Too Little, not too much Faith, a Sinful Risk

J. R. Mosley

Savannah (Ga.) News

There is much in the published report of Mr. Williams's sermon that Christian Scientists heartily endorse, and we are in full sympathy with every intelligent and righteous effort he is making to bring about a higher standard of economic, civic, and social righteousness. While we naturally regret that Mr. Williams does not seem to recognize that the prayer of faith and understanding that heals the sick and reforms the sinner is just as scientific as it is Christian, and that God's ways and means are all natural and spiritual rather than unnatural and physical, we are nevertheless pleased to note that he sees that "Science is as much of God as prayer," and that all God's remedies are natural rather than supernatural. When he sees that the only real and eternal knowledge of Science is Christian, spiritual, divine, and that God's remedy for every human ill is Christ, the divinely natural manifestation of God to the flesh and to the carnal mind, he will find himself in harmony with the fundamental insight of Christian Science.

But the implied contention in your synopsis of Mr. Williams's sermon, that it is a "sinful risk" to trust God wholly and absolutely for healing as well as salvation, is so out of harmony with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, so much at variance with the practice and precepts of Jesus, so antagonistic to what we regard as fundamental in all forms of pure spiritual Christianity, and so contradictory to what we, as Christian Scientists, through personal experience and proof, know to be true, that we feel it should not remain unanswered. For, according to the teachings of the Old and New Testaments, the words and works of Jesus, and the experience and testimony of all who have trusted God for healing as well as salvation, there is no risk involved in the prayer of faith, and no one has ever sinned because he trusted God too completely and absolutely. The sin and risk arise when we forget God and His marvelous healing, His saving and loving care, and go off after false gods. To admit the possibility of either risk or sin as involved in too great faith in God, is to deny ourselves of that very faith and absolute reliance upon God which Jesus and his apostles not only preached and practised, but which they also taught was the one essential condition for the answer of all righteous prayer, and for the doing of the healing and saving works which they themselves did, and which they taught all who believed should do. "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." "And these signs" always have followed, and always will follow, them that "believe," who know, and wholly trust and rely upon God and His healing and saving Christ, Truth.

Thousands who have had the best opportunity to study and to test the claims of both materia medica and of Christian Science, bear testimony to the fact that Christian Science healing has every advantage that Mrs. Eddy, its Discoverer and Founder, claims for it, over all material ways and means:—

"First. It does away with all material medicines, and recognizes the fact that, as mortal mind is the cause of all 'the ills that flesh is heir to,' the antidote for sickness, as well as for sin, may and must be found in mortal mind's opposite,—the divine Mind.

"Second. It is more effectual than drugs; curing where these fail, and leaving none of the harmful 'after effects' of these in the system; thus proving that Metaphysics is above physics.

"Third. One who has been healed by Christian Science is not only healed of the disease, but is improved morally. The body is governed by mind; and mortal mind must be improved, before the body is renewed and harmonious,—since the physique is simply thought made manifest" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 33).

The fact that our all too faltering faith and feeble understanding of God are doing so much more for us than material knowledge, ways, and means ever did, or ever promised to do, gives us the reasonable hope that perfect faith, understanding, and love will give man dominion over all sin, disease, and death. "Have faith in God. For . . . whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith."

J. R. Mosley.
Savannah (Ga.) News.

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