Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter XVI - The Apocalypse

 

Apathy to occultism
570:1
The march of mind and of honest investigation will
bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of
some sort, the growing occultism of this period.
The present apathy as to the tendency of
certain active yet unseen mental agencies will finally be
shocked into another extreme mortal mood, – into human
indignation; for one extreme follows another.
570:8
Revelation xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his
mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might
cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth
helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and
swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his
mouth.
Receptive hearts
570:14
Millions of unprejudiced minds – simple seekers for
Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert – are wait-
ing and watching for rest and drink. Give
them a cup of cold water in Christ's name,
and never fear the consequences. What if the old dragon
should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea?
He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again
sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night.
In this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual
idea will be understood. Those ready for the blessing
you impart will give thanks. The waters will be paci-
fied, and Christ will command the wave.
Hidden ways of iniquity
570:26
When God heals the sick or the sinning, they should
know the great benefit which Mind has wrought. They
should also know the great delusion of mor-
tal mind, when it makes them sick or sinful.
Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the
power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are
571:1
not so willing to point out the evil in human thought,
and expose evil's hidden mental ways of accomplishing
iniquity.
Christly warning
571:4
Why this backwardness, since exposure is necessary
to ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like
you better when you tell them their virtues
than when you tell them their vices. It re-
quires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his
faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing
right and benefiting our race. Who is telling mankind
of the foe in ambush? Is the informer one who sees the
foe? If so, listen and be wise. Escape from evil, and
designate those as unfaithful stewards who have seen the
danger and yet have given no warning.
The armor of divinity
571:15
At all times and under all circumstances, overcome
evil with good. Know thyself, and God will supply
the wisdom and the occasion for a victory
over evil. Clad in the panoply of Love,
human hatred cannot reach you. The cement of a
higher humanity will unite all interests in the one
divinity.
Pure religion enthroned
571:22
Through trope and metaphor, the Revelator, immortal
scribe of Spirit and of a true idealism, furnishes the
mirror in which mortals may see their own
image. In significant figures he depicts the
thoughts which he beholds in mortal mind. Thus he
rebukes the conceit of sin, and foreshadows its doom.
With his spiritual strength, he has opened wide the gates
of glory, and illumined the night of paganism with the
sublime grandeur of divine Science, outshining sin, sorcery,
lust, and hypocrisy. He takes away mitre and sceptre.
He enthrones pure and undefiled religion, and lifts on
572:1
high only those who have washed their robes white in
obedience and suffering.
Native nothingness of sin
572:3
Thus we see, in both the first and last books of the
Bible, – in Genesis and in the Apocalypse, – that sin
is to be Christianly and scientifically reduced
to its native nothingness. "Love one an-
other" (I John, iii. 23), is the most simple and profound
counsel of the inspired writer. In Science we are chil-
dren of God; but whatever is of material sense, or mor-
tal, belongs not to His children, for materiality is the
inverted image of spirituality.
Fulfilment of the Law
572:12
Love fulfils the law of Christian Science, and nothing
short of this divine Principle, understood and demon-
strated, can ever furnish the vision of the
Apocalypse, open the seven seals of error with
Truth, or uncover the myriad illusions of sin, sickness,
and death. Under the supremacy of Spirit, it will be seen
and acknowledged that matter must disappear.
572:19
In Revelation xxi. 1 we read: –
572:20
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was
no more sea.
Man's present possibilities
572:23
The Revelator had not yet passed the transitional
stage in human experience called death, but he already
saw a new heaven and a new earth. Through
what sense came this vision to St. John? Not
through the material visual organs for seeing, for optics
are inadequate to take in so wonderful a scene. Were this
new heaven and new earth terrestrial or celestial, mate-
573:1
rial or spiritual? They could not be the former, for the
human sense of space is unable to grasp such a view.
The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet
beholding what the eye cannot see, – that which is in-
visible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy
Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and
earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness
which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the
unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This
shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms
matter and spirit indicates states and stages of con-
sciousness.
