Editorial May 13, 1916 Issue

Personality and Power

John B. Willis

The self-estimate of wholesome men is likely to be weakly modest if not mean. They have had such experience of past inadequacies that, though firm believers in the Scripture, they draw back from Jesus' statement to his disciples, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven," and being to wonder what he could have meant. That God will sustain the rulings of the court of human judgment, that men are privileged to do what it would seem pertains exclusively to the divine prerogative,—this impresses all who misapprehend the nature of true selfhood as a hazardous assumption. Nevertheless our Lord not only declared and demonstrated his own fulfilment of heaven's high decree, but in these unequivocal terms he averred that the judgments of those who truly follow him will be honored by the supreme tribunal, so that they indeed become the fully empowered plenipotentiaries of the government of God.

The acceptance of this teaching of Christ Jesus and Christian Science is a test of faith from which it is not surprising that many shrink abashed, and the amazement awakened by the fact that Christian Scientists dare to consider the possibility of exercising such a function becomes altogether explicable. For centuries the identification of man as a sinning mortal has rendered any expectant thought of the fulfilment of this assurance of the Master quite impossible. When, however, one apprehends that man is related to his source as is an idea to divine Principle, an equation to mathematical law, the normality of the authority which Jesus said the spiritually quickened were to exercise, and the naturalness of the wonder-works they were to do, becomes apparent. His sayings, "I can of mine own self do nothing," and "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works," coupled with Paul's declaration that it is the "word of God" which "effectually worketh" in the true believer, reveal the transcendent fact that while illumined men present the channel of manifestation, God is always the active agent.

On page 6 of Science and Health we read that "God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows." Spiritual efficieney is but the natural expression of that divine ever-presence which none can question, the power of Truth always inhering in the knowledge and expression of truth, even as heat and light radiate from everything that reflects the sun. On page 14 all this is embodied in a single paragraph by Mrs. Eddy, when she says: "Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak 'as one having authority.'"

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