Golden Text: Proverbs 12: 27, 28
The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting:
but the substance of a diligent man is precious. In the way of righteousness is life: and in the
pathway thereof there is no death.
1. Moreover Job continued his parable, and said,
2. Oh that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
12. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him.
13. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me: and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
14. I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
15. I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
16. I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
17. And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.
18. Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.
19. My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch.
20. My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.
21. Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.
23. And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
Matthew 7: 7-11 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Psalm 97: 1,5,6,12 The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof. The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
468: 16-24 Question .--What is substance? Answer .--Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: "The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance. The spiritual universe, including individual man, is a compound idea, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit.
269: 11-20 Metaphysics is above physics, and matter does not enter into metaphysical premises or conclusions. The categories of metaphysics rest on one basis, the divine Mind. Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul. These ideas are perfectly real and tangible to spiritual consciousness, and they have this advantage over the objects and thoughts of material sense,--they are good and eternal.
275: 10 To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one,--and are the Scriptural names for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.
Jeremiah 15: 13 Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.
Luke 15: 11-14, 17, 20 And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
335: 12 Spirit is the only substance, the invisible and indivisible infinite God. Things spiritual and eternal are substantial. Things material and temporal are insubstantial.
261: 21-24 Detach sense from the body, or matter, which is only a form of human belief, and you may learn the meaning of God, or good, and the nature of the immutable and immortal.
260: 24-7 Selfishness and sensualism are educated in mortal mind by the thoughts ever recurring to one's self, by conversation about the body, and by the expectation of perpetual pleasure or pain from it; and this education is at the expense of spiritual growth. If we array thought in mortal vestures, it must lose its immortal nature. If we look to the body for pleasure, we find pain; for Life, we find death; for Truth, we find error; for Spirit, we find its opposite, matter. Now reverse this action. Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Genesis 15: 1,5,6,13,14 After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
Matthew 6: 19-21 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
480: 1-2 When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized.
274: 25-6 The conventional firm, called matter and mind, God never formed. Science and understanding, governed by the unerring and eternal Mind, destroy the imaginary copartnership, matter and mind, formed only to be destroyed in a manner and at a period as yet unknown. This suppositional partnership is already obsolete, for matter, examined in the light of divine metaphysics, disappears. Matter has no life to lose, and Spirit never dies. A partnership of mind with matter would ignore omnipresent and omnipotent Mind. This shows that matter did not originate in God, Spirit, and is not eternal. Therefore matter is neither substantial, living, nor intelligent.
257: 4-15, 24-27 If matter, so-called, is substance, then Spirit, matter's unlikeness, must be shadow; and shadow cannot produce substance. The theory that Spirit is not the only substance and creator is pantheistic heterodoxy, which ultimates in sickness, sin, and death; it is the belief in a bodily soul and a material mind, a soul governed by the body and a mind in matter. This belief is shallow pantheism. Mind creates His own likeness in ideas, and the substance of an idea is very far from being the supposed substance of non-intelligent matter. Hence the Father Mind is not the father of matter. Who hath found finite life or love sufficient to meet the demands of human want and woe,--to still the desires, to satisfy the aspirations?
Proverbs 12: 17, 19 He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit. The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment.
Jeremiah 22: 13-16 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work; That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord.
Psalm 100: 5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
299: 24-26 Truth never destroys God's idea. Truth is spiritual, eternal substance, which cannot destroy the right reflection.
318: 9-13 The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased. They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense.
301: 6-29 To himself, mortal and material man seems to be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is material, temporal. On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is revealed only through divine Science. As God is substance and man is the divine image and likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter. The belief that man has any other substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material substance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down.
316: 3 The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth, was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of Spirit over the flesh,--to show that Truth is made manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body, healing sickness and destroying sin.
Proverbs 8: 1,20,21,23,35 Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.
Romans 14: 17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
469: 1-5 Life is neither in nor of matter. What is termed matter is unknown to Spirit, which includes in itself all substance and is Life eternal. Matter is a human concept. Life is divine Mind. Life is not limited.
306: 21 The myriad forms of mortal thought, made manifest as matter, are not more distinct nor real to the material senses than are the Soul-created forms to spiritual sense, which cognizes Life as permanent. Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle, --is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal.
246: 27-28 Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof.
258: 19 The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea. The human capacities are enlarged and perfected in proportion as humanity gains the true conception of man and God.
Matthew 6: 1-4 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
Luke 8: 1-3 And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
1 Corinthians 13: 8, 10 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
304: 3-9 It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: "Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God."
286: 16-22 In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term for God. The Scriptures declare all that He made to be good, like Himself,--good in Principle and in idea. Therefore the spiritual universe is good, and reflects God as He is. God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance and Life.
248: 3-5, 26 Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love--the kingdom of heaven--reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.
247: 13 Immortality, exempt from age or decay, has a glory of its own,--the radiance of Soul. Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense.