Demonstrating the Divine Order

The discovery of Christian Science did not occur by chance. The divine order, the spiritual law of God, divine Principle, impelled it.

The divine order, which unfolds God's supremacy as infinite Mind and perfect Love, also impels humanity's response to Christian Science. It inspires the means of making this Science better understood. It supports the student of Christian Science all the way from his first efforts to full fruition.

Jesus worked and rested in the divine order, annulled evil with this authority, and told his disciples that they could do the same. He said to them (John 15:16 ), "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." They are truly his disciples, now as then, who accept the Christ as the determining factor in their lives and learn to have no other "I," or consciousness.

To experience God's order in daily life, the Christian Scientist learns that he must reckon God and man as one in being, although he must also see clearly their distinctness as cause and effect. So the Christian Scientist studies the attributes of God and sees them as constituting the forces which characterize man, and he dedicates himself to proving their presence in daily life. He sees that in obedience to the divine order he can do this, because whatever would deny or reverse God's attributes is only mesmeric mentality, not real consciousness; but thought responding obediently to God as All is real.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 275 ), "To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is." It is orderly thinking to respect the "all" in this instruction. The study and practice of Christian Science prove conclusively that the reality of every concept appreciable to human consciousness is determined by God, good; that whatever appears as a concept, yet denies God's spotless nature, is altogether illusory and will yield before fidelity to Him. Disorder evidences self-centeredness. It disappears when love of God comes first.

For beauty and grandeur, the divine order cannot be exceeded. But this does not prevent the divine reality from showing itself tenderly and instructively in just the way the human being needs it. It appears most certainly to the human consciousness that is beginning to perceive that reality must be scientific—spiritual, lawful, understandable, demonstrable. Whenever men see that chance, fate, and inevitable disaster, by their very lawlessness, are illegitimate, then they begin to understand spiritually that everything real is perfectly controlled by God.

This fact, times beyond number, has urged itself upon men, women, and children who were in great distress or trouble, saving them by what seemed to be some miracle of divine intervention. The Psalmist, after enumerating many such instances, declares with joy (Ps. 107:43 ), "Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord." The recognition of God's great love often precedes the realization that the operation of Love is scientific. But this realization is bound to come.

One who studies Mrs. Eddy's life and notes in particular her perception of the lawfulness of Jesus' way soon comes to feel that in all the majestic procession of spiritual achievements among men, Mrs. Eddy's service to mankind stands out in distinctive proof that the divine order really determines all events.

The Christian Scientist is early impressed by the orderly methods of teaching, forwarding, and practicing Christian Science set forth by Mrs. Eddy in the Manual of The Mother Church. He notes that the institutional procedures of Christian Science are not arbitrary; they are invitations to spiritual growth. He finds in them continuing opportunities to experience the ways in which God works out His infinite design.

In these opportunities the Christian Scientist also learns that the divine order is universal. So he puts off limited, self-centered traits, which, if unchallenged, would make him narrow and selfish in his interests. God's all-inclusiveness orders all, and each individual who puts this fact into practice finds himself moving in widening circles of usefulness and joy.

In today's transitional world, when multitudes are experiencing what seem to be their first faint glimpses of scientific idealism, namely God's allness as the measure and determinant of man's great destiny, what greater challenge can there be than to love the divine order, seek to understand it better, trust it more, and find in Christian Science the exemplification of its rules and laws!

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.—Philippians 3:13, 14.