RUDIMENTAL DIVINE
SCIENCE

RUDIMENTAL
DIVINE SCIENCE

BY
MARY BAKER EDDY
AUTHOR OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO
THE SCRIPTUES



Registered
U. S. Patent Office


Published by The
Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy
BOSTON, U.S.A.

Authorized Literature of
THE FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, SCIENTIST
In Boston, Massachusetts

Copyright, 1891, 1908
BY MARY BAKER G. EDDY
Copyright renewed 1919

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THIS LITTLE BOOK
IS
TENDERLY AND RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
TO ALL
LOYAL STUDENTS, WORKING AND WAITING
FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE
SCIENCE OF MIND-HEALING
                MARY BAKER EDDY

CONTENTS

DEFINITION OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
PERSONALITY OF GOD
HEALING SICKNESS AND SIN
INDIVIDUALITY OF GOD
MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
NON-EXISTENCE OF MATTER
MATERIALITY INTANGIBLE
BASIS OF MIND-HEALING
MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL MAN
DEMONSTRATION IN HEALING
MEANS AND METHODS
ONLY ONE SCHOOL

RUDIMENTAL DIVINE
SCIENCE

How would you define Christian Science?                         1

AS the law of God, the law of good, interpreting and
demonstrating the divine Principle and rule of                  3
universal harmony.

What is the Principle of Christian Science?

It is God, the Supreme Being, infinite and immortal             6
Mind, the Soul of man and the universe. It is our Father
which is in heaven.  It is substance, Spirit, Life, Truth,
and Love, -- these are the deific Principle.                    9

Do you mean by this that God is a person?

The word person affords a large margin for misappre-
hension, as well as definition.  In French the equivalent       12
word is personne.  In Spanish, Italian, and Latin, it is
persona.   The Latin verb personare is compounded of
the prefix per (through) and sonare (to sound).                 15

In law, Blackstone applies the word personal to bodily
presence, in distinction from one's appearance (in court,
for example) by deputy or proxy.                                18

Other definitions of person, as give by Webster, are            1
"a living soul; a self-conscious being; a moral agent;
especially, a living human being, a corporeal man, woman,       3
or child; an individual of the human race." He adds,
that among Trinitarian Christians the word stands for one
of the three subjects, or agents, constituting the Godhead.     6

In Christian Science we learn that God is definitely indi-
vidual and not a person, as that word is used by the best
authorities, if our lexicographers are right in defining        9
person as especially a finite human being; but God is
personal, if by person is meant infinite Spirit.

We do not conceive rightly of God, if we think of Him           12
as less than infinite.  The human person is finite; and
therefore I prefer to retain the proper sense of Diety by
using the phrase an individual God rather than a per-           15
sonal God; for there is and can be but on infinite indi-
vidual spirit, who mortals have named God.

Science defines the individuality of God as supreme             18
good, Life, Truth, Love.  This term enlarges our sense
of Diety, takes away the trammels assigned to God by
finite though, and introduces us to higher definitions.         21

Is healing the sick the whole of Science?

Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Chris-
tian Science.  It is only the bugle-call to thought and         24
action, in the higher range of infinite goodness.  The
emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of
sin; and this task, sometimes, may be harder than the           27
cure of disease; because, while mortals love to sin, they       1
do not love to be sick.  Hence their comparative acqui-
escence in your endeavors to heal them of bodily ills, and      3
their obstinate resistance to all efforts to save them from
sin through Christ, spiritual Truth and Love, which
redeem them, and become their Saviour, through the              6
flesh, from the flesh, -- the material world and evil.

This Life, Truth, and Love -- this trinity of good -- was
individualized, to the perception of mortal sense, in the       9
man Jesus.  His history is emphatic in our hearts, and it
lives more because of his spiritual than his physical healing.
His example is, to Christian Scientists, what the models        12
of the masters in music and painting are to artists.

Genuine Christian Scientists will no more deviate mor-
ally from that divine digest of Science called the Sermon       15
on the Mount, than they will manipulate invalids, prescribe
drugs, or deny God.  Jesus' healing was spiritual in its
nature, method, and design.  He wrought the cure of