The Bible
Gen 1:1, 31 (to good)
1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good
Prov 2:1-11
1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;
2So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding;
3Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding;
4If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;
5Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.
6For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.
7He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints.
9Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10¶When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul;
11Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:
Prov 3:1-6
1My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments;
2For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
3Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
4So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5¶Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Mark 4:1-30
1And he began again to teach by the sea side: and there was gathered unto him a great multitude, so that he entered into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land.
2And he taught them many things by parables, and said unto them in his doctrine,
3Hearken; Behold, there went out a sower to sow:
4And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.
5And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth:
6But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.
7And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
8And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some an hundred.
9And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
10And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable.
11And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:
12That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.
13And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?
14¶The sower soweth the word.
15And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
16And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground; who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness;
17And have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.
18And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word,
19And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
20And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.
21¶And he said unto them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel, or under a bed? and not to be set on a candlestick?
22For there is nothing hid, which shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad.
23If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
24And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given.
25For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
26¶And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;
27And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.
28For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.
29But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
30¶And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?
Matt 16:15-17
15He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?
16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy
vii:1-26
To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is
big with blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds
the first faint morning beams, ere cometh the full radiance
of a risen day. So shone the pale star to the prophet-
shepherds; yet it traversed the night, and came where, in
cradled obscurity, lay the Bethlehem babe, the human
herald of Christ, Truth, who would make plain to be-
nighted understanding the way of salvation through Christ
Jesus, till across a night of error should dawn the morn-
ing beams and shine the guiding star of being. The Wise-
men were led to behold and to follow this daystar of
divine Science, lighting the way to eternal harmony.
The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent
of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the
portal of humanity. Contentment with the past and
the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling
away. Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-
stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a
right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is
Life eternal. Though empires fall, “the Lord shall
reign forever.”
A book introduces new thoughts, but it cannot make
them speedily understood. It is the task of the sturdy
pioneer to hew the tall oak and to cut the rough
granite. Future ages must declare what the pioneer
has accomplished.
viii:4-12
To develop the full
might of this Science, the discords of corporeal sense
must yield to the harmony of spiritual sense, even as the
science of music corrects false tones and gives sweet con-
cord to sound.
Theology and physics teach that both Spirit and
matter are real and good, whereas the fact is that
Spirit is good and real, and matter is Spirit’s oppo-
site.
465:0 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept;
line upon line, line upon line;
here a little, and there a little. — Isaiah.
This chapter is from the first edition of the author’s
class-book, copyrighted in 1870. After much labor
and increased spiritual understanding, she revised that
treatise for this volume in 1875. Absolute Christian
Science pervades its statements, to elucidate scientific
metaphysics.
465:1-15
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Question. — What is God?
Answer. — God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite
Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.
Question. — Are these terms synonymous?
Answer. — They are. They refer to one absolute God.
They are also intended to express the nature, essence, and
wholeness of Deity. The attributes of God are justice,
mercy, wisdom, goodness, and so on.
470:11-471:20
Divine Science explains the abstract statement that
there is one Mind by the following self-evident propo-
The divine
standard of
perfection sition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the
unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can
only seem to be real by giving reality to the
unreal. The children of God have but one Mind. How
can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man,
never sins? The standard of perfection was originally
God and man. Has God taken down His own standard,
and has man fallen?
Indestructible relationship
God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle
of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection,
man, remains perfect. Man is the expression
of God’s being. If there ever was a moment
when man did not express the divine perfec-
tion, then there was a moment when man did not express
God, and consequently a time when Deity was unex-
pressed— that is, without entity. If man has lost per-
fection, then he has lost his perfect Principle, the divine
Mind. If man ever existed without this perfect Principle
or Mind, then man’s existence was a myth.
The relations of God and man, divine Principle and
idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows
no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine
order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He cre-
ates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged
in its eternal history.
Celestial evidence
The unlikeness of Truth, — named error, — the op-
posite of Science, and the evidence before the five cor-
poreal senses, afford no indication of the grand
facts of being; even as these so-called senses
receive no intimation of the earth’s motions or of the
science of astronomy, but yield assent to astronomical
propositions on the authority of natural science.
The facts of divine Science should be admitted, —
although the evidence as to these facts is not supported
by evil, by matter, or by material sense, — because the
evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by
spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God’s re-
flection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and
there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirit-
uality of the universe is the only fact of creation.
472:5-11
God’s law destroys evil
The way which leads to Christian Science is straight
and narrow. God has set His signet upon Science, mak-
ing it coordinate with all that is real and only
with that which is harmonious and eternal.
Sickness, sin, and death, being inharmonious, do not
originate in God nor belong to His government. His
law, rightly understood, destroys them.