The words “Omnipresence”, “Omnipotence”, “Omniscience”, grant revealing. The dividing syllable “ni” between “Om” and “presence” means nothingness or absence, as explained in Lesson III.
If a principle is nothing to us until we know it, this principle of the value of words in relation to our lives may seem to be unreal until we watch the difference which knowing the nature of words makes in our lives.
We silently speak the words omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience. Soon we feel larger and more powerful and wiser. Perhaps we do not see that our duties increase. Our power to carry on large affairs enlarges. Our judgment is better. Perhaps we do not see all this quickly.
The Brahmins attained to great power and wisdom by meditating much on “Om,” their name for God. The presence of the “Om” is Substance. They dealt wisely with the great negation, except in some instances. When the claim of the ages met them, saying that Brahma had made woman without a soul, they did not say, “It is not true, the soul of woman is Brahma as the soul of man is Brahma, for He knows no partiality.” They neglected other negations in the same way. They did not meet them with the right “NO”. In our own time we have similar things left undone which we need to do.
There is always one perfect way of meeting every situation and every affair so as to adjust it rightly, and see it come out well. Carlyle tells us, “The situation that hash not its duty, its ideal, was never yet occupied by man”. In your life problems every one of them has a way, has exactly one way of being dealt with, so as to have it come out right at once.
There is a way to raise the dead instantly. There is a way to heal the sick instantly. There is a way to educate yourself in all art, science, and language instantly. In the Science, as far as known, we are conscious of putting in ideas needed and leaving out some non-essentials. We keep our mind’s eye fixed on the Science, with our whole mind, that we may drop what we do not need from our statements and bring forward what we do need.
If a Scientist has a sickness which he cannot meet with prompt nullification, he has not touched the keynote to his own power. If he has poverty or grief which he cannot make leave his premises, you may not scorn him, you may simply see that he has not touched that sentence which, if he would speak it as truth, would heal him of poverty or grief.
The main thing to do for a demonstration is to notice what sentences work quickly in your behalf, and use them altogether. They have revealing power, and will quickly put you on the track of your right line of thinking. This is wherein the orderly arrangement of the Science is, so far as we have it, of the greatest benefit. It follows the order set out by Moses, and is so arranged that we can tell on what line of thought we are strong, and on what line we must add to our strength.
The first (Lesson I) is a statement of foundation principles. The second rejects whatever contradicts those propositions. The third rallies every idea that confirms them. The fourth tells our relation to them, as to why and wherefore our lot in life is as it is, and may become what we please.
Jesus Christ called this fourth lesson “Faith”. He did not say, “According to thy denial or according to thy affirmation be it unto thee”, but, “According to thy faith be it unto thee.” Moses said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.” “Ment” means mind, from the Latin word “Mens.” We call a firm mind “Faith.”
If you see a tailor cut up a long strip of broadcloth, you know he will bring forth a beautiful coat from the apparently useless cuttings. This is confidence in the correctness of a process. We see the sick child receiving the right thoughts of a practitioner or healer, and we commence to believe, although there is no sign of healing as yet, that the healing has begun. We have this confidence in our life conditions when our affirmations are working.
Paul noticed that the people who accepted the Christian ideas had moments of great exultation, then they suddenly fell into deep depression. He said, “Call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions.” He saw how often it happened. Moses called trials “water”. We have it in poetry and song to this day. “When peace like a river flows over my soul, when sorrows like sea billows roll,” etc. Again, “The waters of sorrow are drowning my hopes.” Then is the time, says Moses, when we must show firmness.
He who shows firmness in the midst of surging miseries solidifies a firm character. He makes a substance of his mind. Faith in the success of Good, when evil seems to be harrowing your life, will act like a gallant ship plowing the stormy main.
People often know the “promise” passages of the Bible by heart, but when trouble strikes them they have no confidence in them as absolute Truth. Just once holding on to them when you are in trouble would give you a good start in faith. Holding on to the great principles set forth in Scripture, while you are in trouble, will invigorate your character marvellously. It is the very mystery of godliness. How sure people are to come out right who have a strong, honest confidence that they will come out right! It is a perfect proof of the teachings of Jesus Christ, “According to thy faith be it unto thee.” As a result of your being certain that the thing which has come surging over your life cannot hurt you at all, soon the perfect condition will show forth, and things will come out right.
