Prescience

“ In the eye of philosophy, perhaps the most alluring and yet illusive of all the phenomena presented by civilization is that which we have been considering. Why should a type of mind which has developed the highest prescience when advancing along the curve which has led it to ascendancy, be stricken with fatuity when the summit of the curve is passed, and when a miscalculation touching the velocity of the descent must be destruction? ”

“ Formerly statesmen were businessmen of experience and ability who had prescience. They could see what was beneficial to their own interests, and from this their interest expanded, and they saw what was good for the well-being of many men. They were men, like Benjamin Franklin, who were able to project themselves into the lives of others. ”

“ How is it that one man utters the truths of a prophet, and another can hardly be made to understand what is going on before his eyes? Of course it is a difference in brain-power, the physiologist tells us, but how is it that a more or less quantity of grey brain-substance can give inspiration, knowledge, genius, power, imagination, and even prescience? ”

“ The basis of malpractice is in erring human will, and this will is an outcome of what I call mortal mind,—a false and temporal sense of Truth, Life, and Love. To heal, in Christian Science, is to base your practice on immortal Mind, the divine Principle of man's being ”

“ The adjutant of wisdom—the manifestation in a worshipful mind of the tendency to direct its adoration in higher channels of expression and toward ever-expanding concepts of Deity reality.
3. The Holy Spirit—this is the initial supermind bestowal, and it unfailingly appears in all bona fide human personalities. This ministry to a worship-craving and wisdom-desiring mind creates the capacity to self-realize the postulate of human survival, both in theologic concept and as an actual and factual personality experience. ”

“ The divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither by a curse nor a jest.
But solemnity, and gravity, and all such emotional attributes, admit of various shades; and, do what we will with our defining, the truth must at last be confronted [pg 039] that we are dealing with a field of experience where there is not a single conception that can be sharply drawn. The pretension, under such conditions, to be rigorously “scientific” or “exact” in our terms would only stamp us as lacking in understanding of our task. ”

“ In order to treat in detail of the profit and the harm which may come to the soul, with respect to this means to Divine union which we have described — namely, faith — through the ideas and apprehensions of the understanding, it is necessary here to make a distinction between all the apprehensions, whether natural or supernatural, that the soul may receive, so that then, with regard to each of them in order, we may direct the understanding with greater clearness into the night and obscurity of faith. ”

“ Thus also, in the experiences of the Christian there is endless variety in form, in special doubts and fears, special temptations, special tendencies to sin, special manifestations of self-will, pride, self-righteousness, and self-indulgence; and in like manner faith and love, hope and joy, and every Christian exercise have various forms of manifestation in different souls. ”

“ How many sages and philosophers in Christianity, who, without renouncing faith, limit all their reflections, all the superiority of their talents, to the tranquil view of its arrival; and who, during life, exert the powers of their reason only in preparing for that last moment; a constancy and serenity of mind equally absurd as the most vulgar terrors; a purpose the most imprudent to which reason can be applied. ”

“ Therefore let these things take effect in us; in our Spirituality and Heavenly-mindedness; in our Conformity to the Divine Nature and Nativity from above. For whoever professes that he believes the Truth of these things and wants the Operation of them upon his Spirit and Life doth, in fact, make void and frustrate what he doth declare as his Belief. He doth receive the Grace of God in vain unless this Principle and Belief doth descend in his Heart and establish a good Frame and Temper of Mind and govern in all Actions of his Life and Conversation. ”

“ But so surely as we believe the laws of the spiritual life to have been revealed to us, so, not less, surely, though without the same sanctity, have been revealed the laws by which body, mind, and moral nature flourish or decay. ”

“ Rise, in the conscious strength of Truth, to master the plea of matter, or mortal mind, pitted against the supremacy of Spirit, to blot out the images of mortal thought, and its beliefs of sickness as well as sin, that when thine adversary, which is the belief in the disease, would deliver thee to the judgment of Truth, it may say to thee, “Well done!” ”

“ All the distinctly religious interests and forces, reverence of Deity, repentance before God, gratitude, faith, love, hope, spiritual joy, aspiration, desire of immortality and endless blessedness, thus brought into concurrent action with the Christianly enlightened natural conscience, bring an immensely advantageous condition for the actualization of the ethical life. ”

“ Remember, my friend, that contention about doctrines, is neither that love which is the evidence of the Spirit, nor that holiness, without which no man shall see God. And I doubt not that you will feel, after a little more reflection, that, as long as we are so compassed about with infirmity, we should dread to judge, lest we also be judged, or to condemn, lest we be condemned. ”

“ F. My dear girl, remember this: we are sinners by nature; and when we give way to anger, pride, envy, or any other sins, which are called the works of the flesh, we act in the manner to which we are most inclined. Then if we wish to do the will of God,—I mean those things which are{100} called the “fruits of the Spirit,”—we must look for a power to enable us to do them, different from that which is in our own hearts. ”

“ With a conscience sound asleep we may discuss Christianity, whether to condemn it, or to applaud. We may see in it an elevating programme for the race. We may affirm, a thousand times, that from the creed that God became flesh there result boundless possibilities for Humanity. ”

“ They leave us the spiritual—that is, command of the conscience, soul, heart, and judgment—the spiritual—that is, the distribution of heaven's rewards, and punishments, and pardons—without check, without control, in the secrecy of the confessional—and that dolt, the temporal, has nothing but brute matter for his portion, and yet rubs his paunch for joy. ”

