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Science and
Health
and the
Church Manual
Jesus: Pentecost: Mary Baker Eddy: Today
W. Gordon Brown
PART II CHURCH MANUAL
Metaphysical Structure
Turning
now to the Manual itself, in its relationship with the textbook,
Science and Health, our thought focuses on the spiritual translation of
the organized sense of church (therefore of the organized sense of body) into
the immortal "structure of Truth and Love," that both underlies and determines
the temporal human symbol.
By
organized church as symbol, is meant of course the form the church took when it
was administered by Mary Baker Eddy and shown to be self-dissolving; it does
not refer to the self-perpetuating (therefore self-destroying) counterfeit into
which the church has seemed to decline since her passing.
Is it by
chance, one asks, that, in the Manual's preliminary pages, the extract from the
letter in Miscellaneous Writings concerning the Manual's "Rules and
By-Laws" (Man 3) is enclosed by its author in a regular geometric square, or is
this just a typographical device? Is not the reason for it the fact that the
By-laws themselves, constituting the main body of the book, are seen to be
arranged under precisely sixteen headings which, we now realize, form
the familiar foursquare matrix pattern; and is not this deliberate square
enclosure, which surrounds the letter, designed to hint at this very
fact.
The
wonder is that, in this sixteenfold form, the By-laws correspond with the
system of laws that govern the foursquare city itself as these are found in,
and are taught by, the foursquare textbook. Arranged in this pattern they point
to the Scientist's release from restrictive organizational boundaries, or from
what Mary Baker Eddy herself called "laws of limitation for a Christian
Scientist" (My 229:26). Because of the state of thought of her followers at the
time, she was reluctantly compelled to impose these laws upon them.
Table of Contents
As we
see from a glance at the Table of Contents, the Manual consists of four main
departments, the first three very short, the fourth one very long. They are:
first, the Christian Science Tenets; secondly, an Historical
Sketch; thirdly, the List of Church Officers; and fourthly, the
extensive section dealing with the Church By-Laws themselves in their
sixteen different categories.
The
question arises, can there possibly be a connection between these four main
sections of the Manual (Tenets, Historical Sketch, Church Officers,
By-Laws) and the four chapters that make up the Key to the Scriptures in
Science and Health ("Genesis," "The Apocalypse," "Glossary,"
"Fruitage"), where the spiritual idea of church is unfolded as the living
expression of brotherly love.
Remember
therefore that, in the textbook, the Tenets open the door to what church really
is, as found in the four chapters of the Key to the Scriptures, while in the
Manual, with its four main sections, they do the same thing regarding
membership of the organization.
TENETS
Inasmuch
as the order of the six Tenets can be seen to relate with the first
six days of creation at the beginning of the Bible, the Tenets and the
chapter "Genesis" have in common this fundamental scale of scientific values,
and because of this may be said to point to the first side of the holy city,
the creative Word.
HISTORICAL SKETCH
The
Historical Sketch is in two distinct parts, relating to the two main phases of
Mary Baker Eddy's work as discoverer and founder of Christian Science —
that is, with her two consecutive phases of church organization. The major part
of the chapter "The Apocalypse" (devoted as this is to an elucidation of
Revelation 12) is said by the author (S & H 559:32) to relate specifically
to her own founding footsteps. In this case, the Historical Sketch and
"The Apocalypse" have in common the story of the foundations which she
herself laid, and can be said therefore to point to the second side of the holy
city, the Christ, as the rock on which the church is built.
CHURCH OFFICER
A vital
factor regarding the seven Church Officers is that when these are translated
out of being a governing hierarchy of persons into the essential elements of
Principle's government of its own church-body, they relate with the order of
the seven synonymous terms for God as we find them unfolded in the "Glossary".
This particular sequence: Principle, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love (S
& H 587), comprises the terms in their Christianity order (as distinct from
their Word order on page 465, and their Christ order on page 115); and
therefore it is that the list of Church Officers and "Glossary,"
having this order in common, point to the third side of the holy city,
Christianity.
BY-LAWS
Inasmuch, fourthly, as the foursquare statement of the By-laws stands
for the solving of the problem of organic church (and therefore for the healing
of organic body), and inasmuch as the textbook itself is that which has healed
every one of the 84 cases of sickness listed in the chapter "Fruitage,"
therefore it is that both the By-Laws and "Fruitage" point to the
process of bodily healing, and, correspondingly, to the fourth side of the holy
city, which is the putting into practice of a demonstrable
Science.
Accepting as self-evident the meaning and purpose of the
Tenets and the Historical Sketch, let us focus our attention
first on the list of Church Officers, and then on the sixteen sets of
By-Laws, as comprising our main concern with the Church Manual in this
particular study.
List of Church Officers
According to Paul, what really governs the church body (the
membership of which is man in the universal sense) is not a group of persons as
such but the body's own Christly "head" — the capitalized Godhead itself,
represented in Christian Science by the capitalized, synonymous terms for God,
specifically in their "Christianity" order. For this is the order which relates
particularly to Principle's own governmental system, that rules, regulates, and
administers the church body, which is man.
The
seven officials who are called upon to implement this government humanly, in
the form of a church organization, are (1)
Pastor Emeritus (2)
Board of Directors (3)
President (4) and the church's
First and Second Readers (5)
Clerk (6)
Treasurer.
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
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