Theme: “Perpetual”
Hymn 53
Based on a hymn by John R. Macduff
Everlasting arms of Love
Are beneath, around, above;
God it is who bears us on,
His the arm we lean upon.
He our ever-present guide
Faithful is, whate'er betide;
Gladly then we journey on,
With His arm to lean upon.
From earth's fears and vain alarms
Safe in His encircling arms,
He will keep us all the way,
God, our refuge, strength and stay.
Readings from the Bible
Genesis 9:12 God,13
God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Psalms 9:1,2,4,6 (to :),7-10
I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. I will be glad and rejoice in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou most High.
For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right.
O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end:
But the Lord shall endure for ever: he hath prepared his throne for judgment. And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.
Psalms 41:1,2 (to :),12 as,13 (to 1st .)
Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth:
as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting.
Psalms 90:1,2,4,14,16,17
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Psalms 100:1-5
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Psalms 103:15-22
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the Lord, O my soul.
Psalms 119:142,144
Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.
The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live.
Psalms 145:8-13
The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power; To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.
Isaiah 60:19
The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.
Habakkuk 1:12,13 (to :)
#Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? we shall not die. O Lord, thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, thou hast established them for correction. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:
John 3:14-17 as
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. #For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Correlative passages from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
99:23
The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's spiritual, perfect man.
240:10
In the order of Science, in which the Principle is above what it reflects, all is one grand concord. Change this statement, suppose Mind to be governed by matter or Soul in body, and you lose the key-note of being, and there is continual discord. Mind is perpetual motion. Its symbol is the sphere. The rotations and revolutions of the universe of Mind go on eternally.
255:1
Eternal Truth is changing the universe. As mortals drop off their mental swaddling-clothes, thought expands into expression. "Let there be light," is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres. The mythical human theories of creation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprang from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by the divine Mind.
256:13
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright through mortal concepts. The precise form of God must be of small importance in comparison with the sublime question, What is infinite Mind or divine Love?
280:25
Rightly understood, instead of possessing a sentient material form, man has a sensationless body; and God, the Soul of man and of all existence, being perpetual in His own individuality, harmony, and immortality, imparts and perpetuates these qualities in man,--through Mind, not matter. The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit,--ignorance which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and supreme. Spirit and matter no more commingle than light and darkness. When one appears, the other disappears.
283:4
Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action. Mind is the same Life, Love, and wisdom "yesterday, and to-day, and forever." Matter and its effects--sin, sickness, and death--are states of mortal mind which act, react, and then come to a stop. They are not facts of Mind. They are not ideas, but illusions. Principle is absolute. It admits of no error, but rests upon understanding.
328:4-4 np
Mortals suppose that they can live without goodness, when God is good and the only real Life. What is the result? Understanding little about the divine Principle which saves and heals, mortals get rid of sin, sickness, and death only in belief. These errors are not thus really destroyed, and must therefore cling to mortals until, here or hereafter, they gain the true understanding of God in the Science which destroys human delusions about Him and reveals the grand realities of His allness.
This understanding of man's power, when he is equipped by God, has sadly disappeared from Christian history. For centuries it has been dormant, a lost element of Christianity. Our missionaries carry the Bible to India, but can it be said that they explain it practically, as Jesus did, when hundreds of persons die there annually from serpent-bites? Understanding spiritual law and knowing that there is no material law, Jesus said: "These signs shall follow them that believe, . . . they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." It were well had Christendom believed and obeyed this sacred saying.
Jesus' promise is perpetual. Had it been given only to his immediate disciples, the Scriptural passage would read ^you^, not ^they^. The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following. As time moves on, the healing elements of pure Christianity will be fairly dealt with; they will be sought and taught, and will glow in all the grandeur of universal goodness.
380:32-30
Every law of matter or the body, supposed to govern man, is rendered null and void by the law of Life, God. Ignorant of our God-given rights, we submit to unjust decrees, and the bias of education enforces this slavery. Be no more willing to suffer the illusion that you are sick or that some disease is developing in the system, than you are to yield to a sinful temptation on the ground that sin has its necessities.
When infringing some supposed law, you say that there is danger. This fear is the danger and induces the physical effects. We cannot in reality suffer from breaking anything except a moral or spiritual law. The so-called laws of mortal belief are destroyed by the understanding that Soul is immortal, and that mortal mind cannot legislate the times, periods, and types of disease, with which mortals die. God is the lawmaker, but He is not the author of barbarous codes. In infinite Life and Love there is no sickness, sin, nor death, and the Scriptures declare that we live, move, and have our being in the infinite God.
Think less of the enactments of mortal mind, and you will sooner grasp man's God-given dominion. You must understand your way out of human theories relating to health, or you will never believe that you are quite free from some ailment. The harmony and immortality of man will never be reached without the understanding that Mind is not in matter. Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony,--God's law. It is man's moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never inflicted by divine authority.
390:4
We cannot deny that Life is self-sustained, and we should never deny the everlasting harmony of Soul, simply because, to the mortal senses, there is seeming discord. It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony. Truth will at length compel us all to exchange the pleasures and pains of sense for the joys of Soul.
428:15-29
We should consecrate existence, not "to the unknown God" whom we "ignorantly worship," but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy. We must realize the ability of mental might to offset human misconceptions and to replace them with the life which is spiritual, not material.
The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man ^is^, not ^shall be^, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man's immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.
568:24
For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain. Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science. This rule clearly interprets God as divine Principle,--as Life, represented by the Father; as Truth, represented by the Son; as Love, represented by the Mother. Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God.
594:19
SPIRIT. Divine substance; Mind; divine Principle; all that is good; God; that only which is perfect, everlasting, omnipresent, omnipotent, infinite.
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer
Hymn 213
Isaac Watts*
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for time to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for time to come,
Thou art our guard while ages last,
And our eternal home.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks on Christian Science
Hymn 280
Henry Francis Lyte*
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven;
To His feet thy tribute bring.
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who like us His praise should sing?
Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him,
Praise the everlasting King.
Fatherlike, He tends and spares us,
Well our daily needs He knows;
In His hand He gently bears us,
Rescues us from all our foes.
Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him,
Widely as His mercy flows.
Praise Him for His grace and favor
To our fathers in distress;
Praise Him still the same forever,
Slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him, praise Him,
Glorious in His faithfulness.
