Article January 3, 1914 Issue

Commands and Blessings

MARY STEWART

The ten commandments are quite generally accepted as the basis of the laws which regulate the conduct of all civilized peoples. Seeking divine guidance, in his leadership of Israel from bondage to freedom, Moses received and gave to the people these commandments, called the decalogue. One naturally asks, To whom or to what condition of thought were these commands necessary? Surely not to man, for it is evident that man, whom the Bible defines as the image and likeness of God, could have no inclination, tendency, or necessity to lie, kill, steal, bear false witness, or commit any of the evils therein forbidden. A likeness could not be so unlike its source or original. There is nothing in the divine nature which, reflected in man, could harm or destroy. Being the "full representation of Mind" (Science and Health, p. 591), God's man lacks nothing; he has all. No temptation, therefore, can come to him to do any wrong.

Then who or what is it that has to be commanded not to sin, and for whose protection are these laws given? They are for the protection of humanity, as all will agree, and they are addressed to men, to the sense that is still in bondage to falsity. To the belief that there is substance, intelligence, and life apart from and opposed to God, divine Mind says: Thou shalt not have any other God; nor canst thou make vain the power of the one God. Thou canst not make unholy anything that He hallows; thou shalt not and canst not steal, commit adultery, kill, covetously look upon or bear false witness against thy brother man.

He who accepts the protection of these laws can prove their power. When tempted, he can say with God-given authority, that nothing can rob his consciousness of any good, adulterate his faith, obedience, loyalty, love, or life. He can also deny that mortals can bear false witness against man, against his true selfhood or that of any one else, or make him believe a lie. He knows that mortal, material sense, evil suggestion, hate, and fear, cannot make him believe that he needs or desires anything which God does not give him.

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