Article May 8, 1971 Issue

"Never plead guilty"

CORINNE B. TEETER

Christian Science is specific in its directions for handling disease. In the textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, we read: "When the body is supposed to say, 'I am sick,' never plead guilty. Since matter cannot talk, it must be mortal mind which speaks; therefore meet the intimation with a protest. If you say, 'I am sick,' you plead guilty. Then your adversary will deliver you to the judge (mortal mind), and the judge will sentence you. Disease has no intelligence to declare itself something and announce its name. Mortal mind alone sentences itself. Therefore make your own terms with sickness, and be just to yourself and to others."^{ Science and Health, p. 391;}

When disease presents itself to the individual, how often he finds himself making the declaration, "I feel terrible" or "My stomach is upset" or "I guess I must have caught the bug"! At such times the Christian Scientist begins to make vigorous protests of Truth. But because they do not seem to be effective immediately, he may even put his poor, sick body to bed and begin to wait on its demands, all the while proclaiming that the whole thing is untrue. Where does he err? Why, way back at the very outset of the difficulty, when he pleaded guilty!

Man is never sick, because God is never sick; and man is God's image and likeness, the divine manifestation of His presence and power. Man, your true selfhood and mine, is fixed in its divine Principle and enjoys a natural immunity to sin, sickness, and death. This statement cannot be reversed. It is absolute truth, and its healing effect is always present as law to be claimed in individual spiritual consciousness.

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