CHRISTIAN HEALING

BY

MARY BAKER EDDY

AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE

SCRIPTURES

A SERMON DELIVERED AT BOSTON

BOSTON, U.S.A.

Published by Allison V. Stewart

Falmouth and St. Paul Streets

1915

Copyright, 1886

By Mrs. Glover Eddy

Copyright, 1908

By Mary Baker G. Eddy

Copyright renewed, 1914

All rights reserved

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

SERMON

SUBJECT

CHRISTIAN HEALING

Text: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name

shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they

shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall

not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

— Mark xvi. 17, 18.

HISTORY repeats itself; to-morrow grows out of to-

day. But Heaven's favors are formidable: they are

calls to higher duties, not discharge from care; and whoso

builds on less than an immortal basis, hath built on sand.

We have asked, in our selfishness, to wait until the age

advanced to a more practical and spiritual religion before

arguing with the world the great subject of Christian heal-

ing; but our answer was, "Then there were no cross to

take up, and less need of publishing the good news." A

classic writes, —

"At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty, chides his infamous delay,

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve."

The difference between religions is, that one religion has a

more spiritual basis and tendency than the other; and

2 SERMON

the religion nearest right is that one. The genius of

Christianity is works more than words; a calm and stead-

fast communion with God; a tumult on earth, — religious

factions and prejudices arrayed against it, the synagogues

as of old closed upon it, while it reasons with the storm,

hurls the thunderbolt of truth, and stills the tempest of

error; scourged and condemned at every advancing foot-

step, afterwards pardoned and adopted, but never seen

amid the smoke of battle. Said the intrepid reformer,

Martin Luther: "I am weary of the world, and the world

is weary of me; the parting will be easy." Said the more

gentle Melanchthon: "Old Adam is too strong for young

Melanchthon."

And still another Christian hero, ere he passed from

his execution to a crown, added his testimony: "I have

fought a good fight, ... I have kept the faith." But

Jesus, the model of infinite patience, said: "Come unto

me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will

give you rest." And he said this when bending beneath

the malice of the world. But why should the world hate

Jesus, the loved of the Father, the loved of Love? It was

that his spirituality rebuked their carnality, and gave this

proof of Christianity that religions had not given. Again,

they knew it was not in the power of eloquence or a dead

rite to cast out error and heal the sick. Past, present,

future magnifies his name who built, on Truth, eternity's

foundation stone, and sprinkled the altar of Love with

perpetual incense.

CHRISTIAN HEALING 3

Such Christianity requires neither hygiene nor drugs

wherewith to heal both mind and body; or, lacking these,

to show its helplessness. The primitive privilege of Chris-

tianity was to make men better, to cast out error, and heal

the sick. It was a proof, more than a profession thereof;

a demonstration, more than a doctrine. It was the foun-

dation of right thinking and right acting, and must be

reestablished on its former basis. The stone which the

builders rejected must again become the head of the

corner. In proportion as the personal and material ele-

ment stole into religion, it lost Christianity and the power

to heal; and the qualities of God as a person, instead of

the divine Principle that begets the quality, engrossed the

attention of the ages. In the original text the term God

was derived from the word good. Christ is the idea

of Truth; Jesus is the name of a man born in a remote

province of Judea, — Josephus alludes to several indi-

viduals by the name of Jesus. Therefore Christ Jesus was

an honorary title; it signified a "good man," which epi-

thet the great goodness and wonderful works of our

Master more than merited. Because God is the Principle of

Christian healing, we must understand in part this divine

Principle, or we cannot demonstrate it in part.

The Scriptures declare that "God is Love, Truth, and

Life," — a trinity in unity; not three persons in one, but

three statements of one Principle. We cannot tell what is

the person of Truth, the body of the infinite, but we know

that the Principle is not the person, that the finite cannot

4 SERMON

contain the infinite, that unlimited Mind cannot start from

a limited body. The infinite can neither go forth from,

return to, nor remain for a moment within limits. We

must give freer breath to thought before calculating the

results of an infinite Principle, — the effects of infinite

Love, the compass of infinite Life, the power of infinite

Truth. Clothing Deity with personality, we limit the ac-

tion of God to the finite senses. We pray for God to re-

member us, even as we ask a person with softening of the

brain not to forget his daily cares. We ask infinite wisdom

to possess our finite sense, and forgive what He knows

deserves to be punished, and to bless what is unfit to be

blessed. We expect infinite Love to drop divinity long

enough to hate. We expect infinite Truth to mix with

error, and become finite for a season; and, after infinite

Spirit is forced in and out of matter for an indefinite period,

to show itself infinite again. We expect infinite Life to

become finite, and have an end; but, after a temporary

lapse, to begin anew as infinite Life, without beginning and

without end.

