Rudimental Divine Science

AS the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of 3 universal harmony.

What is the Principle of Christian Science?

It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal 6 Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father which is in heaven. It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth, and Love, -- these are the deific Principle. 9

Do you mean by this that God is a person?

The word person affords a large margin for misappre- hension, as well as definition. In French the equivalent 12 word is personne. In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is persona. The Latin verb personare is compounded of the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound). 15

In law, Blackstone applies the word personal to bodily presence, in distinction from one's appearance (in court, for example) by deputy or proxy. 18

Other definitions of person, as give by Webster, are 1 "a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent; especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman, 3 or child; an individual of the human race." He adds, that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead. 6

In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi- vidual and not a person, as that word is used by the best authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining 9 person as especially a finite human being; but God is personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.

We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him 12 as less than infinite. The human person is finite; and therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Diety by using the phrase an individual God rather than a per- 15 sonal God; for there is and can be but on infinite indi- vidual spirit, who mortals have named God.

Science defines the individuality of God as supreme 18 good, Life, Truth, Love. This term enlarges our sense of Diety, takes away the trammels assigned to God by finite though, and introduces us to higher definitions. 21

Is healing the sick the whole of Science?

Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris- tian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and 24 action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the 27 cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they 1 do not love to be sick. Hence their comparative acqui- escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and 3 their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the 6 flesh, from the flesh, -- the material world and evil.

This Life, Truth, and Love -- this trinity of good -- was individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the 9 man Jesus. His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing. His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models 12 of the masters in music and painting are to artists.

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor- ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon 15 on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe drugs, or deny God. Jesus' healing was spiritual in its nature, method, and design. He wrought the cure of 18 disease through the divine Mind, which gives all true volition, impulse, and action; and destroys the mental error made manifest physically, and establishes the oppo- 21 site manifestation of Truth upon the body in harmony and health.

By the individuality of God, do you mean that God has 24 a finite form?

No. I mean the infinite and divine Principle of all being, the ever-present I AM, filling all space, including 27 in itself all Mind, the one Father-Mother God. Life, 1 Truth, and Love are this trinity in unity, and their uni- verse is spiritual, peopled with perfect beings, harmonious 3 and eternal, of which our material universe and men are the counterfeits.