Article September 9, 1911 Issue

THE COMMANDMENTS AS PROMISES

ELOISE CAMERON MAC GREGOR.

In studying the closing section of a Lesson-Sermon, the writer found this comforting promise from Zephaniah: "Thou shalt not see evil any more." While dwelling on the beauty of this promise of safety from even the appearance of evil, in that we need not see it any more, and also on the inspiration of the assurance that because the real man is fully equipped with spiritual sense he cannot behold evil, the realization came that this particular reference was not merely a glorious promise, but a divine statute, a law of good, and since this law is changeless and intelligible, humanity can understand and obey it here and now, and enjoy the immediate fruition of obedience.

Further thought revealed the fact that this is exactly the form in which Moses presents the Ten Commandments. All were laws of good, and to those who honored them the promise was given. To the rebellious senses the "shalt nots" may at first sound like stern restrictive laws, a code of negations which would deprive mankind of something. When, however, one turns to the "scientific translation of mortal mind" (Science and Health, p. 115), it is found that the commandments annihilate only the mistaken beliefs and depraved practices designated as the "first degree," the so-called physical statements of error, and further classified under the marginal heading as "unreality." Nothing is surely more obvious than that the supplanting of an error with the truth is not a deprivation but a great gain.

When the commandments, seen from this view-point, are accepted as a standard, and struggled for in daily life, their words are illuminated to the moral sense which arises phœnixlike from the combat, and which is described by Mrs. Eddy as the "second degree." Thus, on the firm foundation of law we descry the sheltering superstructure of promise. This higher sense being apprehended and followed, we approach the "third degree," where word and deed begin to honor and exemplify the commandments in the light of "understanding," which reveals them as spiritual declarations of the primal and ultimate verity respecting man and his oneness with divine Mind.

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