Bacon said that he had never made up his mind that a firm conviction that things would turn out right helped them to turn out right. He thought it helped us to bear things cheerfully, but was not certain that it affected conditions. We will not take Bacon’s shaky uncertainty of the Omnipotent. Jesus said, “Thy faith hath made thee whole.” It is rather strange that Bacon did not have confidence in the wisdom of Jesus, enough to take His teachings for granted, whether he himself had proved them or not.
We must know what we are to have faith in. We are to have faith in God, said Jesus. Thus we have faith in the Good as cutting out our life conditions just right for us, no matter how much evil there seems to be operating against us. God is Life. Thus we are to have confidence in Life as the outcome, no matter how death may seem to act. Life will win. We must be firm on this point. God is Truth. We must believe that the truth about the Good will act anyhow. We must be sure of it. We speak boldly that our patient will live. This is the truth about Good. Moses said, “Be firm.” Paul said, “Stand.” Jesus said, “Thy faith hath saved thee.”
Truth about Good is God. You may go away out of the room from the sight of what death seems to be doing and tell the Truth. Truth is God. God is omnipotent. You will strike the life key of the patient and he will live. Every man, woman, and child has a life key. You have the skill to touch it and turn him into free life. So with the truth about any situation. Tell the truth about your child, about its goodness. Its goodness is God. No matter how much evil may sweep over that child be firm in saying, “All is well, God reigns, my child is good.”
Tell the same truth about health. Be very firm. Tell the air around you that health is God.
Sickness is not God. God is all. Sickness is nothing. Then be firm. Say nothing else. Stand to it. Allow no other idea. That is Truth. Why should anything but Truth interest you. Why should what seems to be sickness baffle you and fill your mind, if the Truth is God, and you have the Truth in the possession of your understanding?
Begin today to practice this: Look into your life, look it over and see what you lack. Then tell the truth about it and be firm. See how it will come out. Faith means, to be firm. Faith brings things out all right. Firmness on the side of evil is stubbornness. It opposes Good. As evil is not God, there is not a particle of power in evil. You may argue that the child will die because death seems to be acting, but the man who sees that Life is Good and is firm, will beat all your ideas of death, even if one hundred thousand doctors are on your side, for death is not God; Life is God. Lies are not God; Truth is God. Stubbornness to bring out death, or keep a person sick, is not God. Firmness to bring out health, because health is Good, is God. That is, Faith itself is God. Hence we have Jesus telling us “Have faith in God.”
We have a mental quality which can increase faith, so that the whole world does as we say. It shows Good at every turn. It drops its evil appearance at every turn. We become very firm in Good. We do not give a farthing for evil. We laugh at it. We ignore it. It is nothing. We are so firm, so steady, that all things are seen by us as God made them.
There is one thing about your firmness that I wish to speak of. It is this: You need not try any experiments of putting your will on the patient, nor against evil, nor for Good. You may only tell the truth about God. The Truth is its own will. It is the omnipotent Will. You might get weary trying to exercise your will, but you would become strong from being firm. The truth that you speak asks only your announcing it and standing by it.
There is a generation of faith, like the generation of electricity. We speak the truth about the Good as sure to come out in our life or in our work. We stand firmly to the truth. It goes out stronger and stronger as a power to drive back the belief in and appearance of evil. We do nothing but speak the truth and stand to it. If we feel confident one moment that all will come out right, just because a little appearance for the better shows up, and then our heart sinks the next moment because a bad appearance sets in, we are unstable. We are judging by appearances and Jacob said to his son Reuben, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.”
Firmness as to Mind, or Good, being the power, does not make the Good come out right — it makes us see the Good in its true light. All is Good in reality. We have power to see things in reality. We see things in reality by being firm in our minds. The firmness of our minds as to Good is the original substance of all things. Thus substance touches substance when we speak the truth to the sick man. He is drawn out into sight as well. He is exposed as alive.
Firmness to any principle will expose a power. More than that, it will expose the very thing you seek in it. If you have, for instance, set your mind to heal heart disease, and are sure that there must be a remedy, keeping firm to that idea and seeking for the healing of heart disease, your mind will get firmer and firmer, till one day it feels a quickening certainty. At that moment you may be handling clover leaves. You give some clover leaves to the patient and he gets well. Then you insist that the clover leaves made him well and cured him. But it was the new quality of your own mind.
