Chapter VIII - Healing the Sick
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This was one of our Master's rules for casting out
This was one of our Master's rules for casting out
error and healing the sick. It referred, however, not
to legal proceedings, or processes material, but to a
mental tribunal and judgment. The adversary was not
man, but error; and the directions, how to proceed with
sin or sickness that would impose through belief a pen-
alty for transgressing law that is not law, insomuch
as justice is the moral signification of law, and injus-
tice implies its absence. Shall a teacher pay the pen-
alty of sickness for performing well and faithfully her
tasks? or a great mind, because of the good it has
done, fall soonest a prey to disease? must man suffer
at the hands of God, for steadfastly doing right? Shall
the mother droop, or suffer, because of maternity, if
such is the design of her being? Because of fatigue,
exposure to cold, or some supposed infringement of the
so-called laws of health, we ignorantly admit there is
danger of being sick, and this mental position decides
the physical one; therefore, "agree with thine adver-
sary quickly;" say to this belief, "Get behind me,
satan, for thou savorest not the things that are of God,
but those that are of man;" it is not a broken moral
law to which your penalty is attached, but a condition
of matter, a demand from something wholly unintelli-
gent and incapable of justice. God has no law of injus-
tice, wrong proceeds from belief, and not Truth.
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To conclude quickly on the treatment of error, was
To conclude quickly on the treatment of error, was
the rule our Master left for casting it out. He never
recommended laws of health to our knowledge. On a
law that is not God's, we have a moral right to pass
judgment, and to commute its sentence; every in-
stance of matter, or the body, governing man, is justly
396:1
condemned, and morally impossible insomuch as it man-
condemned, and morally impossible insomuch as it man-
ifests a want of Wisdom that renders it null and void.
The only hope in sickness or sin, is to agree quickly
with thine adversary; that is, if tempted, or if disease
appears, to banish the temptation, or the disease, at
once from the mind, and suffer it not to plead in its
own behalf lest you fall a prey to your belief in the
case. On this mental basis, when the first symptoms
of disease appear, knowing they gain their ground in
mind before they can in body, "agree quickly with
thine adversary," i.e., dismiss the first mental admis-
sion that you are sick; dispute sense with science, and,
if you can annul the false process of law, alias your
belief in the case, you will not be cast into prison or
confinement. The sick must never plead guilty; in
other words, admit they are sick, for then are they sub-
ject to sentence and imprisonment, according to the
law of belief. Take the ground of science in the first
instance, never admit sensation in matter, or that the
body can be pained, or has any claims of its own, or
power to make man suffer; adhere to this scientific po-
sition and battle the old belief with it until you destroy
it, and you will get well.
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To agree quickly with thine adversary in the first
To agree quickly with thine adversary in the first
instance of sickness, is to take antagonistic grounds
to it, and prove your superiority over it. Not to ad-
mit disease, is to conquer it; and if you understood
the science of being, you would admit no reality to
aught but God and his idea. When you say, "I am
sick," you plead guilty, that is, you admit matter has
sensation and will be delivered to the judge, in other
words, into the hands of this belief that will deliver