of Soul in body, or Intelligence and Life in matter, he is only mortal. The science of being never mistakes the real for the unreal, or charges Soul with a single belief of personal sense.
Soul is God, for it is Spirit and Intelligence, and there is but one Spirit or Intelligence. To call matter substance does not require Intelligence, but a belief, insomuch as Intelligence understands there is no substance or solidity in matter that can rule out mind from piercing it and reducing it to shadow wherein Soul is found its only substance, and that which holds man, idea, that cannot be lost. It does not require Intelligence to lie, but demands Soul to utter the Truth of man. Intelligence or soul is never in error. Personal sense is the error that embraces all mistakes, wherein falsehood is considered fact until it be understood otherwise and the belief is destroyed. One of the beliefs of personal sense, named sickness, we destroy mentally with the Truth of being, and the sickness is gone; this ​we have proved by demonstration in hundreds of cases. Belief makes up the sum total of mortal man, but this statement is confounded by those not understanding science, blending the mortal and immortal, and making man God, Intelligence, instead of its idea. Belief is all there is to mortal man, and if this belief is wretchedness only, no circumstance can make it happiness, and if happiness, no circumstance can change it, or make it wretchedness, until the belief of the different conditions are changed; “for as error thinketh so is it.” The science of being is as necessary to those in the belief of health as sickness, for a single change of belief would make the well sick, when, if they understood these conditions depended on mind, instead of matter, they might continue to be well by grounding their belief in the case and letting Intelligence be master of the situation. Ignorance, pride and prejudice close the door on all that contradicts the past or opens it on things not stereotyped. When the science of Life is understood every man will be his own physician, and the doctor's occupation gone, hence materia medica will fight it to the end. But why should the new be scorned when the old has proved incapable of making man healthy or harmonious in mind or body, and the new commences at once to do this; the command remains, “Be ye perfect even as your Father is perfect,” and yet we must be smitten for insisting on this demonstration. The science of being, that alone can stay the progress of disease and sin, and the atheism that unites matter and God, will be called, in this century, anti-christian.
The belief that man is intelligent matter, subject to birth and death would make Soul mortal, and governed ​by material laws, God in the things He has made, sin, sickness, and death blending with Truth and Life, and the former having the mastery over the latter. There is but one Spirit, even God, therefore no evil can be in Spirit, there being nothing to make evil of. Jesus cast out spirits, that is, beliefs in other Intelligences and healed the sick with the Truth of being, he admitted no Intelligence in evil, hence his authority over it. If Spirit sins it must die, for all error is mortal; Spirit is God, and there is but one God; hence to talk of spirits is to believe in gods and demons. We reason wrong on all points relating to God and man, Soul and body, when we start from matter to draw conclusions of Spirit; this renders it impossible for such conclusions to be correct. Our present stand-point is body not Soul, personality instead of Principle, hence our mistaken views and their consequences in sin, sickness and death. We go into ecstasies over a personal God with scarcely a spark of Love in the heart, when God is Love; and with scarcely a ray from Truth, when God is Truth; and without the understanding of Life, when God is Life, and what is the result? That we have no practical God to heal us; and get out of sin and death only in belief, while they still cling to mortal man; this is not science or the Christianity that heals the sick and demonstrates the harmony of Life. Evil and good never constituted man, for man is the image of God, and all there is to him is the good; evil is not the image and likeness of God, or matter of Spirit; even reason would rescue man from these errors of personal sense were it not silenced by some fatal theory. Action produced by Intelligence manifests harmony only, while action proceeding from ​mortal minds discords until it is finally destroyed. The heavenly bodies controlled by the mind of God, Soul, contradict the supposed laws of sense, and are harmonious. The supposition of Life in matter leaves man at the mercy of sin, sickness, and death, and then would resurrect Spirit from dust! Beginning with dust and returning to dust He who formed the universe! Science undisturbed amid this jargon reveals Soul, the Life, Intelligence and substance that constitutes Spirit, the great forever not in matter nor man. Soul being inside of man would reduce God to man, or make man God; the belief of Soul in body supposes Spirit helpless, sinning, sick and dying. Omnipotence is lost if God is in man, for mortal man is an error through which Truth cannot appear. The mighty arm is crippled when Spirit is made subject to matter. Surely the “tree of knowledge” produced a pigmy race of “gods.”