Firmness developed a new working efficiency. You might have been handling camphor-gum at that time and it would have been the same. While you keep your mind and heart intent upon healing heart disease those clover leaves will obey the streams of healing energy that quiver forth from your soul. When you have withdrawn your thoughts, or the influence of your mighty confidence has passed into another realm, the clover leaves will no longer cure.
Paul’s aprons and handkerchiefs served to cure people, because radiating from him went a buoyant confidence in his own principles. Shaky and feeble people felt the confidence of him as a brace. It took hold of that concealed substance within their own natures and it recognized itself.
All great remedies discovered by man have owed their curative energies to the continuous confidence of some firm mind. When that mind left the remedy it would not work. It is for this reason that the faith should be set on God. God is eternal. Faith in God being generated on the earth, everything and everybody will breathe it, and it will touch the substance of their life and unite them to eternal cure.
Abram was working for the power of faith and suddenly received it. He had an “H” from Jehovah’s name inserted within his own, and he became Abraham, Father of the Faithful. This was the mysterious old-time way of expressing every mental quickening by calling it a direction straight from the Lord. So it was indeed.
All the liberating of the inner fire within us to operate on the world without us, by laying hold of its substance, is the speaking of the God voice within us. This voice may come from the God voice without us, as it did to the prophets. If we feel that around us is God we may hear a voice from the bushes, like Moses. We may hear a voice from the air, as Samuel did. We may hear a voice from the clouds as Jesus Christ did. If we contemplate the God within us we shall feel the voice within us, and it will be as audible as if it were without us. Whichever way we may hear it we seem to turn our faith in that direction, and so our strength comes from that kind of faith. If we are determined that ALL is God we shall not be limited to the voice within nor the voice without. Everything will bear witness that we are in God. Then there is no seeking, and no command to be firm. We are firm and fixed in our eternal Godhead and power.
This Science pursued has four accomplishments to work out. Jesus Christ said it would give you power to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out bad tempers, and raise the dead. Every time the waters of opposition float over us we stand firm, and the Good comes into sight.
The fourth idea with which this Science deals is the doubt that the Good is working to prove itself quickly in our behalf. This doubt has a rushing and overturning action with us. You all know what it is to fear that you are not going to have things come out your own good way. This is doubt. It shows that either consciously or unconsciously you have been taking some high thoughts of God. Likely you have thought of God from a much higher standpoint than your minister or preacher or anyone ever spoke to you. It was so much higher than the world that when the trial came you could not reconcile the conditions with the great goodness of God, which you felt to be true. So you doubted that Good was cutting out the pattern of your circumstances to please your heart. Here is where you are to remember your highest thought of God which you have ever held. Hold it firmly. If need be you may speak over your truth rapidly and constantly, so as riot to let any other idea be spoken by you, even in thought.
Nehemiah, the builder of the walls of Jerusalem, would not listen to anything but his own ideas of the presence and power of his God; so he succeeded, to the astonishment of his enemies. Ezra built the temple in conjunction with Zerubbabel, when neither of them would listen to one word against the power of Jehovah to take a feeble and weakly congregation and out of it build a mighty people.
Miracles are nothing to the power of this faith or firmness, when it is once liberated in you by your firm holding out for the omnipotence of Good, for the omnipotence of the truth of Good, for the certain action of the principle of Goodness. This was so plain to Jesus that he said one grain of faith would move a mountain. Faith is a self-increasing property, just as jealousy is said to be. The jealous person, you know, sits down and imagines a whole sequence of actions. He then feels so strongly that he acts upon his feelings and does dreadful things. His jealousy feeds itself by his thoughts until it handles him entirely.
Faith in Goodness will feed itself and increase itself in the same way, till we rise and work miracles by reason of it. We do not seem to handle our faith. It handles us. We become faith. We always were our faith. It is, in its intrinsic nature, God himself. So, one name for God might be Faith.
