Flee from Fleshliness

John B. Willis

Evil has always succeeded in fooling the bulk of mankind, including most of the honestly well-meaning, by assuming a form or appearing in a garb which they have not recognized. To illustrate: The grosser type of sensuality with which lust is generally identified is repugnant to every pure-minded person, and hence brings them no temptation. Moreover its effects are known to prove an unspeakable blight, and this fact also acts as a deterrent upon impulse.

This single sin, however, by no means exhausts St. Paul's meaning when he speaks of the lusts of the flesh. There are unnumbered other forms of material obsession which are quite like it in essential quality, and which therefore contribute to the possibility of its rule in the event of unexpected temptation, and yet they are not customarily thought of even as serious faults. These beginnings of evil are the more seductive as they are the less obvious, and they are recognized and denied only as we gain a clearer vision of the Christ-idea, as we are more thoughtful in our analysis of motives and impulses and become more sensitive to ethical appeal. Their inherent nature is detected, and we are impelled to inaugurate an intelligent resistance to the tendencies of their influence in the measure that we gain and exercise that spiritual insight which is named in the Bible "the wisdom of the wise," and which alone is adequate to our protection from "the wiles of the devil."

It is here that the preventively saving influence of Christian Science begins to appear in the realm of habit, for it brings into practical relation to every-day determinations that strategic discretion referred to by the proverb which saith, "A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself: but the simple pass on, and are punished." In his Sermon on the Mount Christ Jesus defined lust as a matter of thought, an initial mental attitude, and in numerous passages St. Paul dwells upon the multiplicity and deceptive nature of its manifestations, declaring the consummation of faith to be the crucifixion of the flesh with all its affections. In entire harmony with this point of view Mrs. Eddy defines "the dead" as those who are "satisfied with the flesh," who are "resting on the basis of matter" (Science and Health, p. 316). When lust is thus understood, it is apparent that the awakening to righteousness, the overcoming of the Christian life to which we are called in Christian Science, becomes very much of a personal, every-day affair. It is a learning not to strive for or even secretly long for the world, "neither the things that are in the world," — such, for pertinent instance, as the satisfactions of the table, personal ease, luxurious surroundings and display in dress, the pride and vanity of place, social distinctions, and public applause, the excitations of amusement, the exercise of power over others, and money as a means of securing all these baubles of sense.

This does not mean asceticism, but it certainly does mean the living of a humble and finely simple life, the guarding against and the escape from the mesmerism of materiality, and that we practically and persistently remember these words: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." It means that in Christian Science every impulse of human sense, everything that delays the realization of our true spiritual selfhood, or that interferes with our continuous advance and efficiency in demonstrating the sovereignty of the Christ-man, must be held in leash, and if necessary be laid aside, in keeping with that nobler, more exalted concept of life which led the great apostle to say, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord."

The present European conflict of arms has been named the greatest war of history, but this is a mistake. A vaster struggle is that to which every man is called, viz., to resist the rule of the ofttimes innocently appearing seductions of materiality. In this war Christian Science is playing a tremendously important part, for the reason that it not only re-presents the Christ-ideal, but it awakens that perception of Truth and supplies that practical program of spiritual progress which renders it the Science of success for every one who is earnestly desiring to flee from all fleshliness.

John B. Willis.

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Among the Churches

September 18, 1915

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