Innocence

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The Bible illustrates the law of justice where the guilty are punished, and innocence is divinely protected. Moses and the prophets, through prayer and spiritual insight, recognized the law of God, and exhorted the people to purify their lives. The assurance that innocence is sustained by His law, and delivered from danger, shines out in these words: “Acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee. He shall deliver the island of the innocent: and it is delivered by the pureness of thine hands.”

Daniel’s protection was in the purity of his thought, which was innocent of resentment. Noah’s safety was in the goodness of his thought, and in his obedience to God’s counsel, directing him to make proper preparations for his safety. These spiritual qualities sustained him, and he took them with him into the ark, above the forces of destruction, manifested as a flood. Those attacked by evil today, are preserved, as spiritual love is active in their thought.

All spiritual revelation has come to the world through the purity and receptivity of individual consciousness. Moses received the Commandments while communing with God, and John, while exiled on the Isle of Patmos, in his spiritual vision, saw the holy city. Through her purity of thought, Mary recognized the spiritual unity of God and man, and brought forth the Bethlehem babe, Jesus, the Christ, or Son of God.

Mrs. Eddy recognized that states of pure thought bring security. She writes, “The sublime summary of an honest life satisfies the mind craving a higher good, and bathes it in the cool waters of peace on earth; till it grows into the full stature of wisdom, reckoning its own by the amount of happiness it has bestowed upon others.”

Christian Science is a practical religion based on the Scriptural teaching that God made man in His own likeness, and that man is naturally good, and therefore innocent. It shows the necessity of recognizing good as our divine heritage, and of claiming and maintaining it.

Believing that both good and evil are real, results from accepting the mesmeric belief that creation is material, and subject to sin and suffering. Putting off these mortal beliefs, refusing to indulge them in thought, and accepting the truth that man is inseparable from God, begins to acquaint an individual with his true selfhood, his innate innocence, which expresses the nature of his creator in spiritual qualities.

As thought is filled with the understanding of the reality of good, the beliefs of material existence, and its attendant evils, are seen to be untrue. Thus, spiritual man’s innocence is established in thought, and this mental conviction enables us to apprehend true selfhood.

Innocence and purity wait on God, even though seemingly surrounded by currents of mortal opinion, and the tides of changing beliefs. What havens of security these provide during a storm of conflicting beliefs! What new courage we gain from them, while awaiting an opportunity to proceed along a line of progress!

Spiritual man dwells forever in the spiritual realm of perfect harmony, where God, good, is All, the only power, presence, intelligence, and activity.

Today many may feel themselves facing situations where hope seems lost, but Christian Science brings comfort, renewed hope, and gives the assurance that God’s law sustains and provides for the innocent.

Wherever we may be, we can become conscious of the presence of God, and find spiritual refuge. There is no power that can hinder our dwelling in “the secret place of the most High.”




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