In pure spiritual doctrine we have an axiom for the science of denial in its relation to environments. It is that mind is as free as it has courage to deny. Looking around us we perceive that what our mind determines the environing circumstances demonstrate. We are as free from evil as we refuse to think about it. Whatever of evil we think about, that we are mixed up with. Whatever we positively will not think about we never get hurt by.
There is another very beautiful axiom. It is that mind is as great as it has courage to affirm. This also will demonstrate in the life. “I will be Pope of Rome,” said a little boy, and he was. “How did you become so great?” they asked Sir Isaac Newton. “By intending my mind,” he replied. An intention is a strong affirmation. “I will be an artist,” said a child. He could not even draw a plain picture well. Yet, he became a wonderful artist.
For this fourth lesson there is an axiom which is very true in demonstration. It is that mind will certainly demonstrate as much greatness as it has courage to stand by its intention. It is not so much by what we do as by what we think that we stand by our affirmations or intentions. For instance, no amount of dosing with drugs, or rubbing, or poulticing, could avail to cure your patients. But your mind holding firmly on to its denials and affirmations is certain to cure them, though you do not lift a finger.
Euripides, a Greek dramatist, was one of those thinkers of the far past whose axioms have come down to us. About 450 B.C. he said, “One right thought is worth a hundred right hands.” And so it is. A child’s prayer can do more to clothe and feed a family than its father’s daily toil; exactly as your treatment in a sick room will do more in curing than a hundred doctors’ best prescriptions.
In all great lives you will see that it was what they did when some storm of adversity struck them which made their characters count. Nehemiah never flinched when they told him that if he stayed outside the Temple he would be slain. When they threatened him he arose and said, “Should such a man as I flee? I will not go in!”
Paul sang praises to God in prison, Silas joined him, and a great earthquake shook the foundations of the prison at the sound of their singing. Certain tones have power to shake rocks, to crumble walls, to lift weights. Paul and Silas thought only of omnipotent Good, and it shook off their bonds. It opened their prison doors. This way of treating exile was so different from the way Seneca acted, who was exiled about that time, and wailed and lamented so abjectly that his high-sounding phrases seemed a mockery.
There is always once at least when we are called to stand steady to our principles. In one of the Bronte novels it is spoken of in beautiful language, that we do not know the value of our high principles and laws until we test them in trial. Take this night your hardest trial and put some denial and affirmation before it. Then from that hour stand by your denial and affirmation. Stand firm. This is your faith that builds character. Nothing is sure at all in your life until it has been put through the furnace, which is the meeting of the opposite to it with its noble steadfastness to itself.
“There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding,” says Job. This spirit in man is his God. The inspiration is his breath of God. The God within and the God without are united by breathing. But the external breath of air into the lungs is only a symbol, a hint of the true breath which right thoughts can give, if they are put forth and taken in at the moment of intense experience called trouble. It is equally powerful if in a moment of great joy one keeps firm to the same great Truth. Firmness is poise, balance of character. Balance, poise of character is a great healing quality. We become healers of disease according to our poise of character.
The thoughts of Good within us are opposed to the beliefs of evil that seem to swell and surge without us. This makes an apparent conflict. If the firm will stands by the Good “the middle wall of partition” is broken down. Paul speaks of the thoughts of evil, which make seemingly evil conditions and surroundings, as the “middle wall of partition,” because between our good thoughts and the world of reality is our line of false thinking which reports such ugly things to our mind. It is the mystery of the word omnipresence over again. “Ni” is the middle wall of partition, yet it is nothing. It is the “No, you are not good,” which faces all people. When met by the “No” of your proposition of the irresistible Good it falls away.
It is the same with many of the words of Scripture, whether we have before observed their wonderful possibilities or not. Take the word “Ho” in the sentence, “Ho, everyone that thirsteth”. Students have been surprised to see how appropriate it is to the sentence, outside of a mere exclamation. H-O were the two letters which in ancient alchemy represented water. In modem chemistry they use the formula H2-O. But it was an expression far beyond the simple first sight of the word.
It is the same with all Scripture language. Take the word “firmament” firm to God in all things. It has the full meaning of a mind firm to holiness, firm to goodness, firm to God in all things. Firm to Good when evil appears, firm to life when death seems near, firm to health when sickness seems reigning, and so on a mind striving to set itself free in steadfastness from the waters of these trials.
