The New Birth.
St. Paul speaks of the new birth as “waiting for the [5]
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The
great Nazarene Prophet said, “Blessed are the pure in
heart: for they shall see God.” Nothing aside from the
spiritualization—yea, the highest Christianization—of
thought and desire, can give the true perception of God [10]
and divine Science, that results in health, happiness, and
holiness.
The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins
with moments, and goes on with years; moments of sur-
render to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption [15]
of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration,
heaven-born hope, and spiritual love.
Time may commence, but it cannot complete, the
new birth: eternity does this; for progress is the law
of infinity. Only through the sore travail of mortal mind [20]
shall soul as sense be satisfied, and man awake in His
likeness. What a faith-lighted thought is this! that
mortals can lay off the “old man,” until man is found
to be the image of the infinite good that we name God,
and the fulness of the stature of man in Christ appears. [25]
In mortal and material man, goodness seems in em-
bryo. By suffering for sin, and the gradual fading out
of the mortal and material sense of man, thought is de-
veloped into an infant Christianity; and, feeding at first
on the milk of the Word, it drinks in the sweet revealings [30]
of a new and more spiritual Life and Love. These nourish [1]
the hungry hope, satisfy more the cravings for immor-
tality, and so comfort, cheer, and bless one, that he saith:
In mine infancy, this is enough of heaven to come down
to earth. [5]
But, as one grows into the manhood or womanhood
of Christianity, one finds so much lacking, and so very
much requisite to become wholly Christlike, that one
saith: The Principle of Christianity is infinite: it is
indeed God; and this infinite Principle hath infinite [10]
claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human;
and man's ability to meet them is from God; for, being
His likeness and image, man must reflect the full
dominion of Spirit—even its supremacy over sin, sick-
ness, and death. [15]
Here, then, is the awakening from the dream of life
in matter, to the great fact that God is the only Life;
that, therefore, we must entertain a higher sense of both
God and man. We must learn that God is infinitely
more than a person, or finite form, can contain; that [20]
God is a divine Whole, and All, an all-pervading in-
telligence and Love, a divine, infinite Principle; and
that Christianity is a divine Science. This newly
awakened consciousness is wholly spiritual; it emanates
from Soul instead of body, and is the new birth begun [25]
in Christian Science.
Now, dear reader, pause for a moment with me, earn-
estly to contemplate this new-born spiritual altitude; for
this statement demands demonstration.
Here you stand face to face with the laws of infinite [30]
Spirit, and behold for the first time the irresistible con-
flict between the flesh and Spirit. You stand before the
awful detonations of Sinai. You hear and record the [1]
thunderings of the spiritual law of Life, as opposed to
the material law of death; the spiritual law of Love, as
opposed to the material sense of love; the law of om-
nipotent harmony and good, as opposed to any supposi- [5]
titious law of sin, sickness, or death. And, before the
flames have died away on this mount of revelation, like
the patriarch of old, you take off your shoes—lay aside
your material appendages, human opinions and doc-
trines, give up your more material religion with its rites [10]
and ceremonies, put off your materia medica and hygiene
as worse than useless—to sit at the feet of Jesus. Then,
you meekly bow before the Christ, the spiritual idea
that our great Master gave of the power of God to heal
and to save. Then it is that you behold for the first [15]
time the divine Principle that redeems man from under
the curse of materialism,—sin, disease, and death.
This spiritual birth opens to the enraptured understand-
ing a much higher and holier conception of the supremacy
of Spirit, and of man as His likeness, whereby man reflects [20]
the divine power to heal the sick.
A material or human birth is the appearing of a mor-
tal, not the immortal man. This birth is more or less
prolonged and painful, according to the timely or un-
timely circumstances, the normal or abnormal material [25]
conditions attending it.
With the spiritual birth, man's primitive, sinless,
spiritual existence dawns on human thought,—through
the travail of mortal mind, hope deferred, the perishing
pleasure and accumulating pains of sense,—by which [30]
one loses himself as matter, and gains a truer sense of
Spirit and spiritual man.
The purification or baptismals that come from Spirit, [1]
develop, step by step, the original likeness of perfect man,
and efface the mark of the beast. “Whom the Lord
loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom
He receiveth;” therefore rejoice in tribulation, and wel- [5]
come these spiritual signs of the new birth under the law
and gospel of Christ, Truth.
The prominent laws which forward birth in the divine
order of Science, are these: “Thou shalt have no other
gods before me;” “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” [10]
These commands of infinite wisdom, translated into
the new tongue, their spiritual meaning, signify: Thou
shalt love Spirit only, not its opposite, in every God-
quality, even in substance; thou shalt recognize thy-
self as God's spiritual child only, and the true man [15]
and true woman, the all-harmonious “male and female,”
as of spiritual origin, God's reflection,—thus as chil-
dren of one common Parent,—wherein and whereby
Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and
divine idea, even the divine “Us”—one in good, and [20]
good in One.
With this recognition man could never separate him-
self from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain
habitual love for his fellow-man. Only by admitting
evil as a reality, and entering into a state of evil [25]
thoughts, can we in belief separate one man's interests
from those of the whole human family, or thus attempt
to separate Life from God. This is the mistake that
causes much that must be repented of and overcome.
Not to know what is blessing you, but to believe that [30]
aught that God sends is unjust,—or that those whom
He commissions bring to you at His demand that which
is unjust,—is wrong and cruel. Envy, evil thinking, [1]
evil speaking, covetousness, lust, hatred, malice, are
always wrong, and will break the rule of Christian
Science and prevent its demonstration; but the rod of
God, and the obedience demanded of His servants in [5]
carrying out what He teaches them,—these are never
unmerciful, never unwise.
The task of healing the sick is far lighter than that
of so teaching the divine Principle and rules of Chris-
tian Science as to lift the affections and motives of men [10]
to adopt them and bring them out in human lives. He
who has named the name of Christ, who has virtually
accepted the divine claims of Truth and Love in divine
Science, is daily departing from evil; and all the wicked
endeavors of suppositional demons can never change the [15]
current of that life from steadfastly flowing on to God,
its divine source.
But, taking the livery of heaven wherewith to cover
iniquity, is the most fearful sin that mortals can commit.
I should have more faith in an honest drugging-doctor, [20]
one who abides by his statements and works upon as
high a basis as he understands, healing me, than I could
or would have in a smooth-tongued hypocrite or mental
malpractitioner.
Between the centripetal and centrifugal mental forces [25]
of material and spiritual gravitations, we go into or we
go out of materialism or sin, and choose our course and
its results. Which, then, shall be our choice,—the sin-
ful, material, and perishable, or the spiritual, joy-giving,
and eternal? [30]
The spiritual sense of Life and its grand pursuits is
of itself a bliss, health-giving and joy-inspiring. This
sense of Life illumes our pathway with the radiance of [1]
divine Love; heals man spontaneously, morally and
physically,—exhaling the aroma of Jesus' own words,
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.” [5]