Friends, can we ever arrive at a proper conception of the

divine character, and gain a right idea of the Principle of

all that is right, with such self-evident contradictions?

God must be our model, or we have none; and if this

model is one thing at one time, and the opposite of it at

another, can we rely on our model? Or, having faith in it,

how can we demonstrate a changing Principle? We can-

not: we shall be consistent with our inconsistent statement

CHRISTIAN HEALING 5

of Deity, and so bring out our own erring finite sense of

God, and of good and evil blending. While admitting

that God is omnipotent, we shall be limiting His power at

every point, — shall be saying He is beaten by certain kinds

of food, by changes of temperature, the neglect of a bath,

and so on. Phrenology will be saying the developments of

the brain bias a man's character. Physiology will be say-

ing, if a man has taken cold by doing good to his neighbor,

God will punish him now for the cold, but he must wait for

the reward of his good deed hereafter. One of our lead-

ing clergymen startles us by saying that "between Chris-

tianity and spiritualism, the question chiefly is concerning

the trustworthiness of the communications, and not the

doubt of their reality." Does any one think the departed

are not departed, but are with us, although we have no

evidence of the fact except sleight-of-hand and hallu-

cination?

Such hypotheses ignore Biblical authority, obscure the

one grand truth which is constantly covered, in one way

or another, from our sight. This truth is, that we are

to work out our own salvation, and to meet the responsi-

bility of our own thoughts and acts; relying not on the

person of God or the person of man to do our work for us,

but on the apostle's rule, "I will show thee my faith by

my works." This spiritualism would lead our lives to

higher issues; it would purify, elevate, and consecrate

man; it would teach him that "whatsoever a man soweth,

that shall he also reap." The more spiritual we become

6 SERMON

here, the more are we separated from the world; and

should this rule fail hereafter, and we grow more material,

and so come back to the world? When I was told the other

day, "People say you are a medium," pardon me if I

smiled. The pioneer of something new under the sun is

never hit: he cannot be; the opinions of people fly too

high or too low. From my earliest investigations of the

mental phenomenon named mediumship, I knew it was

misinterpreted, and I said it. The spiritualists abused me

for it then, and have ever since; but they take pleasure in

calling me a medium. I saw the impossibility, in Science,

of intercommunion between the so-called dead and the

living. When I learned how mind produces disease on the

body, I learned how it produces the manifestations ig-

norantly imputed to spirits. I saw how the mind's ideals

were evolved and made tangible; and it matters not

whether that ideal is a flower or a cancer, if the belief is

strong enough to manifest it. Man thinks he is a medium

of disease; that when he is sick, disease controls his body

to whatever manifestation we see. But the fact remains,

in metaphysics, that the mind of the individual only can

produce a result upon his body. The belief that produces

this result may be wholly unknown to the individual, be-

cause it is lying back in the unconscious thought, a latent

cause producing the effect we see.

"And these signs shall follow them that believe; In

my name shall they cast out devils." The word devil

comes from the Greek diabolos; in Hebrew it is belial, and

CHRISTIAN HEALING 7

signifies "that which is good for nothing, lust," etc. The

signs referred to are the manifestations of the power of

Truth to cast out error; and, correcting error in thought,

it produces the harmonious effect on the body. "Them

that believe'' signifies those who understand God's su-

premacy, — the power of Mind over matter. "The new

tongue" is the spiritual meaning as opposed to the material.

It is the language of Soul instead of the senses; it translates

matter into its original language, which is Mind, and gives

the spiritual instead of the material signification. It begins

with motive, instead of act, where Jesus formed his esti-

mate; and there correcting the motive, it corrects the act

that results from the motive. The Science of Christianity

makes pure the fountain, in order to purify the stream. It

begins in mind to heal the body, the same as it begins in

motive to correct the act, and through which to judge of it.

The Master of metaphysics, reading the mind of the poor

woman who dropped her mite into the treasury, said,

"She hath cast in more than they all." Again, he charged

home a crime to mind, regardless of any outward act, and

sentenced it as our judges would not have done to-day.

Jesus knew that adultery is a crime, and mind is the crim-

inal. I wish the age was up to his understanding of these

two facts, so important to progress and Christianity.

"They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any

deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." This is an unquali-

fied statement of the duty and ability of Christians to heal

the sick; and it contains no argument for a creed or doc-

8 SERMON

trine, it implies no necessity beyond the understanding of

God, and obedience to His government, that heals both

mind and body; God, — not a person to whom we should

pray to heal the sick, but the Life, Love, and Truth that

destroy error and death. Understanding the truth regard-

ing mind and body, knowing that Mind can master sick-

ness as well as sin, and carrying out this government over

both and bringing out the results of this higher Chris-

tianity, we shall perceive the meaning of the context,

— "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall

recover."

The world is slow to perceive individual advancement;

but when it reaches the thought that has produced this,

then it is willing to be made whole, and no longer quarrels

with the individual. Plato did better; he said, "What

thou seest, that thou beest."

The mistaken views entertained of Deity becloud the

light of revelation, and suffocate reason by materialism.

When we understand that God is what the Scriptures have

declared, — namely, Life, Truth, and Love, — we shall

learn to reach heaven through Principle instead of a par-

don; and this will make us honest and laborious, knowing

that we shall receive only what we have earned. Jesus

illustrated this by the parable of the husbandman. If we

work to become Christians as honestly and as directly

upon a divine Principle, and adhere to the rule of this

Principle as directly as we do to the rule of mathematics,

we shall be Christian Scientists, and do more than we are

CHRISTIAN HEALING 9

now doing, and progress faster than we are now pro-

gressing. We should have no anxiety about what is or

what is not the person of God, if we understood the

Principle better and employed our thoughts more in dem-

onstrating it. We are constantly thinking and talking

on the wrong side of the question. The less said or thought

of sin, sickness, or death, the better for mankind, morally

and physically. The greatest sinner and the most hope-

less invalid think most of sickness and of sin; but, having

learned that this method has not saved them from either,

why do they go on thus, and their moral advisers talk for

them on the very subjects they would gladly discontinue to

bring out in their lives? Contending for the reality of

what should disappear is like furnishing fuel for the flames.

Is it a duty for any one to believe that "the curse causeless

cannot come"? Then it is a higher duty to know that

God never cursed man, His own image and likeness. God

never made a wicked man; and man made by God had not

a faculty or power underived from his Maker wherewith to

make himself wicked.

The only correct answer to the question, "Who is

the author of evil?" is the scientific statement that

evil is unreal; that God made all that was made, but

He never made sin or sickness, either an error of mind

or of body. Life in matter is a dream: sin, sickness,

and death are this dream. Life is Spirit; and when we

waken from the dream of life in matter, we shall learn this

grand truth of being. St. John saw the vision of life in

10 SERMON

matter; and he saw it pass away, — an illusion. The

dragon that was wroth with the woman, and stood ready

"to devour the child as soon as it was born," was the vision

of envy, sensuality, and malice, ready to devour the idea

of Truth. But the beast bowed before the Lamb: it was

supposed to have fought the manhood of God, that Jesus

represented; but it fell before the womanhood of God,

that presented the highest ideal of Love. Let us re-

member that God — good — is omnipotent; therefore evil

is impotent. There is but one side to good, — it has no

evil side; there is but one side to reality, and that is the

good side.

God is All, and in all: that finishes the question of

a good and a bad side to existence. Truth is the real;

error is the unreal. You will gather the importance of

this saying, when sorrow seems to come, if you will look

on the bright side; for sorrow endureth but for the night,

and joy cometh with the light. Then will your sorrow be

a dream, and your waking the reality, even the triumph

of Soul over sense. If you wish to be happy, argue with

yourself on the side of happiness; take the side you wish

to carry, and be careful not to talk on both sides, or to

argue stronger for sorrow than for joy. You are the at-

torney for the case, and will win or lose according to your

plea.