Nearness of Deity
573:13
Accompanying this scientific consciousness was an-
other revelation, even the declaration from heaven, su-
preme harmony, that God, the divine Principle
of harmony, is ever with men, and they are
His people. Thus man was no longer regarded as a mis-
erable sinner, but as the blessed child of God. Why?
Because St. John's corporeal sense of the heavens and
earth had vanished, and in place of this false sense was
the spiritual sense, the subjective state by which he could
see the new heaven and new earth, which involve the
spiritual idea and consciousness of reality. This is Scrip-
tural authority for concluding that such a recognition of
being is, and has been, possible to men in this present
state of existence, – that we can become conscious,
here and now, of a cessation of death, sorrow, and pain.
This is indeed a foretaste of absolute Christian Science.
Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will
surely appear sometime and in some way. There will
be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When
you read this, remember Jesus' words, "The kingdom of
574:1
God is within you." This spiritual consciousness is
therefore a present possibility.
574:3
The Revelator also takes in another view, adapted to
console the weary pilgrim, journeying "uphill all the way."
574:5
He writes, in Revelation xxi. 9: –
574:6
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which
had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked
with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride,
the Lamb's wife.
Vials of wrath and consolation
574:10
This ministry of Truth, this message from divine Love,
carried John away in spirit. It exalted him till he be-
came conscious of the spiritual facts of being
and the "New Jerusalem, coming down from
God, out of heaven," – the spiritual outpour-
ing of bliss and glory, which he describes as the city
which "lieth foursquare." The beauty of this text is,
that the sum total of human misery, represented by
the seven angelic vials full of seven plagues, has full
compensation in the law of Love. Note this, – that the
very message, or swift-winged thought, which poured
forth hatred and torment, brought also the experience
which at last lifted the seer to behold the great city, the
four equal sides of which were heaven-bestowed and
heaven-bestowing.
Spiritual wedlock
574:25
Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sack-
cloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-
winged dove descending upon you. The very
circumstance, which your suffering sense
deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel
entertained unawares. Then thought gently whispers:
575:1
"Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness
into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb's
wife, – Love wedded to its own spiritual idea." Then
cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will de-
stroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material
sense.
The city foursquare
575:7
This sacred city, described in the Apocalypse (xxi. 16)
as one that "lieth foursquare" and cometh "down from
God, out of heaven," represents the light and
glory of divine Science. The builder and
maker of this New Jerusalem is God, as we read in the
book of Hebrews; and it is "a city which hath founda-
tions." The description is metaphoric. Spiritual teach-
ing must always be by symbols. Did not Jesus illustrate
the truths he taught by the mustard-seed and the prodi-
gal? Taken in its allegorical sense, the description of
the city as foursquare has a profound meaning. The
four sides of our city are the Word, Christ, Christianity,
and divine Science; "and the gates of it shall not be shut
at all by day: for there shall be no night there." This
city is wholly spiritual, as its four sides indicate.
The royally divine gates
575:22
As the Psalmist saith, "Beautiful for situation, the
joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of
the north, the city of the great King." It is
indeed a city of the Spirit, fair, royal, and
square. Northward, its gates open to the North Star,
the Word, the polar magnet of Revelation; eastward,
to the star seen by the Wisemen of the Orient, who fol-
lowed it to the manger of Jesus; southward, to the
genial tropics, with the Southern Cross in the skies,
– the Cross of Calvary, which binds human society
into solemn union; westward, to the grand realization
576:1
of the Golden Shore of Love and the Peaceful Sea of
Harmony.
Revelation's pure zenith
576:3
This heavenly city, lighted by the Sun of Righteous-
ness, – this New Jerusalem, this infinite All, which to
us seems hidden in the mist of remoteness, –
reached St. John's vision while yet he taber-
nacled with mortals.
576:8
In Revelation xxi. 22, further describing this holy city,
the beloved Disciple writes: –
576:10
And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty
and the Lamb are the temple of it.
