Chapter VIII - Footsteps Of Truth
Sure reward of righteousness
203:1
fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear
fatal pulmonary disease; as though evil could overbear
the law of Love, and check the reward for do-
ing good. In the Science of Christianity, Mind
– omnipotence – has all-power, assigns sure
rewards to righteousness, and shows that matter can
neither heal nor make sick, create nor destroy.
Our belief and understanding
203:7
If God were understood instead of being merely be-
If God were understood instead of being merely be-
lieved, this understanding would establish health. The
accusation of the rabbis, "He made himself
the Son of God," was really the justification
of Jesus, for to the Christian the only true
spirit is Godlike. This thought incites to a more exalted
worship and self-abnegation. Spiritual perception brings
out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught
but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in
deed and in truth.
Suicide and sin
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We are prone to believe either in more than one Su-
We are prone to believe either in more than one Su-
preme Ruler or in some power less than God. We im-
agine that Mind can be imprisoned in a sensuous body.
When the material body has gone to ruin, when evil has
overtaxed the belief of life in matter and destroyed it,
then mortals believe that the deathless Principle, or
Soul, escapes from matter and lives on; but this is not
true. Death is not a stepping-stone to life, immortality,
and bliss. The so-called sinner is a suicide.
Sin kills the sinner and will continue to kill
him so long as he sins. The foam and fury of illegiti-
mate living and of fearful and doleful dying should
disappear on the shore of time; then the waves of sin,
sorrow, and death beat in vain.
203:31
God, divine good, does not kill a man in order to give
God, divine good, does not kill a man in order to give
him eternal Life, for God alone is man's life. God is at
204:1
once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil
once the centre and circumference of being. It is evil
that dies; good dies not.
Spirit the only intelligence and substance
204:3
All forms of error support the false conclusions that
All forms of error support the false conclusions that
there is more than one Life; that material history is as
real and living as spiritual history; that mortal
error is as conclusively mental as immortal
Truth; and that there are two separate, an-
tagonistic entities and beings, two powers, – namely,
Spirit and matter, – resulting in a third person (mortal
man) who carries out the delusions of sin, sickness, and
death.
204:12
The first power is admitted to be good, an intelligence or
The first power is admitted to be good, an intelligence or
Mind called God. The so-called second power, evil, is the
unlikeness of good. It cannot therefore be mind, though
so called. The third power, mortal man, is a supposed
mixture of the first and second antagonistic powers, in-
telligence and non-intelligence, of Spirit and matter.
Unscientific theories
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Such theories are evidently erroneous. They can never
Such theories are evidently erroneous. They can never
stand the test of Science. Judging them by their fruits,
they are corrupt. When will the ages under-
stand the Ego, and realize only one God, one
Mind or intelligence?
204:23
False and self-assertive theories have given sinners the
False and self-assertive theories have given sinners the
notion that they can create what God cannot, – namely,
sinful mortals in God's image, thus usurping the name
without the nature of the image or reflection of divine
Mind; but in Science it can never be said that man
has a mind of his own, distinct from God, the all
Mind.
204:30
The belief that God lives in matter is pantheistic. The
The belief that God lives in matter is pantheistic. The
error, which says that Soul is in body, Mind is in matter,
and good is in evil, must unsay it and cease from such