Chapter 13: The Importance Of Stating Your Metaphysical Argument Correctly

WHOSO READETH LET HIM UNDERSTAND - Chapter 13.

THE IMPORTANCE
OF
STATING YOUR METAPHYSICAL
ARGUMENT CORRECTLY

THE subtlety of evil is nowhere more evident than in its attempt to cause the Christian Scientist to word his argument carelessly when correcting error.
Since words give impulse to thought, it is essential that they be accurately used. A wrongly expressed thought can readily yield a wrong impulsion or direction. Therefore in the language of Job, “as the mouth tasteth meat” choose your words.
To illustrate: it would be a mistake to declare that there is no return of old beliefs, because at some time you may have had a belief of strength, vigor, health and success and you certainly would not wish your words to imply that you

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would not again welcome those conditions, not just as good beliefs but as realities and that as such you not only desire them, but you intend to have them and to express them in all their perfection.
Consequently, your metaphysical statement would not be, that there can be no belief of a return of an old belief, but rather, that evil, malicious mind, as malicious mental malpractice, cannot inflict upon you or bring to pass with you a belief of a return of a diseased belief.
It is the disease part of a belief that you will not admit can return. “When Christ changes a belief of sin or of sickness into a better belief, then belief melts into spiritual understanding, and sin, disease, and death disappear,” as Science and Health points out.
This fine distinction needs careful attention. It is the wrong belief,—which is always directed mesmerism,—that you will not tolerate.
By attaching a God-like interpretation to every thought, it is safe to use it vigorously. Always insist upon the perfection of the body and of all that being means, to the minutest detail. Mrs. Eddy, in her statement to some friends, explained this necessity by saying “All the mechanism of Jesus’ body was preserved and restored until his ascension. I always preserve in

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my thought, as I know Jesus did, the image of the actual and harmonious function of the body.”
The body, as all else, must be preserved intact until the material sense is entirely transformed by the spiritual; and remember, transforming is not a destructive action, but rather is it a spiritual regeneration. It is what Jesus meant when he said, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” and what Paul meant when he said, “Not for that we would be unclothed but clothed upon.” A statement attributed to Mrs. Eddy sums it up completely, “A belief of personal sense that is governed by Truth is a harmonious belief. A harmonious belief that is governed by Truth is spiritual sense or understanding.”
This does not mean that belief or the human mind ever becomes understanding or divine Mind. Metaphysically such a belief is absurd. But it does mean that when a belief of personal sense is overshadowed, transformed, in other words, when the false sense is destroyed by a clearer sense of Truth, to that extent harmony is acknowledged as reigning where discord seemed to reign before
When harmonious belief is further unfolded

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by spiritual sense, and is governed entirely by Spirit, at each progressive stage, the harmonious belief completely disappears as belief and is replaced with spiritual sense or understanding.
This must be the way in which all treatment or unfoldment operates. Nothing except the false sense is abandoned and with the rejection of the false, the better sense appears, until as Science and Health declares “the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.” Never give up any thing—give up only the false sense about it.
Preserve every action and function of the body intact, as you find them in God. Abandon the senseless argument that would make you think you could get along just as well without the five so‑called material senses or even that it is more spiritual to be without them. As though it were more spiritual not to hear than to hear, and not to see than to see! The senses are spiritual, and it is our duty as Christian Scientists to preserve them and insist that they express perfection, and thus defeat the arguments of malicious mental malpractice, no matter how subtle those arguments may be. To quote again from Science and Health, “There is more Science in the perpetual exercise of the Mind-faculties than

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in their loss. Lost they cannot be, while Mind remains.”
When you give a treatment, that is to say, when you know the truth, it is the part of wisdom to include in that knowing the understanding that the treatment, being the word of God, is also the presence of God, for where God’s word is, there His presence must be. Furthermore it must be the power of God, for God’s word and presence must include His power. Then continue by knowing that there are no malicious minds to reverse the treatment and make it produce a result that is not intended, or to interfere in any way with the accomplishment whereto it is sent. Only mesmeric argument prevents you from consciously knowing this and thus seeing your treatment free from any contrary influence. There is none.
It should be understood by the Christian Scientist that the treatment he gives does heal and that it heals instantaneously because a treatment really is the declaration of God’s eternal power, presence and perfection. This must be known and declared in every instance.
Man, being the voice of God, heals spontaneously and only the lie of malicious mental malpractice could cause him to doubt the power of the treatment to accomplish its intended pur-

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pose. To doubt your ability to heal is to doubt the reality of Mind, for healing is simply turning thought from ignorance to understanding. A change in viewpoint is all that is required to reach the heaven of His presence. There is never any condition which needs to be changed.
These lies of malicious mind must be refuted vigorously. Insist, “I can heal—I can show forth God. I do heal—I do show forth God, for the one Ego, the one I, is my I, my Ego.” Can anything gainsay this I? Or reverse what this I says? Of course not. Then positively declare that it cannot; because the ever-present malicious mental malpractice will try to say that it can reverse your treatment and can argue with you until you have no faith either in your own power, or in the power of Christian Science to heal. It will argue, that even if the case is healed it will not remain so.
Should these thoughts come to you, know that malicious mental malpractice, and not you, originates them. Destroy the false belief of malicious mental malpractice, the negation of good, by translating it back to God and you will find instant freedom.
What you know and declare about your treatment is all that there is to the treatment. Nothing can heal in any treatment, but what you put

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into it. You are a law to it. Then be a law to the whole situation. Understand that what you say and feel that is true does govern. Be true to God and the result is heaven.
The only thing that declares you are not true to God, or do not wish to be true, is malicious mental malpractice substituting itself for your mental volition and acting as your “I”. Cast it out by knowing you cannot be made to believe a lie, for God being the only Mind there is no malicious mind to argue any lie, to argue any “I” apart from God.

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