Science and Health
by Mary Baker Glover
Chapter IV - Creation

 

223:1
keep the two commandments that our Master said out-
weighed all sacrifices and burnt offerings, religious rites
and ceremonies, and fulfilled the prophecies, ushering
in the reign of harmony that is to come on earth, even
as in heaven. To love God supremely is to hold no In-
telligence in matter, neither pleasure nor pain in the
body. Truth, Life, and Love, are not in their idea, but
are the Principle of this idea; are not in man, but are
God, outside of man. This science of being alone en-
ables us to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor
as ourself. To reach its harmony, we must look away
from the supposed Life of matter, and find happiness
in Soul and not sense. Man is not distorted into shock-
ing dimensions, because he is the infinite idea, nor is he
but a solitary thought, disembodied and alone. When
realizing Life as it is, namely, Soul, not sense, or the
personal man, we shall expand into Truth and self-com-
pleteness that embrace all things, and need communion
with nothing more than itself, to find them all. But
this statement of Soul and body, or God and man, we
shall understand, only in proportion as we lay up our
treasures in heaven, and not on earth; that is, in Spirit,
and not matter, and approach the broader interpretation
of being, where we gain the glorious consciousness and
proof of Life and happiness. The sensuous and ma-
terial man is slow to gather this meaning. Constantly
looking away from the body to the good and true, we
shall gravitate towards Spirit and immortality; but ever
referring to the body, talking and supposing inces-
santly, some pain or pleaures there, we shall never be-
come harmonious, but return, "like the sow to her wal-
lowing," and "the dog to his vomit." The freedom or
224:1
blessedness of the sons of God, is not communing with
the body, but away from it with the impersonal Life,
Truth, and Love. Regarding the body as the seat of
Intelligence, Life, etc., is to hold one's self liable to be
annihilated; and believing God a person, robs Omnip-
otence, clothing it with vestments of mortality. If
Deity is personality, the forever "I am," or God with
us, is not Spirit, but matter, bounded by and narrowed
into six feet of stature. If God is a person he dwells
in a body, in which case matter and Spirit are God;
this is impossible, for Spirit and matter are opposites.
It is of little consequence what our educated views are
on this subject; it is morally impossible for Principle to
dwell in its idea; for Soul to inhabit a body; the un-
changing to dwell in change, and the undying with
death, or the Infinite with the finite, the perfect with
the imperfect; yea, for Spirit and matter to unite, and
Soul and personal sense to join hands. Soul cannot
exist both within and without the body, else matter is
gone, and all is found Principle and idea, in which case
personality disappears. There is a wider difference
between Spirit and matter than between light and
darkness, that surely are not mingled into one. We
know better than to say Deity is the shadow of matter,
but if matter is Substance, God is shadow, and shadow
never produced Substance; hence, matter must have
created itself. The body of Spirit is spiritual and not
material; but Principle, or Soul, cannot be compressed
into one of its ideas, into what it has made. If God is
in a body He is person, and not Principle, hence
man is not his likeness or reflection. Again, the dis-
cord that comes from the belief of Soul in body, and
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