The “A” which divides the word “firm” from the word “ment” is the angel in the sun, of whom John the Revelator speaks. When he seems dark he is Abaddon, according to the Hebrew tongue, or Apollyon according to the Greek tongue. When he is the dark angel he is the angel of the bottomless pit. But it is only in misunderstanding that he is darkness. In understanding he is an angel and archangel of light and life and joy. It works out in human character as the forces which are said to follow men as the sun follows them, or as the night follows them.
The first force or quality for which this “A” stands is approbativeness, and this is very strong in all mankind from early childhood. The second is amativeness, which comes later. The third is ambition, which comes in its fullness still later on. The fourth is acquisitiveness, which is yet later. When the character is in the light, these four are seen to be: First, artlessness, which is innocence; second, attractiveness, which is beauty
and judgment; third, aspiration; and fourth, ascension, or the complete absorption of the mind and life in spiritual themes. The transformation of character from the first four to the last four comes when we meet temptation with the right spirit.
One may say, “I cannot help being afraid when I see sickness showing its mastery over health.” Yes you can. No man is ever tempted beyond what he is able to resist. There is always a way of escape from the greatest or least seeming evil. One may as well say there is no Omnipotence as to say that he cannot help what it is his very omnipotent nature to throw off easily.
One may say the drunkard cannot help drinking any more than a child can help crying. This is an insult to the omnipotent Spirit resting within him. It places a man where he is not divine in nature, but is Satan. It puts him in mind of where he must be restrained. It is siding with the great “ni-hil” claim against him, which comes as, “You are a weak-willed fool.” You must not side with the claim that man is too weak to resist drinking. You are the weak fool you say he is, for we are what we accuse our neighbors of being.
Some say the sharp-tongued scold can no more help her hateful words than a child can help breathing, because it is her nature born with her. Who told you that anybody had a mean, wicked nature? Did Jesus say so? No, he said all came forth from God. Stand firmly to your Jesus Christ principle that ALL are strong, that ALL are well. Stand in the waters of seeming and see the real nature come smiling up.
Some say, “I cannot help crying when I see my best feelings, my generosity, my kindest efforts insulted.” What is that omnipotent spark within you for, if it is not the Principle to be agreed with when the waters of grief come rolling toward you? That is the way to talk.
There is no seeming temptation that is too great to be met with the Good and put down into the nowhere and nothing. The woman who speaks sentimentally of how the poor drunkard cannot help his drinking, and with condoning smoothness puts up with him as a weak thing, will be severe enough with her own children. The man who sentimentalizes over his drunken partner will vent his rage on his wife and daughters. It is because they themselves do not resist their own weaknesses. Hence it is part of the right action of the mind in its relation to environment that we take one half day to changing that old angel of accusation of weakness into the angel of ascension, by saying, “I do not believe in a mixture of good and evil in the world, or in myself. All is Good.”
There are not two sides to this question. There is only one side. There is only one Being to make your covenant with, and that is Omnipotence. To make a covenant with, is to agree with. We agree with Principle by declaring that we believe in it.
Did you ever say that it was your feeling that justice and right would sometime be done in the world? Did you say that the time seemed very long? Did you think that it would be far ahead in the millennium time of the poets and prophets? Tell me why you thought the time for the triumph of Good to be far ahead? I am sure you are judging by appearances. Why do you do so? Can you see that when making a choice as to whom to believe, you chose the poets and the prophets rather than Jesus Christ? He said, “This generation shall not pass away until all be fulfilled.” If He was speaking to the people, can you not see that He meant that if they took His doctrine they would see the fulfillment of their words in their own day? He said, “This day is salvation come.”
It is certain that when you put out great words of Truth into the air you may expect to see them come to pass any moment. Notice the way these texts read: “Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” “Immediately he received his sight.” “He lifted her up and immediately the fever left her.” “Immediately she was made straight and glorified God.” “And immediately he was made whole.” “And immediately I was in the Spirit.” The idea of Spiritual Science seems to be entirely of instantaneous demonstration, if the words of Jesus are believed, rather than the ideas of the poets and prophets.
The whole fact of demonstration rests upon wise choice. Today, if you will choose the teaching of Jesus Christ, you will be based in mind, you will know where you stand. A good base of mind is a good healing power. It is a better policy either to believe in something entirely or disbelieve entirely than to be up and down in changes of feeling about matters.
