Section 1

The Bible

1And God spake all these words, saying,

2I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

3Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them:

2And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord:

8I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

21This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.

7He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

1Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:

Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy

God does not cause man to sin, to be sick, or to die.

What is man?

Divine
image

Man: God’s spiritual idea, individual, perfect, eternal.

The understanding of his spiritual individuality makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death.

Copartnership
impossible

God is as incapable of producing sin, sickness, and death as He is of experiencing these errors. How then is it possible for Him to create man subject to this triad of errors, — man who is made in the divine likeness?

Moses advanced a nation to the worship of God in Spirit instead of matter, and illustrated the grand human capacities of being bestowed by immortal Mind.

Section 2

The Bible

35I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

36Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

37Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

1Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

4The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

5Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

1Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?

36he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul:

Science and Health

Man linked
with Spirit

Man’s spiritual individuality is never wrong.

Personality is not the individuality of man. A wicked man may have an attractive personality.

The human
counterfeit

What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man’s counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death.

Progress
demanded

If mortals are not progressive, past failures will be repeated until all wrong work is effaced or rectified. If at present satisfied with wrong-doing, we must learn to loathe it. If at present content with idleness, we must become dissatisfied with it. Remember that mankind must sooner or later, either by suffering or by Science, be convinced of the error that is to be overcome.

Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material beliefs and false individuality.

Evil
non-existent

Again, God, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the opposite of good — that is, evil — which seems to make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a false belief. God is not its author.

Sin should become unreal to every one.

Section 3

The Bible

22Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.

1And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.

2And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

3Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

5As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

6When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay,

7And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

8The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?

9Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.

10Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?

11He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

14And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes.

16Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.

17They say unto the blind man again, What sayest thou of him, that he hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.

24Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.

25He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

26Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?

27He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?

28Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples.

29We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

30The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.

31Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

32Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.

33If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.

34They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.

35Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?

36He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?

37And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.

38And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.

Science and Health

Rebukes
helpful

As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and all sin, sickness, and death, — to point out the way of Truth and Life. This ideal was demonstrated throughout the whole earthly career of Jesus, showing the difference between the offspring of Soul and of material sense, of Truth and of error.

Jesus taught but one God, one Spirit, who makes man in the image and likeness of Himself, — of Spirit, not of matter.

This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.

No fleshly
heredity

The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned, — namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God. Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear.

Sensationless
body

Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient material form, man has a sensationless body; and God, the Soul of man and of all existence, being perpetual in His own individuality, harmony, and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities in man, — through Mind, not matter.

Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sickness, but you have divine authority for denying that necessity and healing the sick.

Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, “Thou art whole!”

Man delivered from sin, disease, and death presents the true likeness or spiritual ideal.

Section 4

The Bible

34And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he began to teach them many things.

11he went into a city called Nain; and many of his disciples went with him, and much people.

12Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her.

13And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.

14And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.

15And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.

16And there came a fear on all: and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited his people.

Science and Health

The Son
of God

Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death.

The individuality of man is no less tangible because it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of matter.

In proportion as matter loses to human sense all entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master.

The Christ
treatment

Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man should live. He understood man, whose Life is God, to be immortal, and knew that man has not two lives, one to be destroyed and the other to be made indestructible.

The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea.

Individual
permanency

Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him belongs eternal Life. Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate.

Death but
an illusion

The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the “king of terrors” to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.

God’s man
discerned

Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.

Section 5

The Bible

1And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

2And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

3And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

4Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.

5While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.

1O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.

7And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations.

8He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.

Science and Health

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.

The spiritual man’s consciousness and individuality are reflections of God.

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying.

Man’s individuality is not material. This Science of being obtains not alone hereafter in what men call Paradise, but here and now; it is the great fact of being for time and eternity.

Continuity
of thoughts

Spirit diversifies, classifies, and individualizes all thoughts, which are as eternal as the Mind conceiving them; but the intelligence, existence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, who is the divinely creative Principle thereof.

Sin, sickness, and death are comprised in human material belief, and belong not to the divine Mind. They are without a real origin or existence.

Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.