The shrine celestial
576:12
There was no temple, – that is, no material structure
in which to worship God, for He must be worshipped
in spirit and in love. The word temple also
means body. The Revelator was familiar
with Jesus' use of this word, as when Jesus spoke of his
material body as the temple to be temporarily rebuilt
(John ii. 21). What further indication need we of the
real man's incorporeality than this, that John saw
heaven and earth with "no temple [body] therein"?
This kingdom of God "is within you," – is within
reach of man's consciousness here, and the spiritual
idea reveals it. In divine Science, man possesses this
recognition of harmony consciously in proportion to his
understanding of God.
Divine sense of Deity
576:26
The term Lord, as used in our version of the Old
Testament, is often synonymous with Jehovah, and ex-
presses the Jewish concept, not yet elevated
to deific apprehension through spiritual trans-
figuration. Yet the word gradually approaches a higher
meaning. This human sense of Deity yields to the divine
577:1
sense, even as the material sense of personality yields
to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite
Principle and infinite idea, – as one Father with His uni-
versal family, held in the gospel of Love. The Lamb's
wife presents the unity of male and female as no longer
two wedded individuals, but as two individual natures
in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality re-
flects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being.
In this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no
impediment to eternal bliss, – to the perfectibility of
God's creation.
The city of our God
577:12
This spiritual, holy habitation has no boundary
nor limit, but its four cardinal points are: first, the
Word of Life, Truth, and Love; second,
the Christ, the spiritual idea of God; third,
Christianity, which is the outcome of the divine Prin-
ciple of the Christ-idea in Christian history; fourth,
Christian Science, which to-day and forever interprets
this great example and the great Exemplar. This city
of our God has no need of sun or satellite, for Love
is the light of it, and divine Mind is its own interpreter.
All who are saved must walk in this light. Mighty
potentates and dynasties will lay down their honors
within the heavenly city. Its gates open towards light
and glory both within and without, for all is good, and
nothing can enter that city, which "defileth. . . . or
maketh a lie."
577:28
The writer's present feeble sense of Christian Science
closes with St. John's Revelation as recorded by the
great apostle, for his vision is the acme of this Science
as the Bible reveals it.
577:32
In the following Psalm one word shows, though faintly,
578:1
the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures
by substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal
or spiritual sense of Deity: –
578:4
PSALM XXIII
578:5
[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want.
578:6
[LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
[LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters.
578:8
[LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [Love] lead-
eth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
578:10
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE's]
rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me.
578:13
[LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of
mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup
runneth over.
578:16
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness]
of [LOVE] for ever.
Chapter XVII
Glossary
These things saith He that is holy, He that is true, He that hath the key
of David, He that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no
man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open
door, and no man can shut it. – REVELATION.
579:1
IN Christian Science we learn that the substitution of
the spiritual for the material definition of a Scrip-
tural word often elucidates the meaning of the inspired
writer. On this account this chapter is added. It con-
tains the metaphysical interpretation of Bible terms,
giving their spiritual sense, which is also their original
meaning.
579:8
ABEL. Watchfulness; self-offering; surrendering to
the creator the early fruits of experience.
579:10
ABRAHAM. Fidelity; faith in the divine Life and in the
eternal Principle of being.
This patriarch illustrated the purpose of Love to create
trust in good, and showed the life-preserving power of
spiritual understanding.
579:15
ADAM. Error; a falsity; the belief in "original sin,"
sickness, and death; evil; the opposite of good, – of God
and His creation; a curse; a belief in intelligent matter,
580:1
finiteness, and mortality; "dust to dust;" red sand-
stone; nothingness; the first god of mythology; not
God's man, who represents the one God and is His own
image and likeness; the opposite of Spirit and His crea-
tions; that which is not the image and likeness of good,
but a material belief, opposed to the one Mind, or Spirit;
a so-called finite mind, producing other minds, thus mak-
ing "gods many and lords many" (I Corinthians viii. 5);
a product of nothing as the mimicry of something; an
unreality as opposed to the great reality of spiritual ex-
istence and creation; a so-called man, whose origin,
substance, and mind are found to be the antipode of
God, or Spirit; an inverted image of Spirit; the image
and likeness of what God has not created, namely, mat-
ter, sin, sickness, and death; the opposer of Truth,
termed error; Life's counterfeit, which ultimates in
death; the opposite of Love, called hate; the usurper
of Spirit's creation, called self-creative matter; immor-
tality's opposite, mortality; that of which wisdom saith,
"Thou shalt surely die."