A business man who believes in nobody is a certain man to deal with. You are sure he will show no favors, so you do not whine and shake around where he is. You stand up and keep your eyes on your own affairs. A business man who believes in everybody has exactly the same effect, only that he braces you to believe in yourself, because he believes in you. Then agree with some principle. Stand to it. Here is a commandment of Solomon: “Keep sound wisdom and discretion: so shall they be life unto thy soul.”
Hear this idea of the power of faith: “The Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.” When the Lord is your confidence you will never find yourself at all deceived by the ways and speech of men and women, though they be very brilliant, if they speak outside of the Principle that demonstrates healing and goodness and life.
Do you remember two pieces of statuary by Thorwaldson, the Danish sculptor, which he called Day and Night? On the breast of the woman, who symbolizes Night, repose twin babes, Death and Sleep. So limp and terrible looks the little figure of “Death”, so absent from life looks the little baby “Sleep.” On the shoulders of “Day” smiles the child of quickening life.
Life and joy and vigor laugh in every curve. One is the symbol of unreality and the other is the symbol of reality. In Truth there is no sleep and there is no death. All is life. Life at its joyous height is the rest of God, which sleep tries to symbolize. Life at its sweetest charm is the peace which night tries to typify. The promise is that there shall be no night there in that life of Truth we are told to live. Neither shall there be any death.
There is no fate that can come up to face you with defeat. You were not made for failure, no matter who you are, nor how much you know, nor what anyone has told you. God is your prosperity. God, the Most High, is your defense. God, the Absolute Good, is your friend. Do not heed that high-sounding poetry which reads that: “On two days it is useless to run from thy grave, the appointed and the unappointed day. On the first neither balm nor physicians can save, nor thee on the second the universe slay.” It is good poetry but it is not the Truth.
Error is put in very bright packages of beautiful words, but it is better to have a mind of your own. Do not covenant with the principle of limitation to believe in it. It is the teaching of Jesus Christ that He has, by His doctrine, set before us an open door which no man can shut. We have unlimited power.
If we do not use that power it does not alter the fact of its being our inheritance. We have a store of unlimited wisdom. If we do not draw upon it, that does not alter the fact of its being ours. We may tell how little we know. We may complain of our feebleness, but that touches not our strength. We have exactly what we say we have, so far as appearances go, but appearances are nothing.
Principle is so generous and full of faith that it takes it for granted, if you say you are ignorant, that you surely must want to be ignorant, for man’s word is his own to do with he pleases. And a man’s word is the weapon with which he cuts out his destiny. Or it is the stuff out of which he builds his life. If you have the use of all wisdom by saying, “I am wise,” and the use of all ignorance by saying, “I don’t know anything,” you are rather ungrateful if you choose to complain. In the years of travel through the wilderness the Israelites provoked the Lord with their complainings. Complaints increase the conditions.
You may hear people who profess to have confidence in the Holy Spirit, telling how badly their stomach feels, how weak their limbs feel, how heavy their head is, how blue they feel. They do not show any signs, by such drafts on the ethers of blankness, that they have any communion whatsoever with the Spirit. Do not take your ways of thinking or acting from them. Look to your own relation to the Spirit. When anyone speaks on the side of evil you will say, within your own mind, “I do not believe a word of it.” Thus you will be on the reality side, and will call them out of their sleepiness, for all talk on the side of death or weakness is sleep. There is no life in it. The subjects which interest the mind are the stuffs out of which happiness is made or not made. Only one theme is full of life and beauty and increasing strength.
Let me tell you the twelve effects of thinking of the Spirit: You will have life, health, strength, support, defense, thinking faculty, wise speech, ability to record well your ideas, joyous song, skill in carrying out your principles, beauty of judgment, and great love.
The musician thinks he is skilled at the piano because he practises hard. Not so. It is because he has in some moment covenanted with the spiritual feeling or ideal that stirred him, and it has come forth so far as to lead him to be willing to practise to give it more freedom. It is certain that if he really knew that it was the Holy Spirit expressing itself through him, he would see that it is not his practice but his free mind that enables him to be a good musician.
