A Dictionary defines "law" in part as follows: "A rule established among a community, and enjoining or prohibiting certain action, ... the science concerned with it." Ever since civilization began, law has been one of the essentials to organized society, individual freedom, and mankind's progress, and the very great importance that the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, attached to a correct understanding of law is shown by the number of references she makes to law in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and in "Prose Works."

God's law was revealed to Moses in the mountain, and to the prophets in similar states of exalted thought. Christ Jesus was so conscious of his oneness with the Father that he had complete understanding of the divine law and how it worked in human consciousness to leaven and bless; and, thanks to the consecration and prayer of Mrs. Eddy, students of Christian Science now have access to God's law and its practical results. Through communion with God we become aware of the unity of Principle and idea, Father and son, and are ushered into the realization of our law-constituted individuality, an individuality that expresses the fullness of the Christ, that is, the perfect and complete idea of Mind, the expression of Love, the embodiment of Life. Because law is the evidence of God working in us, every quality of God is seen in the manifestation of law, which operates only through the divine Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, and its divine attributes. The essential unity of law and Love is well expressed in the words of a hymn,

Law is the activity of Mind; it is Mind, Life, Truth, Love, expressing itself in man and the universe, and from its very nature it is unique. There is only one law—God's law—and because God is All, every divine attribute is a law of annihilation and obliteration to all unlike itself. In "No and Yes" (p. 30) Mrs. Eddy says, "God's law reaches and destroys evil by virtue of the allness of God." Because law is the manifestation of Mind and Love, it is universal in its scope and adaptations; individual in action, though manifold in expression.

Law expresses God's government of the universe, and being one with God, has all power and cannot be gainsaid. It maintains man in God's image and likeness and sustains him under all circumstances. Governed by law, man is forever in his proper place and all his requirements are met. Recognition of the oneness and completeness of law brings the understanding of home, business, pleasure, and every activity into line with Truth, whereby thought, act, and condition are found in conformity with harmony, peace, abundance, and health.

The Bible is full of examples of the power of divine law to heal, save, maintain, and preserve God's children. It was law which parted the waters of the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through, which sustained them on their wanderings in the wilderness, and which caused the rock to bring forth water. It was Elijah's clear understanding of the ever-availability of law that caused the oil to run without ceasing from the cruse and the barrel of meal to waste not; and it was Christ Jesus' practical knowledge of law that fed the five thousand, calmed the storm, and proved his complete unity with Spirit in his reversal of the material counterfeit law of gravity, by walking on the water. Indeed, at every turn the Master showed that materiality has no power at any time or in any way to interfere with man's God-ordained, law-maintained freedom, harmony, and perpetual individuality.

The essential correlative to law is obedience, and in the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy is a long list of the blessings that will always come to those who heed the admonition to "hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments." These blessings are made manifest in the individual's home, in his business, among his associates, and in his every activity. It is noteworthy that when the Israelites listened to God's voice and obeyed it, they had abundant evidence of good; but any falling off in obedience was followed by a return to bondage and to material law. Paul explained in the most practical way the freedom from material law that obedience to divine law brings, when he said, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

A student of Christian Science was once being shown round an oil refinery during a "safety first" campaign, and his attention was drawn to a notice which read, "Obey the law, it was made for your protection." He was then shown the huge furnaces where the crude oil is heated prior to being refined, and as he thought of the notice he had just seen, it occurred to him that the protection afforded by divine law must be very wonderful and all-powerful to have delivered the three young Hebrews out of a fiery furnace such as he was looking upon, so that there was not even a trace on them of the experience they had been through. He saw that while all righteous human laws are instituted for our good and protection, and obedience to them is our duty, yet obedience to spiritual law alone allies men with omnipotence and reveals to them their God-given dominion.

A function of spiritual law is to govern, uplift, and elevate mankind out of a human sense of things into spirituality. Such law is the activity that is at work lifting thought out of the mesmerism of error, evil, sickness, and death into the glorious truth that there is no law against their opposites—life, health, happiness, and safety. God's law shows the way out of matter into Spirit, out of war into peace, out of sickness into health, and out of uncertainty, doubt, and fear into the understanding of His omnipresence and the sure knowledge of His omnipotence and unchanging Love. God's law holds man forever in the harmonious rhythm of divine being, where everything moves in conformity with the deific plan.

The saying that right is might is undeniably and demonstrably true, for right is one with God, Principle, who is expressed in the all-powerful and all-inclusive law which maintains man in the divine image and likeness. Therefore, we can rest assured that law is able to establish that which is right in our lives. That which is in accord with God's holy plan and purpose knows no opposition and cannot be gainsaid. The Father's promise concerning law is voiced in the words of Isaiah, "I will work, and who shall let it?"

"Whatever appears to be law, but partakes not of the nature of God, is not law, but is what Jesus declared it, 'a liar, and the father of it.' God is the law of Life, not of death; of health, not of sickness; of good, not of evil" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 259). In these inspiring words, Mrs. Eddy gives us all authority for outlawing from our experience everything ungodlike and discordant. God's law is a law of annihilation to all evil, and a law of elimination to discord of every name and nature. Through the understanding of divine law and its consequent unfoldment in our experience, we are raised to that exalted state of thought in which the Psalmist was able to say, "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them."