Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/206

186 If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of Being are not in the least understood before what is termed death

overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher in the scale of existence at that single point of experience; but will remain as material as before the transition, still seeking happiness through a material instead of through a spiritual sense of Life, and from selfish and inferior motives. So long as the error of belief lasts, that life and mind are finite and physical, and are manifested through brain and nerves, so long the penalty of sickness, sin, and death will continue. To the other, the spiritual class, relates the Scripture: “On such the second death hath no power.” If the change called death destroyed the belief in sin, sickness, and death, happiness would be won at the

moment of dissolution, and be forever permanent; but this is not so. Perfection is gained only by degrees. They who are unrighteous shall be unrighteous still, until God's wisdom, through Divine Science, removes all their ignorance and sin.

The sin and error which possess us at the instant of death do not cease at that event, but endure till the death

of these errors. To be wholly spiritual, man must be sinless, and he becomes spiritual only when he reaches perfection. The murderer, though slain in the act, does not thereby forsake sin. He is no more spiritual for believing his body dead, and learning that his cruel mind is not dead. His thoughts are no purer until evil is disarmed by goodness. His body is as material as his mind, and vice versa.

The suppositions that sin is pardoned while unforsaken, that happiness can be genuine in the midst of