Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/224

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
198
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

sinner. When wholly governed by the one perfect Mind, man has no sinful thoughts and will have no desire to sin.

To arrive at this point of unity of Spirit, God, one must commence by turning away from material gods; denying material so-called laws and material sensation, — or mind in matter, in its varied forms of pleasure and pain. This must be done with the understanding that matter has no sense; thus it is that consciousness silences the mortal claim to life, substance, or mind in matter, with the words of Jesus: “When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.” (John viii. 44.)

When tempted to sin, we should know that evil proceedeth not from God, good, but is a false belief of the personal senses; and if we deny the claims of these senses and recognize man as governed by God, Spirit, not by material laws, the temptation will disappear.

On this Principle, disease also is treated and healed. We know that man's body, as matter, has no power to govern itself; and a belief of disease is as much the product of mortal thought as sin is. All suffering is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of both good and evil; of adherence to the “doubleminded” senses, to some belief, fear, theory, or bad deed, based on physical material law, so-called as opposed to good, — all of which is corrected alone by Science, divine Principle, and its spiritual laws. Suffering is the supposition of another intelligence than God; a belief in self-existent evil, opposed to good; and in whatever seems to punish man for doing good, — by saying he has overworked, suffered from inclement weather, or violated a law of matter in doing good, therefore he must suffer for it.