580:21
The name Adam represents the false supposition that
Life is not eternal, but has beginning and end; that the
infinite enters the finite, that intelligence passes into non‑
intelligence, and that Soul dwells in material sense; that
immortal Mind results in matter, and matter in mortal
mind; that the one God and creator entered what He cre-
ated, and then disappeared in the atheism of matter.
580:28
ADVERSARY. An adversary is one who opposes, denies,
disputes, not one who constructs and sustains reality and
Truth. Jesus said of the devil, "He was a murderer from
the beginning, . . . he is a liar and the father of it."
581:1
This view of Satan is confirmed by the name often con-
ferred upon him in Scripture, the "adversary."
581:3
ALMIGHTY. All-power; infinity; omnipotence.
581:4
ANGELS. God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual
intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness,
purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality,
and mortality.
581:8
ARK. Safety; the idea, or reflection, of Truth, proved
to be as immortal as its Principle; the understanding of
Spirit, destroying belief in matter.
581:11
God and man coexistent and eternal; Science show-
ing that the spiritual realities of all things are created
by Him and exist forever. The ark indicates temptation
overcome and followed by exaltation.
581:15
ASHER (Jacob's son). Hope and faith; spiritual com-
pensation; the ills of the flesh rebuked.
581:17
BABEL. Self-destroying error; a kingdom divided
against itself, which cannot stand; material knowledge.
581:19
The higher false knowledge builds on the basis of evi-
dence obtained from the five corporeal senses, the more
confusion ensues, and the more certain is the downfall
of its structure.
581:23
BAPTISM. Purification by Spirit; submergence in
Spirit.
581:25
We are "willing rather to be absent from the body,
and to be present with the Lord." (II Corinthians v. 8.)
582:1
BELIEVING. Firmness and constancy; not a faltering
nor a blind faith, but the perception of spiritual Truth.
Mortal thoughts, illusion.
582:4
BENJAMIN (Jacob's son). A physical belief as to life,
substance, and mind; human knowledge, or so-called
mortal mind, devoted to matter; pride; envy; fame;
illusion; a false belief; error masquerading as the pos-
sessor of life, strength, animation, and power to act.
582:9
Renewal of affections; self-offering; an improved
state of mortal mind; the introduction of a more spiritual
origin; a gleam of the infinite idea of the infinite Prin-
ciple; a spiritual type; that which comforts, consoles,
and supports.
582:14
BRIDE. Purity and innocence, conceiving man in the
idea of God; a sense of Soul, which has spiritual bliss
and enjoys but cannot suffer.
582:17
BRIDEGROOM. Spiritual understanding; the pure con-
sciousness that God, the divine Principle, creates man
as His own spiritual idea, and that God is the only crea-
tive power.
582:21
BURIAL. Corporeality and physical sense put out of
sight and hearing; annihilation. Submergence in Spirit;
immortality brought to light.
582:24
CANAAN (the son of Ham). A sensuous belief; the
testimony of what is termed material sense; the error
which would make man mortal and would make mortal
mind a slave to the body.
582:28
CHILDREN. The spiritual thoughts and representa-
tives of Life, Truth, and Love.
583:1
Sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation,
whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in em-
bryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, sub-
stance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being.
583:5
CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. The representatives of Soul, not
corporeal sense; the offspring of Spirit, who, having
wrestled with error, sin, and sense, are governed by divine
Science; some of the ideas of God beheld as men, casting
out error and healing the sick; Christ's offspring.
583:10
CHRIST. The divine manifestation of God, which comes
to the flesh to destroy incarnate error.
583:12
CHURCH. The structure of Truth and Love; what-
ever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.
