Section 1

The Bible

3Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

13who is so great a God as our God?

14Thou art the God that doest wonders:

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

24And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

11Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all.

Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy

God. The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.

The universal
cause

God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is no other self-existence. He is all-inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real and eternal and by nothing else.

One primal
cause

There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause.

The spiritual reality is the scientific fact in all things.

Sometime we shall learn how Spirit, the great architect, has created men and women in Science.

Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.

Enable us to know, — as in heaven, so on earth, — God is omnipotent, supreme.

Section 2

The Bible

17Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

5Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

3And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place:

5And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?

7And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.

10And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them;

13And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to-day:

15And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:

16But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it:

21And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.

22And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

30Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians;

10Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him:

12Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

21Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?

26Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.

20Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:

Science and Health

There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.

Marvels and
reformations

From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha.

The real jurisdiction of the world is in Mind, controlling every effect and recognizing all causation as vested in divine Mind.

All force
mental

Adhesion, cohesion, and attraction are properties of Mind. They belong to divine Principle, and support the equipoise of that thought-force, which launched the earth in its orbit and said to the proud wave, “Thus far and no farther.”

Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name.

Section 3

The Bible

1O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

3When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

6Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

4All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Lord, when they hear the words of thy mouth.

5Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord: for great is the glory of the Lord.

7thy right hand shall save me.

2And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:

3And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

4Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you;

12At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.

13And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.

14And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground.

15And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.

35And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited;

21all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Science and Health

In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine Principle of being. The earth, at God’s command, brings forth food for man’s use.

In the wilderness, streams flowed from the rock, and manna fell from the sky.

Christian Science takes naught from the perfection of God, but it ascribes to Him the entire glory.

We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God’s creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief.

Infinite
physique
impossible

A mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a physical God and man.

The great I am made all “that was made.” Hence man and the spiritual universe coexist with God.

Self-
completeness

As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.

When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man’s spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God’s creation, — all the glories of earth and heaven and man.

Section 4

The Bible

1O sing unto the Lord a new song; for he hath done marvellous things: his right hand, and his holy arm, hath gotten him the victory.

17the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

23And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.

24Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

25Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.

27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

15and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;

16And charged them that they should not make him known:

17That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,

18Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.

20A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.

22Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.

57thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Science and Health

The divine
Principle
and idea

The advent of Jesus of Nazareth marked the first century of the Christian era, but the Christ is without beginning of years or end of days. Throughout all generations both before and after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spiritual idea, — the reflection of God, — has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of Love. The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and ever will be inseparable from the divine Principle, God. Jesus referred to this unity of his spiritual identity thus: “Before Abraham was, I am;” “I and my Father are one;” “My Father is greater than I.”

The basis of all health, sinlessness, and immortality is the great fact that God is the only Mind; and this Mind must be not merely believed, but it must be understood.

These two contradictory theories — that matter is something, or that all is Mind — will dispute the ground, until one is acknowledged to be the victor.

The struggle
and victory

The victory will be on the patient’s side only as immortal Mind through Christ, Truth, subdues the human belief in disease.

Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him. There is no disease.

Maintain the facts of Christian Science, — that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win.

Belief
and
understanding

Truth casts out all evils and materialistic methods with the actual spiritual law, — the law which gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, voice to the dumb, feet to the lame.

Truth is always the victor.

Section 5

The Bible

4The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.

1Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

24O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

30Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

Science and Health

Creator. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.

Substance
versus
supposition

Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter. Divine metaphysics explains away matter. Spirit is the only substance and consciousness recognized by divine Science.

The admission that there can be material substance requires another admission, — namely, that Spirit is not infinite and that matter is self-creative, self-existent, and eternal. From this it would follow that there are two eternal causes, warring forever with each other; and yet we say that Spirit is supreme and all-presence.

The belief that the universe, including man, is governed in general by material laws, but that occasionally Spirit sets aside these laws, — this belief belittles omnipotent wisdom, and gives to matter the precedence over Spirit.

Spirit
intangible

How can the majesty and omnipotence of Spirit be lost?

Unfathomable Mind is expressed. The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!

Section 6

The Bible

1O come, let us sing unto the Lord:

3For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

3How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders!

10Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen:

6I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

Science and Health

Science and
Christianity

If God, the All-in-all, be the creator of the spiritual universe, including man, then everything entitled to a classification as truth, or Science, must be comprised in a knowledge or understanding of God, for there can be nothing beyond illimitable divinity.

The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.

To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is.

All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love.