As the mountain hart panteth for the water brooks, so

panteth my heart for the true fount and Soul's baptism.

Earth's fading dreams are empty streams, her fountains

CHRISTIAN HEALING 11

play in borrowed sunbeams, her plumes are plucked from

the wings of vanity. Did we survey the cost of sublunary

joy, we then should gladly waken to see it was unreal. A

dream calleth itself a dreamer, but when the dream has

passed, man is seen wholly apart from the dream.

We are in the midst of a revolution; physics are yield-

ing slowly to metaphysics; mortal mind rebels at its own

boundaries; weary of matter, it would catch the meaning

of Spirit. The only immortal superstructure is built on

Truth; her modest tower rises slowly, but it stands and is

the miracle of the hour, though it may seem to the age like

the great pyramid of Egypt, — a miracle in stone. The

fires of ancient proscription burn upon the altars of to-day;

he who has suffered from intolerance is the first to be in-

tolerant. Homoeopathy may not recover from the heel of

allopathy before lifting its foot against its neighbor, meta-

physics, although homoeopathy has laid the foundation

stone of mental healing; it has established this axiom,

"The less medicine the better," and metaphysics adds,

"until you arrive at no medicine." When you have

reached this high goal you have learned that proportion-

ately as matter went out and Mind came in as the remedy,

was its potency. Metaphysics places all cause and cure

as mind; differing in this from homoeopathy, where cause

and cure are supposed to be both mind and matter. Meta-

physics requires mind imbued with Truth to heal the sick;

hence the Christianity of metaphysical healing, and this

excellence above other systems. The higher attenuations

12 SERMON

of homoeopathy contain no medicinal properties, and

thus it is found out that Mind instead of matter heals

the sick.

While the matter-physician feels the pulse, examines

the tongue, etc., to learn what matter is doing independent

of mind, when it is self-evident it can do nothing, the

metaphysician goes to the fount to govern the streams;

he diagnoses disease as mind, the basis of all action, and

cures it thus when matter cannot cure it, showing he was

right. Thus it was we discovered that all physical effects

originate in mind before they can become manifest as

matter; we learned from the Scripture and Christ's healing

that God, directly or indirectly, through His providence

or His laws, never made a man sick. When studying the

two hundred and sixty remedies of the Jahr, the character-

istic peculiarities and the general and moral symptoms

requiring the remedy, we saw at once the concentrated

power of thought brought to bear on the pharmacy of

homoeopathy, which made the infinitesimal dose effectual.

To prepare the medicine requires time and thought; you

cannot shake the poor drug without the involuntary

thought, "I am making you more powerful," and the

sequel proves it; the higher attenuations prove that the

power was the thought, for when the drug disappears by

your process the power remains, and homoeopathists ad-

mit the higher attenuations are the most powerful. The

only objection to giving the unmedicated sugar is, it would

be dishonest and divide one's faith apparently between

CHRISTIAN HEALING 13

matter and mind, and so weaken both points of action;

taking hold of both horns of the dilemma, we should work

at opposites and accomplish less on either side.

The pharmacy of homoeopathy is reducing the one hun-

dredth part of a grain of medicine two thousand times,

shaking the preparation thirty times at every attenuation.

There is a moral to this medicine; the higher natures are

reached soonest by the higher attenuations, until the fact is

found out they have taken no medicine, and then the so-

called drug loses its power. We have attenuated a grain of

aconite until it was no longer aconite, then dropped into

a tumblerful of water a single drop of this harmless solu-

tion, and administering one teaspoonful of this water at

intervals of half an hour have cured the incipient stage of

fever. The highest attenuation we ever attained was to

leave the drug out of the question, using only the sugar of

milk; and with this original dose we cured an inveterate

case of dropsy. After these experiments you cannot be

surprised that we resigned the imaginary medicine alto-

gether, and honestly employed Mind as the only curative

Principle.

What are the foundations of metaphysical healing?

