God Preserves Man

As soon as thought begins to become spiritualized, the individual commences to understand that man lives under divine protection, maintained and preserved by the Supreme Being, whom men call God. The fact is illustrated throughout the Bible. The patriarchs, awakened in some degree from the dream of life in matter, their thoughts turned to the living and true God, felt the divine presence, recognized their relationship to it, and were thereby supported on many an occasion.

In the Psalms, where the spiritual life of the Hebrew people is so vividly depicted in its rise and fall, may be read on many a page utterances testifying to the security some of them felt in the divine presence. Thus, in the sixty-second psalm it is written: “In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us.” And does not the ninety-first psalm from the first to the last line simply pour forth a declaration of reliance on “the Lord”? The ninth and tenth verses, which may be taken as an example of the trend of the whole psalm, run: “Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.” The same is seen when one turns to the New Testament. In the gospel narratives Christ Jesus is repeatedly found pleading the loving fatherhood of God, illustrating the Father’s care for His children, in many beautiful and simple similes. Thus, when he was counseling his disciples not to be too careful about earthly things, he said, “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” On another occasion he said to them, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.” Jesus knew more about God and man’s relationship to God than did any other; and his revelation to mankind established the truth that this relationship was so absolute that nothing could possibly interfere with it. Had not God arrayed the lilies in all their simple beauty until they surpassed the splendor of Solomon? And did not His vigilance reach even to the humble sparrow?

Now, the meaning of these illustrations does not lie on the surface. The casual thinker may, indeed, find in them support for a faith which may help him in a measure to weather some of life’s storms; but there are many others who, not content with a blind faith in God, are desirous of knowing what God’s nature is, what the relationship is which exists between God and His creation, and how exactly this established connection results in the divine protection vouchsafed to His creation, including individual man. It is reasonable that men should desire to know these things. It is right that they should know them. And the question arises, Can they know them? Christian Science answers, Yes! All these things have been revealed, the nature of God and His spiritual creation, the exact relationship which exists between them, and how this relationship, established and sustained by spiritual law, preserves man. The revelation of Christian Science is very wonderful, and very simple.

Christian Science declares that God is Mind. Now, how does Mind express itself? Only in one way, in spiritual ideas. The universe, then, consists of spiritual ideas. It is inconceivable to think of these spiritual ideas as existing apart from Mind. They are inseparable; for ideas are the thoughts of Mind. God’s consciousness of His spiritual ideas necessarily implies their preservation. The Scriptures refer to man as the image of God, or as the likeness of God. This is but another way of speaking of man as the spiritual idea of God. And, Mind being inseparable from its idea, man remains governed and sustained and preserved by Mind. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mrs. Eddy writes on page 151, “Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind.” And continuing, our Leader says: “The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God’s man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness.”

In the sentences just quoted Mrs. Eddy draws a clear distinction between divine Mind and the so-called human mind. She explicitly warns against the false belief that this so-called mind can either kill or cure anything real. Christian Science draws the plainest possible line of demarcation between divine Mind, in which the real man lives, moves, and has his being forever, and mortal mind, that counterfeit which simulates real, spiritual consciousness, and which has within its false selfhood all the erroneous beliefs of evil,—sin, disease, fear, and death. The practical issue before mankind must be to obtain a knowledge or spiritual understanding of divine Mind and of the real man, thereby supplanting false belief, and so gaining the victory over human illusion. The issue is a very important one. It is one which Christianity has always held before mankind, and which in certain individual cases has been faced and met in some degree. As Mrs. Eddy has written (Science and Health, p. 387), “The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering.”

Faith in good has often saved men from sin and temptation; and faith in good has also protected them from physical suffering. But what the world needed was divine Science, knowledge of God as the Principle of being, to raise faith from the region of the problematical to the realm of the absolutely certain. When faith is thus established, when it is grounded on absolute knowledge of God, there cannot be set a limit to its power to shield from evil and protect from disease. This is the same as saying that to the extent of one’s knowledge of divine Principle, or in the proportion that one is governed by divine intelligence or divine Mind, one is harmonious and is protected from the false beliefs of mortal mind; and to the same extent one realizes man’s harmonious and eternal being. “Controlled by the divine intelligence,” Mrs. Eddy has written (Science and Health, p. 184), “man is harmonious and eternal.”

Men must learn to know God— not merely to believe in Him—and to love Him; for “the Lord preserveth all them that love him.” God is Love. And the knowledge of God, as Love, shows how intimate and how tender is the relationship between God and man. No words can adequately express this relationship. It is only as human consciousness becomes spiritually illumined, and material sense is overcome, that there is experienced something of the nature of that intimate relationship which preserves man, and which transcends human understanding. “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.”