Chapter III - Spirit and Matter
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idea of Spirit, therefore he is not subject to laws of
idea of Spirit, therefore he is not subject to laws of
matter, to sickness, sin or death. Science reveals the
fact that there is no Intelligence in matter, and that all
righteous government is Spirit that speaks and it is
done; never for a moment admitting matter controls
man. The belief that God is the author of sickness, sin
and death, or that an opposite power named devil or
matter is the father thereof, implies a power independent
of and over and above God; while there is no separate
might or Intelligence from Spirit, and to talk of "spir-
its" is narrating ghost stories. There is but one Spirit,
even God, and this is always right because it is Life,
Truth and Love; matter is but a belief of Spirit, Sub-
stance and Life where these are not, and out of this error
and belief, we make all suffering, sin and death. Does
Wisdom commit mistakes to be rectified by man, does
God send sickness and man destroy it, thus undoing
what He has done? That which is perfect cannot pro-
duce sickness, sin or death; and if God cannot destroy
these, they are immortal. Nothing to my understanding
exceeds the power of omnipotence, and the sick are
never really healed except through God, Intelligence;
the power of drugs, electricity and matter is but a belief;
it is mesmerism and not science that claims Truth, Life
or Intelligence in matter bestowing a blessing that God
cannot; and the so-called cures of these agents continue
only so long as the belief lasts. Truth, Life and Love
have got it all to do sometime, for they alone accomplish
all that continues and is harmonious. If God heals not
the sick it is because He cannot or will not, and in either
case what chance would there be for matter, or man to
heal? Can drugs do more than Wisdom, or change the
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unalterable Truth? or if God can heal the sick and does
unalterable Truth? or if God can heal the sick and does
not, wherefore should man presume to do it. The error
of sickness ought to be as apparent as the error of sin.
When a man is sick, has God made him sick? No!
Can He heal him? Yes. But does He that creates
wisely destroy his own creation, or what are we to
conclude? "That all things were made by Him, and
without Him there was nothing made that was made";
in other words, that all that he created was "good,"
and what is not good has no creation, and therefore no
reality. To really understand that pleasure and pain
belong not to matter, heals the sick. Cold, heat, exer-
cise, study, food, infection, etc., etc., never caused a sick
nor a healthy condition of man. Nerves, brain, blood,
bones, liver, lungs, heart, etc., never determined the
Life of man; scrofula, fever, consumption, rheumatism,
small-pox, or any other disease never produced pain or
inharmony; not one of these can make a single hair
white or black, mar or change the creation of God;
they are not creators in the smallest sense. If God
produced disease, it is good, for all was good that God
made.
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Mortal man is improved, oftentimes, by sickness
Mortal man is improved, oftentimes, by sickness
because it is error destroying itself; a fermenting stage
in which it throws itself off to some extent; again what
is named dying is but one belief destroying another;
a belief of death destroying a belief of Life in matter.
Belief saith an ulcer becomes more painful as it has-
tens to its end in suppuration, for error grows more
imperative before it kills itself. Death is but a chem-
ical change, in which some disease that is supposed to
kill a man, reaches its own self-destruction; and we