583:14
The Church is that institution, which affords proof of
its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the
dormant understanding from material beliefs to the ap-
prehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of
divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and
healing the sick.
583:20
CREATOR. Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating
divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent
Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal;
the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Prin-
ciple; God, who made all that was made and could not
create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself.
583:26
DAN (Jacob's son). Animal magnetism; so-called mor-
tal mind controlling mortal mind; error, working out
the designs of error; one belief preying upon another.
584:1
DAY. The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea
of Truth and Love.
584:3
"And the evening and the morning were the first day."
(Genesis i. 5.) The objects of time and sense disappear
in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind
measures time according to the good that is unfolded.
This unfolding is God's day, and "there shall be no night
there."
584:9
DEATH. An illusion, the lie of life in matter; the un-
real and untrue; the opposite of Life.
584:11
Matter has no life, hence it has no real existence. Mind
is immortal. The flesh, warring against Spirit; that
which frets itself free from one belief only to be fettered
by another, until every belief of life where Life is not
yields to eternal Life. Any material evidence of death is
false, for it contradicts the spiritual facts of being.
584:17
DEVIL. Evil; a lie; error; neither corporeality nor
mind; the opposite of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness,
and death; animal magnetism or hypnotism; the lust of
the flesh, which saith: "I am life and intelligence in
matter. There is more than one mind, for I am mind, –
a wicked mind, self-made or created by a tribal god and
put into the opposite of mind, termed matter, thence to
reproduce a mortal universe, including man, not after the
image and likeness of Spirit, but after its own image."
584:26
DOVE. A symbol of divine Science; purity and peace;
hope and faith.
584:28
DUST. Nothingness; the absence of substance, life, or
intelligence.
585:1
EARS. Not organs of the so-called corporeal senses,
but spiritual understanding.
585:3
Jesus said, referring to spiritual perception, "Having
ears, hear ye not?" (Mark viii. 18.)
585:5
EARTH. A sphere; a type of eternity and immortality,
which are likewise without beginning or end.
585:7
To material sense, earth is matter; to spiritual sense,
it is a compound idea.
585:9
ELIAS. Prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to mate-
rial sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned
the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold;
the basis of immortality.
585:13
"Elias truly shall first come and restore all things."
(Matthew xvii. 11.)
585:15
ERROR. See chapter on Recapitulation, page 472.
585:16
EUPHRATES (river). Divine Science encompassing
the universe and man; the true idea of God; a type
of the glory which is to come; metaphysics taking the
place of physics; the reign of righteousness. The atmos-
phere of human belief before it accepts sin, sickness, or
death; a state of mortal thought, the only error of which
is limitation; finity; the opposite of infinity.
585:23
EVE. A beginning; mortality; that which does not
last forever; a finite belief concerning life, substance,
and intelligence in matter; error; the belief that the hu-
man race originated materially instead of spiritually, –
that man started first from dust, second from a rib, and
third from an egg.
586:1
EVENING. Mistiness of mortal thought; weariness of
mortal mind; obscured views; peace and rest.
586:3
EYES. Spiritual discernment, – not material but
mental. Jesus said, thinking of the outward vision, "Having
eyes, see ye not?" (Mark viii. 18.)
586:7
FAN. Separator of fable from fact; that which gives
action to thought.
586:9
FATHER. Eternal Life; the one Mind; the divine
Principle, commonly called God.
586:11
FEAR. Heat; inflammation; anxiety; ignorance; error;
desire; caution.
586:13
FIRE. Fear; remorse; lust; hatred; destruction; afflic-
tion purifying and elevating man.
586:15
FIRMAMENT. Spiritual understanding; the scientific
line of demarcation between Truth and error, between
Spirit and so-called matter.
586:18
FLESH. An error of physical belief; a supposition that
life, substance, and intelligence are in matter; an illusion;
a belief that matter has sensation.
586:21
GAD (Jacob's son). Science; spiritual being under-
stood; haste towards harmony.
586:23
GETHSEMANE. Patient woe; the human yielding to
the divine; love meeting no response, but still remaining
love.
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