Books by Mary Baker Eddy

Chapter II - One Cause and Effect
page 16

Chapter II - One Cause and Effect

   Christian Science begins with the First Commandment
of the Hebrew Decalogue, "Thou
shalt have no other gods before me." It goes on in
perfect unity with Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and
in that age culminates in the Revelation of St. John,
who, while on earth and in the flesh, like ourselves,
beheld "a new heaven and a new earth," - the spiritual
universe, whereof Christian Science now bears testimony.
   Our Master said, "The works that I do shall ye do
also;" and, "The kingdom of God is within you." This
makes practical all his words and works. As the ages
advance in spirituality, Christian Science will be seen
to depart from the trend of other Christian denominations
in no wise except by increase of spirituality.
   My first plank in the platform of Christian Science
is as follows: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor
substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite
manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal
Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and
eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is
God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man
is not material; he is spiritual."*1

*1 The order of this sentence accords with the text of
the 1908 edition of Science and Health.

MISC 22

   I am strictly a theist - believe in one God, one Christ
or Messiah.
   Science is neither a law of matter nor of man. It is
the unerring manifesto of Mind, the law of God, its
divine Principle. Who dare say that matter or
mortals can evolve Science? Whence, then, is it, if not
from the divine source, and what, but the contemporary
of Christianity, so far in advance of human knowledge
that mortals must work for the discovery of even a
portion of it? Christian Science translates Mind, God,
to mortals. It is the infinite calculus defining the line,
plane, space, and fourth dimension of Spirit. It absolutely
refutes the amalgamation, transmigration, absorption,
or annihilation of individuality. It shows the
impossibility of transmitting human ills, or evil, from one
individual to another; that all true thoughts revolve
in God's orbits: they come from God and return to
Him, - and untruths belong not to His creation, therefore
these are null and void. It hath no peer, no competitor,
for it dwelleth in Him besides whom "there is
none other."
   That Christian Science is Christian, those who have
demonstrated it, according to the rules of its divine
Principle, - together with the sick, the lame, the deaf, and
the blind, healed by it, - have proven to a waiting world.
He who has not tested it, is incompetent to condemn it;
and he who is a willing sinner, cannot demonstrate it.
   A falling apple suggested to Newton more than the
simple fact cognized by the senses, to which it seemed
to fall by reason of its own ponderosity; but the primal
cause, or Mind-force, invisible to material sense, lay
concealed in the treasure-troves of Science. True,

MISC 23

Newton named it gravitation, having learned so much;
but Science, demanding more, pushes the question:
Whence or what is the power back of gravitation, - the
intelligence that manifests power? Is pantheism true?
Does mind "sleep in the mineral, or dream in the
animal, and wake in man"? Christianity answers this
question. The prophets, Jesus, and the apostles, demonstrated
a divine intelligence that subordinates so-called
material laws; and disease, death, winds, and waves,

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