On Prophecy

Violet Ker Seymer

CHRISTIANLY scientific thinking, which is the basis of true prophecy, is within reach of all mankind. Knowing this, Paul, of large heart and vision, declared, "For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted." All must therefore cease to prophesy erroneously, if they would be God's prophets and not prophets of the so-called carnal mind. A teachable spirit is a necessity, for only in true learning are true healing and comfort to be found. Christian Scientists are God's present-day prophets in action; they are seers of good, demonstrators of good, hastening their own and the world's salvation from all in-harmony.

On page 593 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy defines "prophet" as "a spiritual seer; disappearance of material sense before the conscious facts of spiritual Truth." Should a student of Christian Science find himself laid low with a sickness from which he suffered previous to taking up this study, he might find it difficult to blot out the recollection of a prolonged illness attended by certain physical symptoms and disabilities. Perhaps a shadow of belief in medical theories might still lurk in his thoughts, and he would need to be very alert lest he should be mentally preparing for another long siege as before. So doing, he would be prophesying according to precedent instead of according to Truth itself. This would be a blind prophecy, not a seer's prophecy.

In order to be true prophets to-day, we must go farther back than any human precedent, even back to primeval Truth. Sin, war, materiality, have no precedent in spiritual being and can lay no just claim to the appropriation of past, present, or future. These divisions of the mortal belief in time have no place in the unbroken continuity of Spirit. As scientific thinkers we must therefore continually, and without exception, foresee the obliteration of discordant conditions through the "disappearance of material sense," which is the only medium through which discord can claim cognizance. Material sense itself must be denied—not merely the discord to which it appears to bear testimony.

Demonstration is the keynote of Christian Science, and we should bear in mind our Leader's words on page 373 of"Miscellaneous Writings," "Christian Science is more than a prophet or a prophecy: it presents not words alone, but works,—the daily demonstration of Truth and Love." When error claims stubbornness, we must all the more insistently prophesy, anticipate, see, and demonstrate the healing operation of spiritual law, specifically applying this liberating law to each specific human need. As Christian Scientists we must stiffen, not weaken, in our resistance to the seeming stubbornness of fear, sickness, or sinful tendencies. We must not lose hope through crediting the erroneous prophecies of material sense, but must tenaciously hold to "the conscious facts of spiritual Truth," which are just as available in one case as in another.

Mortal thought is apt to prophesy hurricanes, business depression, sickness, bereavement, loss of faculties, and other conditions which nobody desires, yet which everyone is liable to anticipate. Of such, Ezekiel writes, "Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!" Material sense sees nothing real, and spiritual sense sees nothing false.

Sometimes probable failure in obtaining a healing may have been prophesied by someone on account of the patient's unsatisfactory attitude toward Christian Science. Such a view will not help to reverse that attitude or bring into manifestation the spiritual man's natural heritage of spiritual receptivity. Resistance to Truth is but part of the dream of materiality and should therefore be denied rather than emphasized. The scientific fact is that spiritual sense, the only real sense, is invariably receptive to good, and that spiritual man cannot be rendered unreceptive by any adverse arguments of the so-called carnal mind.

Paul said, "Let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith." What is the proportion of our faith if we are prophesying erroneously? Are our innermost thinking and our expectancy always enlisted on the side of good? Are we prophets of error, or are we God's prophets, anticipating righteous victory in every case—the victory of divine Principle, not person? Are we blind or are we seers?

What a joyous mission is intrusted to Christian Scientists always to prophesy according to the perfect and beneficent will of God! And how equally joyfully they denounce every groundless lie and foresee its mental obliteration, whether it claims to victimize mortals as disease, sinful temptation, sadness, resistance to Truth, or any other error betraying a seeming lack of spiritual vision. In Christian Science this lack is always remediable.

True prophecy is unwavering because it is based on the ceaseless operation of divine Principle, and leads to the increasing demonstration of spiritual facts in the immediate present, and for the benefit of all mankind.

Violet Ker Seymer

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Among the Churches

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