It is the Spirit that doeth all things. It is never anything else but Spirit that does all the good that is done. All the beauty of life, all the love of life, all the kindness of life, is of the Spirit. The Spirit is God. David says that God proclaims, “I have made a covenant with my chosen.” The chosen are those who speak in the Spirit. They have chosen to speak on that side, and that covenant God will not annul. He will not break it. It is His promise that, “Thy seed will I establish forever, and thy throne to all generations.”
It is ours to choose our principle. It is the way of the principle we have chosen to deal with us according to itself. Jesus Christ said, “His ye are to whom ye have yielded yourselves servants to obey.” He also said, “No man can serve two masters.”
John the Revelator called the fourth step of Science the fourth foundation stone of the City of Peace. We have great peace in the Spirit, there is no turmoil whatever in the Spirit. If there is turmoil it is a signal that we have tried to believe in both evil and good at the same time. It cannot be done. When turmoil comes before you, make haste to say, “I do not believe in a mixture of good and evil, I believe only in Good. “If the turmoil is within your own mind, you will make haste to say, “I believe that my God is now working with me to make me omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. I believe only in the Good as ruling in and with my life. I have the faith of God.”
It shows that you have to make some decided choice in and with your mind. It is the experience which comes after realizing some great ideal in spiritual life, which your human lot seems to be far from carrying out. Its symbol is the emerald stone, symbolizing that the choice on the side of Good is made.
Joel, the prophet, was looking over the people of the earth, and when he realized how we see principles and how we judge of life, he cried out, “Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision.” That is, not yet decided. Goethe wrote, “Choose! choose well! Your choice is brief and yet endless.” The choice is ever before us, for evil always seems very real and very powerful, until met with the Truth.
Our way of believing deep down in our convinced mind is our faith. We are sure to speak out from that faith. If we talk against our faith, that is, do not quite believe that the health principle is most powerful and yet we keep on talking for health and will not admit that we are afraid of the sickness, we surely will find our faith coming around to the side of omnipotent health. This is the way of entering into faith by a straight line of procedure. If, when we are trying to talk for health, and talk for prosperity, and talk for wisdom, everything seems against us and everything hurts us greatly, we must put great vehemence into our saying, “I do not believe in sickness, I believe in health. I do not believe, or think, that misfortune has any power whatsoever. I believe in prosperity and success.”
God is working, as we put deep feeling into the circumstance. For instance, if you feel grieved, you must put as much feeling into your declaration of faith as you have grief in your mind. The two states of grief and of vehement words of faith will act together to form a new base in your character. They are like silver in solution, which a certain kind of acid can precipitate into fine flakes of silver again. So the right circumstances are hidden in the solution of your grief. You put strong words into your feelings, and a new state of mind comes forth, which is a great power. Even in the daily life you can prepare the soil of your mind with a certain set of ideas which will go beforehand like a King’s Guard and cut out or down all the trials in your way.
Your own radiance of mind, engendered by your noble thoughts, will go like protecting fire before you and stop calamities, stop sickness, stop the tongues of your seeming enemies, and do all things for you. It is the Spirit that goeth before to guide; as it is written, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” All your days of ease from sickness and calamity should be filled with words and thoughts which have this protecting power.
Divide your days into statements that can accomplish miracles. Take Monday for one kind of thought, Tuesday for another, and so on. And when Thursday comes around, why not take that day for discussing or meditating upon the fourth lesson in Science, since Thursday is the fourth day of the week’s activities.
This law of thought concerning spiritual doctrine is the law Jesus Christ taught. That is why it has been called Christian science. If you will look up the history of art and science, especially chemistry and physics, you will see how often practical usages of great principles are named after the men who first used the principles.
Jesus Christ taught that we may uplift our life by uplifting our thoughts. Jesus Christ taught that the only uplifting thoughts are the thoughts of God. The true thoughts of God were given to us by Him. We now take them and resolve them into twelve definite propositions, which are not only in the same order in which He expressed Himself on spiritual matters, but are the actual processes of our own mind, as soon as we give it freedom. The statements usher us into a new realm of life.