“ If we desire financial prosperity, or physical blessings, or mental quickness, or spiritual peace, we will find in the teachings of God's Word how to obtain them.
God also guides us by the exercise of our consciences, and therefore it is always important that you and I should do what conscience tells us to be right. First of all we should study God's Word, in order that we may have an enlightened conscience, and then we should always follow conscience. ”

“ This sense of the world's presence, appealing as it does to our peculiar individual temperament, makes us either strenuous or careless, devout or blasphemous, gloomy or exultant, about life at large; and our reaction, involuntary and inarticulate and often half unconscious as it is, is the completest of all our answers to the question, "What is the character of this universe in which we dwell?" It expresses our individual sense of it in the most definite way. Why then not call these reactions our religion, no matter what specific character they may have? ”

“ CONFESSION, to be made as it ought to be, has need of many things. The first of these is an exact examination of conscience on the commandments of God, and the duties of our state. And having found out your sins, though they be but little sins, mourn over them bitterly; view them in relation to the Majesty of God, and as acts of human ingratitude against Divine Goodness and Love. ”

“ When man was created, his reason was then an enlightened reason. Illuminated by the grace of original righteousness, with which his soul was adorned, reason and conscience were safe guides to conduct him in the way of salvation. But by sin this light was miserably darkened, and his reason clouded by ignorance and error. ”

“ For Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and understanding must reduce all things real to their own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and sustains, according to the law of God. ”

“ In other words, we understand the mind of God and attain to the illumination of the conscience, through sympathetic response to the will so far as we have seen it. And each new response, in its turn, carries us to a deeper and clearer understanding of the will. That is to say, our conscience, by habitual response to God's will, so far as it knows it, is so illumined as to be able to make trustworthy judgments on new material submitted to it. ”

“ But whether the truths were temporal or spiritual, and, whether they were brought to view by faith or sight, in order to produce a given effect upon the soul, or any of its powers, the same methods under all dispensations would be necessary, varied only to suit the advancement of the mind in knowledge, the differences existing in the habits and circumstances of men, and the character of the dispensation to be introduced. ”

“ He feels himself called to a strange way of finding his desired satisfaction—no longer the way of flesh and worldly wisdom, but the way of the cross, of suffering, and of sacrifice. Reason, enlightened by the Word of God, prompts him to assent; the Scriptures, laden with promises, bear their affirmative testimony, and thus he makes his venture of faith, takes the risk of the voluntary sacrifice of his own pleasant desires, his preference for ways of ease and comfort, his self-will, and makes the bold experiment of trusting the Word of God, as it reveals itself to him, and of following Christ. ”

“ The pursuit of this Path brings about the development of still higher powers of mind, and these powers are—divine patience, spiritual equanimity, non-resistance, and prophetic insight. By prophetic insight I do not mean, the foretelling of events, but direct perception of those hidden causes which operate in human life, and, indeed, in all life, and out of which spring the multifarious and universal effects and events. ”

“ But the supreme emphasis which is given by the one to nescience as the evil to be removed, and to wisdom as the crowning grace to be achieved, and, by the other, to rebellion of heart against God as the great sin, and to transformation to His moral image as perfected salvation, is much too marked to be overlooked by the student of these two faiths, and by the Christian missionary in the land. ”

“ To build the individual spiritual sense, conscious of only health, holiness, and Heaven, on the foundations of an Eternal Mind, which is conscious of sickness, sin, and death, is a moral impossibility ”

“ You, at least, allow the existence of a peculiar religious instinct, or, as you are pleased to call it, superstition, belonging to the human mind, and I have hopes that upon this foundation you will ultimately build up a system of faith not unworthy a philosopher and a Christian. ”

“ The spiritual conflicts to which the knowledge of God gives rise in the inner life were the highest which the spirit knew and experienced in itself, and all other interests and knowledge were lightly esteemed. ”

“ The prophetic word spoken in our ear is not more assuredly from God than the pure wish or unselfish hope that frames itself in our minds or the stern voice of conscience heard in the soul. As for the trouble into which we fall, that too, did we understand aright, is a mark of God's providential care. Would we err without discipline? Would we be ineffective and have no bracing? Would we follow lies and enjoy a false peace? ”

“ How may we know whether we are after the flesh or after the Spirit? By examining what we mind, the things of the flesh or the things of the spirit. Carnal pleasure, worldly profit and honour, the things of sense and time, are the things of the flesh, which unregenerate people mind. The favour of God, the welfare of the soul, the concerns of eternity, are the things of the Spirit, which those that are after the Spirit do mind. The man is as the mind is. The mind is the forge of thoughts. ”

“ Level all down to Mathematico-Physical Science, and you [384] deny the specific constituents of Spirituality, and you render impossible the growth of the Person out of, and at the expense of, the Individual. Proclaim the Person and its Religion, as though they were static substances adequately present from the first, and ignore, evade or thwart that Thing-level and method as far as ever you can, and you will, in so far, keep back the all but simply animal Individual from attaining to his full spiritual Personality. ”

“ The phenomena, whatever they are, belong to forces too little understood, to laws too much unknown, that we should trust ourselves to them in the most delicate, critical, and sacred wants of our life. ”

“ Then it is that we make the severest survey of our actions, and lay the strictest obligations on ourselves: then are our minds raised to the highest contempt of the world, and every grace doth exercise itself with the greatest activity and vigour. All the subjects of contemplation there present themselves unto us with the greatest advantage; and then, if ever, doth the soul make its most powerful sallies towards heaven, and assault it with a holy and acceptable force. ”