King's Business - 1916-06

THE KING’S BUSINESS

490

sonal God.” Page 3, By the individuality o f God is meant “ the infinite and divine Principle.” 61. & H. Index, pp. 616, 604, 1894; p. 616, 1899, “God as (a ) principle, not (a) person saves man.” Nothing possesses reality or existence except mind, God. This means that as God is mind, and mind is principle, nothing exists but principle. In quoting 1 Timothy 2 :4, Mrs. Eddy says: “ That which will have all men to be saved is principle, not person.” (Italics ours.) The god whom the Christian Scientist would have us worship is not the Divine Being a$ presented to' us in the Scriptures —a loving, kind, personal, heavenly Father, such a God as the human heart longs for; but, instead, it presents to us an abstract, impersonal principle, o f definition, which no man can either worship or love, and calls that thing God. To the Christian, God is an almighty omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, personal Being, who not only created all things, but who also sustains His creation by the continual manifestation o f His power; a God who cares personally for each individual child o f His, yea, who cares even for. the sparrow that falls. God is not man, nor is man God; God is not nature, nor is nature God. God is in nature and in man, but He has an existence sep­ arate from both nature and man. The God o f the Christian Scientist is nothing but a “ cold, formal abstraction, instead o f the warm, loving, personal God and Father as set forth by the Christian faith. The Christian Scientist set us a ghostly image fashioned o f the thin abstrac­ tion o f the mind, and would have us take' it for the living God. But this is not the sort o f God for which men’s hearts and flesh cry out.” I cannot worship'a prin­ ciple, I cannot pray to a definition, I can­ not love an idea. Such a conception of God is not Christian. To the Christian, God is a living, personal,- self-existent God who in the beginning created all things, and who by His mighty power has, through all these ages, kept them in being; He is a Being who loves, cares and is person-

for the first time by a woman. According to the precepts o f this new cult the world from the time o f Christ up to the advent of Mrs. Eddy has been in darkness; it has had to wait nineteen hundred years for the light vouchsafed by a woman (who frankly confesses that she once humbugged patients by treating them with unmedicated pills)' before it could know the real religion of Jesus. A consideration o f its teachings reveals the fact that the very fundamental doctrines o f the Christian faith are denied by the teachings of Mrs. Eddy. 1. Christian Science Denies the Person- ality of God. Indeed it is considered by Christian Sci­ ence authorities that no one can become an adept in that science as a healer or teacher without absolutely relinquishing the idea o f a divine personality. Strange as this may seem, it is neverthe­ less true. Christian Science does not teach a personal God. God is individual, not per­ sonal; God is principle, not personality. This principle pervades the universe— indeed, is the universe. There is no other substance but God— for God is all and all is God. This means that Christian Science is pantheistic, or words have no meaning. Christian Science is, therefore, pagan; for the heathen who bows down and worships his gods o f wood and stone, sun and water, does so because he believes that God is in everything and that everything is God. Christian Science is pantheistic, not Chris­ tian; therefore, I am not a Christian Sci­ entist. To quote from Christian Science itself: “ Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God” (S. & H., p. 465, 1909, 1916). “ The theory o f three persons in one God . . . suggests heathen gods (polytheism)” (S. & H ; p. 152, 1899; p. 256, 1909, 1916). God is an impersonal being. God is not a person. Rudimental Divine Science, p. 2: In Christian Science we learn that God is defi­ nitely individual and not personal.” Page 2, “An individual God, rather than a per­

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