Separation

Just as language has come to be used in a new way to express spiritual truth, so the thinking of the Christian Scientist has changed in regard to the use of words. Take "separation" as an example. From the material standpoint, there has always been something painful connected with the thought of separation. To the Christian Scientist, however, there is the realization that the only separation there can be is the separation of evil from good, the separation that has always existed in the divine Mind, which knows no evil. In the Scriptures the words of the prophet Habakkuk, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity," give the student of Christian Science cause for rejoicing. He knows that all good is God, and since man is God's reflection he cannot be separated from good, for in that case he would cease to reflect, which would leave God unreflected,—the creator without a creation,—which on the face of it would be an impossibility. He has still further cause for rejoicing in knowing that Life is God, and that death, the supposititious opposite of Life, is not a reality, and that he therefore cannot be separated from his brother by a belief called death, for his brother is the image and likeness of God, who like himself is dwelling in the one infinite Mind, and is likewise being governed by Principle. With this knowledge comes the realization that all that he can really know of man is that which is spiritual and imperishable, and from this there is and can be no separation.

In the fifty-ninth chapter of Isaiah is the averment, "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear;" so that the metaphysician has authority for his claim that the only seeming separation there is between a man and God, good, is caused by what he entertains as his thinking of evil as real. He therefore lives up to the apostolic command, "Come out from among them, and be ye separate," as fast as he can,—separate from the false concepts of all the human relationships, separate from the evil, erroneous beliefs of life in matter, retaining that only which is pure and good, and in so doing drawing nearer to God, which brings him into heaven, harmony.

Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 489): "The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or error. Christian Science shows them to be false, because matter has no sensation, and no organic construction can give it hearing and sight nor make it the medium of Mind. Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony." Then it must be that by separation from the material sense of things harmony is found. In order to accomplish this end there must be a spiritual replacement, as nature knows no vacuum, and there is no void in Mind. Following this argument we reach the logical conclusion that wherever a material seeming would appear to be, it is just to infer that there is the spiritual fact already established. For example, when the inrushing tide stirs up the muddy bottom of the bay, the material sense of sight would argue that the condition is most inharmonious, but experience has taught that the pure water from the ocean stirs up in order to purify. In Science and Health (p. 574) Mrs. Eddy plainly states, "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares." The stir caused by the inrushing truth often brings to the surface many of the ugly human passions, such as selfishness, jealously, envy, hate, resentment; in fact, the whole gamut of self-inflicted wounds would argue that evil is a part of man and would thereby separate him from God, who is good. At other times the arguments of evil might try to influence one through beliefs of physical ills presenting themselves as reality, so as to convince him that imperfect so-called man is real, thus separating him from his creator, whom he is told to glorify in his body. Let the student be earnest enough to confront these lies with the ever available truth, let him immediately separate the falsity from the real man and he will manifest the complete harmony which Mind and its inseparable idea is forever expressing.

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"Be ye therefore perfect"
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