Editorial May 6, 1933 Issue

Witnessing to Truth, not to Error

Duncan Sinclair

IN the forty-third chapter of Isaiah, verse ten, these words occur: "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord: ... before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." The prophet, in the name of the Lord, thus sought to emphasize the truth of the one God, the one living and true God. Later, Christ Jesus did the same, demanding of men that they love God supremely. In our own time, Christian Science—the discovery of Mary Baker Eddy—declares anew the fact of God's oneness, God's allness; affirms His omnipresence and omnipotence, and proclaims the altogether lovable and perfect nature of the Most High. "Before me there was no God formed"—God has always been. "Neither shall there be after me"—God will always be. The infinite One never had a beginning, and never will have an end. God is "from everlasting to everlasting."

It is spiritual sense which bears witness to God's allness and supremacy. And all are endowed with spiritual sense. On the other hand, it is material sense, so called, which would deny the truth of God's allness, omnipresence, and omnipotence, deny even that God exists. This false sense can take not the least cognizance of Deity; it is utterly blind to Spirit and spiritual realities. It witnesses only to matter and material phenomena, the things that are temporal. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 298 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth."

Mortals, deluded by material sense, believe that matter is real and that it has sensation. And this error, when entertained and not rebuked, results in sin. Sensuousness in all its forms is the inevitable result of indulgence in the belief that matter has sensation; that it has power to bestow pleasure and to inflict pain. How then can sin be mastered? Mrs. Eddy states the method in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 67), where she says, "In the ratio that the testimony of material personal sense ceases, sin diminishes, until the false claim called sin is finally lost for lack of witness." Thus, to become free from sin, to be sinless, one must cease witnessing to material sense, cease believing in and bearing testimony to the lie that matter is real and has power to bestow pleasure or pain.

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