Article May 4, 1918 Issue

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only...

The Christian Science Monitor

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another." These words of the great apostle to the Gentiles seem to gain an added weight when read under the pressure of present events. On all sides the war is spoken of as a tremendous struggle for liberty, while events force one to the conclusion that neither nations nor individuals are agreed as to what they mean by liberty. If, for example, that convenient person, "the man in the street," were pinned down to an exact statement as to what he understands by the term, he would probably arrive at the conclusion that it meant having no taxes to pay; because liberty to the majority means something entirely limited and personal in its application, while to a large minority, it means the exchange of domination from one stratum of society to another.

It is obvious that when Paul spoke of liberty he meant a condition widely different from this, in that liberty was to him a state of mind rather than of external circumstance, and the student of Christian Science is beginning to learn something of what Paul meant, because he is beginning to learn something about Principle. This word Principle, which to many still conveys the idea of complete abstraction, to the student of Christian Science is replete with vital actualities, for it expresses his highest conception of God as Mind, law, origin, without any opposite power or consciousness. To be in obedience to divine Principle must, it is easy to see, bring us into the liberty to which the apostle referred, a liberty which has no commerce with the license of the carnal mind. Such obedience can naturally only arise from individual effort; it cannot be enforced by acts of parliament. Neither does it need a prophetic eye to see that, as this individual reformation spreads the foundation of civic and social discords cannot but be undermined. For were every man to seek not so much his own as the good of the community, there would be no place for discord.

"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," said the apostle. If we take the life of Jesus as the highest illustration of one animated by the spirit of the Lord, we find that his liberty was the result of perfect obedience to law—the law of God. He came not to do his own will but the will of his Father, he said, and though he had, and showed that he had, perfect dominion over all material conditions, and was indeed a ruler and leader of men, yet he was the servant of all. There can really be no liberty except through obedience to the Spirit of the Lord, that is to Principle, to right thinking and acting; for any other supposed liberty, speaking fundamentally, simply means bondage to some form of self-will. The habit of obedience, which is generally considered to be necessary only in childhood (and, unfortunately for this generation and the next, not always then), should really be so taught in those impressionable years that as the child grows up he will recognize that he has not been coerced into obedience to an arbitrary rule, but that he has been unconsciously learning to subordinate himself, his tempers, passions, and appetites, to an unseen law, which, if obeyed, will bring him into the complete liberty of his God-given dominion.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

"For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access