Mind, divine Science, the truth of being that casts out

error and thus heals the sick. You can readily perceive

this mental system of healing is the antipode of mesmer-

ism, Beelzebub. Mesmerism makes one disease while it is

supposed to cure another, and that one is worse than the

first; mesmerism is one lie getting the better of another,

14 SERMON

and the bigger lie occupying the field for a period; it is the

fight of beasts, in which the bigger animal beats the lesser;

in fine, much ado about nothing. Medicine will not arrive

at the science of treating disease until disease is treated

mentally and man is healed morally and physically. What

has physiology, hygiene, or physics done for Christianity

but to obscure the divine Principle of healing and en-

courage faith in an opposite direction?

Great caution should be exercised in the choice of

physicians. If you employ a medical practitioner, be sure

he is a learned man and skilful; never trust yourself in the

hands of a quack. In proportion as a physician is enlight-

ened and liberal is he equipped with Truth, and his efforts

are salutary; ignorance and charlatanism are miserable

medical aids. Metaphysical healing includes infinitely

more than merely to know that mind governs the body and

the method of a mental practice. The preparation for a

metaphysical practitioner is the most arduous task I ever

performed. You must first mentally educate and develop

the spiritual sense or perceptive faculty by which one learns

the metaphysical treatment of disease; you must teach

them how to learn, together with what they learn. I

waited many years for a student to reach the ability to

teach; it included more than they understood.

Metaphysical or divine Science reveals the Principle and

method of perfection, — how to attain a mind in harmony

with God, in sympathy with all that is right and opposed

to all that is wrong, and a body governed by this mind.

CHRISTIAN HEALING 15

Christian Science repudiates the evidences of the senses

and rests upon the supremacy of God. Christian healing,

established upon this Principle, vindicates the omnipo-

tence of the Supreme Being by employing no other remedy

than Truth, Life, and Love, understood, to heal all ills

that flesh is heir to. It places no faith in hygiene or drugs;

it reposes all faith in mind, in spiritual power divinely

directed. By rightly understanding the power of mind

over matter, it enables mind to govern matter, as it rises

to that supreme sense that shall "take up serpents'' un-

harmed, and "if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not

hurt them." Christian Science explains to any one's per-

fect satisfaction the so-called miracles recorded in the

Bible. Ah! why should man deny all might to the divine

Mind, and claim another mind perpetually at war with this

Mind, when at the same time he calls God almighty and

admits in statement what he denies in proof? You pray

for God to heal you, but should you expect this when you

are acting oppositely to your prayer, trying everything else

besides God, and believe that sickness is something He

cannot reach, but medicine can? as if drugs were superior

to Deity.

The Scripture says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because

ye ask amiss;" and is it not asking amiss to pray for a

proof of divine power, that you have little or no faith in

because you do not understand God, the Principle of

this proof? Prayer will be inaudible, and works more

than words, as we understand God better. The Lord's

16 SERMON

Prayer, understood in its spiritual sense, and given its

spiritual version, can never be repeated too often for the

benefit of all who, having ears, hear and understand.

Metaphysical Science teaches us there is no other Life,

substance, and intelligence but God. How much are you

demonstrating of this statement? which to you hath the

most actual substance, — wealth and fame, or Truth and

Love? See to it, O Christian Scientists, ye who have

named the name of Christ with a higher meaning, that you

abide by your statements, and abound in Love and Truth,

for unless you do this you are not demonstrating the

Science of metaphysical healing. The immeasurable

Life and Love will occupy your affections, come nearer

your hearts and into your homes when you touch but the

hem of Truth's garment.

A word about the five personal senses, and we will leave

our abstract subjects for this time. The only evidence we

have of sin, sickness, or death is furnished by these senses;

but how can we rely on their testimony when the senses

afford no evidence of Truth? They can neither see, hear,

feel, taste, nor smell God; and shall we call that reliable

evidence through which we can gain no understanding of

Truth, Life, and Love? Again, shall we say that God

hath created those senses through which it is impossible to

approach Him? Friends, it is of the utmost importance

that we look into these subjects, and gain our evidences of

Life from the correct source. Jesus said, "I am the way,

the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father,

CHRISTIAN HEALING 17

but by me," — through the footsteps of Truth. Not by the

senses — the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life, envy,

hypocrisy, or malice, the pleasures or the pains of the

personal senses — does man get nearer his divine nature

and present the image and likeness of God. How, then,

can it be that material man and the personal senses were

created by God? Love makes the spiritual man, lust

makes the material so-called man, and God made all that

was made; therefore the so-called material man and these

personal senses, with all their evidences of sin, sickness,

and death, are but a dream, — they are not the realities of

Life; and we shall all learn this as we awake to behold His

likeness.

