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Science and
Health
and the
Church Manual
Jesus: Pentecost: Mary Baker Eddy: Today
W. Gordon Brown
Published
by
Gordon and Estelle Brown
England 1988
© Copyright W. Gordon
Brown 1988
ISBN 0 904320 05 7
Printed by Villiers Publications Ltd 26a
Shepherds Hill, London N6 5AH
Preface
The purpose of
this booklet, SCIENCE AND HEALTH AND THE CHURCH MANUAL, is to bring to light a
particular over-all view of the deep spiritual relationship which exists
between the Christian Science textbook and the Manual of the Mother Church
organization.
According to their
author, Mary Baker Eddy, both books were equally God-inspired. She wrote of
Science and Health:
"It was not myself, but the divine power of Truth and
Love, infinitely above me, which dictated 'Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures'" (My 114:23); while of the Church Manual she said that its
imperative Rules and By-laws were "impelled by a power not one's own" (Mis
148:12).
The two books thus
operate together in a divinely complementary way, and function hand in hand.
For while Science and Health brings to humanity "the structure of Truth and
Love" (Church as it is in eternal Science - S & H 583:12) the Manual
teaches the release of mankind from the "laws of limitation" (My 229:26) which
reliance on an external ecclesiasticism, or on an organized sense of church,
inevitably imposes. All such limits, all such boundaries, disappear from the
experience of the Christian Scientist when he learns from his textbook the
Principle of spiritual self government, and puts this into practice in his own
experience by proving himself answerable to God alone.
"Organization and
time have nothing to do with Life" (S & H 249:19), the textbook tells us.
Deriving from the Principle of Science and Health, the Church Manual stands for
the way out of (not into) an organic sense of life. It thus furnishes the
solution to the problem that most besets the human race, namely, of man seeming
to be held captive in a dictatorial mortal body, or in a hierarchical
organization, over which he has no control.
Hailsham, E.
Sussex
W.C.B
England 1988
SCIENCE AND
HEALTH AND THE CHURCH MANUAL
Contents:
Abbreviations
The following are
the abbreviations used in these two booklets for works by Mary Baker Eddy:
- S & H—
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
- Man— Church
Manual
- Mis—
Miscellaneous Writings
- Ret—
Retrospection and Introspection
- Pul— Pulpit and
Press
- My— The First
Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany
- Coil— Divinity
Course and General Collectanea
- Wbr— Webster's
Dictionary
Abbreviations for
Books of the Bible are those generally accepted
Regarding
copyright and Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy wrote:
"Christian Science
is not copyrighted; nor would protection by copyright be requisite, if mortals
obeyed God's law of manright. A student can write voluminous works on Science
without trespassing, if he writes honestly, and he cannot dishonestly compose
Christian Science" (Ret 76:2). |
