Editorial August 13, 1932 Issue

Agreeing with the Adversary

W. Stuart Booth

Mrs. Eddy's writings are replete with strong and stirring instructions to students of Christian Science, which are designed to awaken their thought to spiritual realities whereby sin and sickness, inability and disability—all conditions of limitation and discord—may be seen aright as false beliefs, and thus disproved and displaced. In one such passage in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she counsels (p. 390): "When the first symptoms of disease appear, dispute the testimony of the material senses with divine Science. Let your higher sense of justice destroy the false process of mortal opinions which you name law, and then you will not be confined to a sick-room nor laid upon a bed of suffering in payment of the last farthing, the last penalty demanded by error." Then, as she so frequently does, Mrs. Eddy quotes some words of Christ Jesus in verification: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him." At first glance it might appear as if these words of our Master are not in accord with those of Science and Health, but careful consideration will show their perfect agreement. Mrs. Eddy further states (ibid.), "'Agree to disagree' with approaching symptoms of chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consumption, or smallpox."

An important point in Christ Jesus' instruction is noted in the words, "whiles thou art in the way with him," the adversary. According to Scripture it is evident that Christ Jesus referred to Satan, the devil or evil, when he spoke of the adversary. And it should ever be remembered that our Master, in referring to the adversary, said, "There is no truth in him ... for he is a liar, and the father of it." To be in the way with the adversary, then, is to believe lies, to accept as true that which spiritual understanding reveals as false. For instance, in the textbook (pp. 161, 162) we read, "The physician agrees with his 'adversary quickly,' but upon different terms than does the metaphysician; for the matter-physician agrees with the disease, while the metaphysician agrees only with health and challenges disease."

Naturally, when people are thinking in the way with the adversary, that is, when they are accepting the testimony of the so-called material senses and thus are believing in sin, sickness, limitation, death, then they must perforce be in agreement with the adversary. Here is the root of humanity's troubles, the source of mankind's woes and worries, the cause of all fear, discord, disease, and death.

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