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A Christmas Sermon
Delivered in Chickering Hall, Boston, Ma.s.s., on the Sunday Before Christmas, 1888
SUBJECT: _The Corporeal and Incorporeal Saviour_
TEXT: _For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the_ [5]
_government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called_ _Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty G.o.d, The everlasting Father, The_ _Prince of Peace._-ISAIAH ix. 6.
To the senses, Jesus was the son of man: in Science, man is the son of G.o.d. The material senses could [10]
not cognize the Christ, or Son of G.o.d: it was Jesus"
approximation to this state of being that made him the Christ-Jesus, the G.o.dlike, the anointed.
The prophet whose words we have chosen for our text, prophesied the appearing of this dual nature, as [15]
both human and divinely endowed, the personal and the impersonal Jesus.
The only record of our Master as a public benefactor, or personal Saviour, opens when he was thirty years of age; owing in part, perhaps, to the Jewish law that none [20]
should teach or preach in public under that age. Also, it is natural to conclude that at this juncture he was specially endowed with the Holy Spirit; for he was given the new name, Messiah, or Jesus Christ,-the G.o.d-
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anointed; even as, at times of special enlightenment, [1]
Jacob was called Israel; and Saul, Paul.
The third event of this eventful period,-a period of such wonderful spiritual import to mankind!-was the advent of a higher Christianity. [5]
From this dazzling, G.o.d-crowned summit, the Naza- rene stepped suddenly before the people and their schools of philosophy; Gnostic, Epicurean, and Stoic. He must stem these rising angry elements, and walk serenely over their fretted, foaming billows. [10]
Here the cross became the emblem of Jesus" history; while the central point of his Messianic mission was peace, good will, love, teaching, and healing.
Clad with divine might, he was ready to stem the tide of Judaism, and prove his power, derived from Spirit, to [15]
be supreme; lay himself as a lamb upon the altar of materialism, and therefrom rise to his nativity in Spirit.
The corporeal Jesus bore our infirmities, and through his stripes we are healed. He was the Way-shower, and suffered in the flesh, showing mortals how to escape from [20]
the sins of the flesh.
There was no incorporeal Jesus of Nazareth. The spiritual man, or Christ, was after the similitude of the Father, without corporeality or finite mind.
Materiality, worldliness, human pride, or self-will, by [25]
demoralizing his motives and Christlikeness, would have dethroned his power as the Christ.
To carry out his holy purpose, he must be oblivious of human self.
Of the lineage of David, like him he went forth, simple [30]
as the shepherd boy, to disarm the Goliath. Panoplied in the strength of an exalted hope, faith, and understand-
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ing, he sought to conquer the three-in-one of error: the [1]
world, the flesh, and the devil.
Three years he went about doing good. He had for thirty years been preparing to heal and teach divinely; but his three-years mission was a marvel of glory: its [5]
chaplet, a grave to mortal sense dishonored-from which sprang a sublime and everlasting victory!
He who dated time, the Christian era, and spanned eternity, was the meekest man on earth. He healed and taught by the wayside, in humble homes: to arrant [10]
hypocrite and to dull disciples he explained the Word of G.o.d, which has since ripened into interpretation through Science.
His words were articulated in the language of a de- clining race, and committed to the providence of G.o.d. [15]
In no one thing seemed he less human and more divine than in his unfaltering faith in the immortality of Truth.
Referring to this, he said, "Heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away, but my words shall not pa.s.s away!" and they have not: they still live; and are the basis of divine [20]
liberty, the medium of Mind, the hope of the race.
Only three years a personal Saviour! yet the founda- tions he laid are as eternal as Truth, the chief corner-stone.
After his brief brave struggle, and the crucifixion of [25]
the corporeal man, the incorporeal Saviour-the Christ or spiritual idea which leadeth into all Truth-must needs come in Christian Science, demonstrating the spir- itual healing of body and mind.
This idea or divine essence was, and is, forever about [30]
the Father"s business; heralding the Principle of health, holiness, and immortality.
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Its divine Principle interprets the incorporeal idea, or [1]
Son of G.o.d; hence the incorporeal and corporeal are distinguished thus: the former is the spiritual idea that represents divine good, and the latter is the human presentation of goodness in man. The Science of Chris- [5]
tianity, that has appeared in the ripeness of time, re- veals the incorporeal Christ; and this will continue to be seen more clearly until it be acknowledged, under- stood,-and the Saviour, which is Truth, be compre- hended. [10]
To the vision of the Wis.e.m.e.n, this spiritual idea of the Principle of man or the universe, appeared as a star. At first, the babe Jesus seemed small to mortals; but from the mount of revelation, the prophet beheld it from the beginning as the Redeemer, who would present a wonder- [15]
ful manifestation of Truth and Love.
In our text Isaiah foretold, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty G.o.d, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
As the Wis.e.m.e.n grew in the understanding of Christ, [20]
the spiritual idea, it grew in favor with them. Thus it will continue, as it shall become understood, until man be found in the actual likeness of his Maker. Their highest human concept of the man Jesus, that portrayed him as the only Son of G.o.d, the only begotten of the [25]
Father, full of grace and Truth, will become so magnified to human sense, by means of the lens of Science, as to reveal man collectively, as individually, to be the son of G.o.d.
The limited view of G.o.d"s ideas arose from the testimony [30]
of the senses. Science affords the evidence that G.o.d is the Father of man, of all that is real and eternal. This spir-
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itual idea that the personal Jesus demonstrated, casting [1]
out evils and healing, more than eighteen centuries ago, disappeared by degrees; both because of the ascension of Jesus, in which it was seen that he had grown beyond the human sense of him, and because of the corruption of [5]
the Church.