The allegory of Adam, when spiritually understood,

explains this dream of material life, even the dream of

the "deep sleep" that fell upon Adam when the spiritual

senses were hushed by material sense that before had

claimed audience with a serpent. Sin, sickness, and

death never proceeded from Truth, Life, and Love. Sin,

sickness, and death are error; they are not Truth, and

therefore are not TRUE. Sin is a supposed mental condi-

tion; sickness and death are supposed physical ones, but

all appeared through the false supposition of life and in-

telligence in matter. Sin was first in the allegory, and

sickness and death were produced by sin. Then was not

sin of mental origin, and did not mind originate the de-

lusion? If sickness and death came through mind, so

must they go; and are we not right in ruling them out of

18 SERMON

mind to destroy their effects upon the body, that both

mortal mind and mortal body shall yield to the govern-

ment of God, immortal Mind? In the words of Paul,

that "the old man" shall be "put off," mortality shall

disappear and immortality be brought to light. People are

willing to put new wine into old bottles; but if this be

done, the bottle will break and the wine be spilled.

There is no connection between Spirit and matter.

Spirit never entered and it never escaped from matter;

good and evil never dwelt together. There is in reality

but the good: Truth is the real; error, the unreal. We

cannot put the new wine into old bottles. If that could be

done, the world would accept our sentiments; it would will-

ingly adopt the new idea, if that idea could be reconciled

with the old belief; it would put the new wine into the

old bottle if it could prevent its effervescing and keep it

from popping out until it became popular.

The doctrine of atonement never did anything for sick-

ness or claimed to reach that woe; but Jesus' mission

extended to the sick as much as to the sinner: he estab-

lished his Messiahship on the basis that Christ, Truth,

heals the sick. Pride, appetites, passions, envy, and malice

will cease to assert their Caesar sway when metaphysics is

understood; and religion at the sick-bed will be no blind

Samson shorn of his locks. You must admit that what is

termed death has been produced by a belief alone. The

Oxford students proved this: they killed a man by no other

means than making him believe he was bleeding to death.

CHRISTIAN HEALING 19

A felon was delivered to them for experiment to test the

power of mind over body; and they did test it, and proved

it. They proved it not in part, but as a whole; they

proved that every organ of the system, every function of

the body, is governed directly and entirely by mind, else

those functions could not have been stopped by mind in-

dependently of material conditions. Had they changed

the felon's belief that he was bleeding to death, removed

the bandage from his eyes, and he had seen that a vein had

not been opened, he would have resuscitated. The illusive

origin of disease is not an exception to the origin of all

mortal things. Spirit is causation, and the ancient ques-

tion, Which is first, the egg or the bird? is answered by

the Scripture, He made "every plant of the field before it

was in the earth."

Heaven's signet is Love. We need it to stamp our re-

ligions and to spiritualize thought, motive, and endeavor.

Tireless Being, patient of man's procrastination, affords

him fresh opportunities every hour; but if Science makes,

a more spiritual demand, bidding man go up higher, he is

impatient perhaps, or doubts the feasibility of the demand.

But let us work more earnestly in His vineyard, and accord-

ing to the model on the mount, bearing the cross meekly

along the rugged way, into the wilderness, up the steep

ascent, on to heaven, making our words golden rays in the

sunlight of our deeds; and "these signs shall follow them

that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and

they shall recover."

20 SERMON

The following hymn was sung at the close: —

"Oh, could we speak the matchless worth,

Oh, could we sound the glories forth,

Which in our Saviour shine,

We'd soar and touch the heavenly strings.

And vie with Gabriel, while he sings,

In notes almost divine."

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