We find that it is not spiritual nobility to be brave in warfare, nor to be able to cure the sick, nor to be able to rise above temptation to do wrong. By thinking wisely ahead of these circumstances we never come into them. If you say in a moment of anger that you are unlucky, and that brings you a stroke of hard luck, can you not see that it is no special credit to you to get bravely out of the mess into which you have deliberately plunged yourself by your words? Can you not see that you would be far more noble to do the right thing beforehand? Getting bravely out of a mistake is just like putting your hand into live coals and then asking us to praise you because you are a good surgeon in cutting it off, and so patient in bearing the deprivation or loss of your hand.
We make our own conditions. And this brings us to the preparation of our feet with the Gospel so perfect that we never enter the seas of misery. Paul said, “Have your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel.” The new covenant which it is prophesied in the Scripture the Lord will make with his people, means this agreement with the Spirit, by which Spirit is to do all things for us, and we do nothing for ourselves, our only relation to the perfect way being that we agree to leave ourselves entirely in its keeping. On this account, if you will make your covenant with the omnipotent, eternal Spirit, to do all things, and you will do nothing but trust it entirely, you also will be that people with whom the prophesied covenant is made. You will find it mentioned by Jeremiah in his thirty- first chapter: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. And the whole valley of the dead bodies shall be holy unto the Lord; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.”
Paul writes of this new covenant in the eighth chapter of Hebrews. Here he shows how wise the covenant will make mankind, and how happy and free. It is heaven here and now without fighting or waiting any more for it.
Jesus Christ is called the Mediator of the New Covenant, because He teaches that by His principle we have an easy yoke and a light burden. He does not praise hardship or suffering. He praises faith and freedom. It will help you into a mighty understanding of Spirit to covenant with Spirit for the action of the Holy Spirit with you in this perfect fashion.
Do not covenant with the Spirit for pain or suffering. In Spirit there is no such manner of dealing. The Pietists (1700 A.D.) told the Spirit they were willing to suffer. The Spirit never asked them nor anyone to suffer, but, as they covenanted for suffering, they got it. A certain pastor of an English mission was very much pleased that he got his expenses paid by praying for them, and had about $14.00 left over. As all the wealth of the earth was offered him you can see that he was not especially honoring God by having such a little bit at his disposal.
*Sit down by yourself, and honestly and lovingly say:
I hereby covenant with the Holy Spirit for my life, and I will do nothing to preserve my life; my life is the life of the Spirit.
I covenant with the Holy Spirit for my health; and I will do nothing to preserve my health; my health is the health of the Spirit.
I covenant with the Spirit for my strength, and I will do nothing for my strength; my strength is the strength of the Spirit.
I covenant with Spirit for my support, and I will do nothing for my support; my support is the providence of the Spirit.
I covenant with the Spirit for my defense, and I will do nothing for my defense; my defense is the protection of the Holy Spirit.
I covenant with the Spirit for my mind in its perfect thinking, and I will do nothing for my thoughts; my mind is the mind of the Spirit.
I covenant with the Spirit for my right speech, and I will do nothing for my speech; my speech is the voice of the Spirit.
I will do nothing to fix, or record, or write my Truth unto the earth, for my record is the record of the Holy Spirit. I say, as Job said, My witness is in the heavens and my record is on high.
I covenant for my joyous song of life, and will do nothing to be joyful; my joy is the joy of the Spirit.
I covenant with the Spirit for my demonstrations of efficiency and skill in rightly doing all things, and I will do nothing to perfect myself. My efficiency is the working skill of the Holy Spirit, according to the words of Jesus Christ, who said, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”
I covenant for my judgment in its beauty, and the beauty of judgment; and I will do nothing to make myself greatly good in judgment; for the Spirit is my judgment.
I covenant with the Holy Spirit for my love, and will do nothing to make myself loving or beloved, for all is the Holy Spirit now acting with irresistible goodness through me.
This will make it easy for you then to say, from the depths of your heart, “I do believe that my God is now working with me and through me and by me, to make me omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. I have faith in God. I have the faith of God.”
This is the fourth lesson in Science. We are hereby taught about being fixed in an eternal choice. This is a lesson in faith, with an explanation of why we have a reason for the faith that is in us. It is a lesson in the covenants. Look up all you can find about the covenants of the people with God, and see how much more beautiful the covenants of Jesus Christ are than any of them. “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me.”
Our own will says: “Believe with the world.” God’s will says: “Believe in Me.”