In the soil of an honest and good heart – 8/17/16 readings, Second Church, Berkeley

SH Ps. 50:1, 2

1 The mighty God, even the LORD, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. 2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined.

SH Matt. 11:1 1st it

1 …it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.

SH Luke 8:4-15

4 And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: 5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. 6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. 7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. 8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. 9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be? 10 And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. 11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. 13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. 14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. 15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

SH Matt. 13:31, 32

31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

John 15:1, 2, 4, 5 (to 2nd :),
7, 8 (to ;)

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every
branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that
beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. … Abide
in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide
in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the
branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much
fruit: … If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father
glorified, that ye bear much fruit;

SH Mark 16:17

17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

SH II Cor. 9:8-11

8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: 9 (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. 10 Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) 11 Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.

SH II Cor. 4:6

6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

SH 66:11-14

Spiritual development
germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each suc- 
cessive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine
goodness and love.

SH 188:24-27

The soil of disease is mortal
mind, and you have an abundant or scanty crop of disease,
according to the seedlings of fear. Sin and the fear of
disease must be uprooted and cast out.

SH 272:3-12

The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before
Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only
as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.
In the soil of an “honest and good heart” the
seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the
swinish element in human nature uproots it. Jesus said:
“Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures.” The spiritual
sense of the Scriptures brings out the scientific sense, and
is the new tongue referred to in the last chapter of Mark’s
Gospel.

SH 212:22-5

God alone makes
and clothes the lilies of the field, and this He does by
means of Mind, not matter.
Because all the methods of Mind are not understood,
we say the lips or hands must move in order to convey
thought, that the undulations of the air convey
sound, and possibly that other methods involve
so-called miracles. The realities of being, its
normal action, and the origin of all things are unseen to
mortal sense; whereas the unreal and imitative move-
ments of mortal belief, which would reverse the immortal
modus and action, are styled the real. Whoever con-
tradicts this mortal mind supposition of reality is called
a deceiver, or is said to be deceived. Of a man it has
been said, “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he;” hence
as a man spiritually understandeth, so is he in truth.

SH 213:6

Mortal mind conceives of something as either liquid
or solid, and then classifies it materially. Immortal and
spiritual facts exist apart from this mortal and
material conception. God, good, is self-exist-
ent and self-expressed, though indefinable as a whole.
Every step towards goodness is a departure from materi-
ality, and is a tendency towards God, Spirit. Material
theories partially paralyze this attraction towards infinite
and eternal good by an opposite attraction towards the
finite, temporary, and discordant.

SH 271:7-19

Jesus instructed his disciples whereby to heal the sick
through Mind instead of matter. He knew that the phi-
losophy, Science, and proof of Christianity were in Truth,
casting out all inharmony.
In Latin the word rendered disciple signifies student;
and the word indicates that the power of healing was not
a supernatural gift to those learners, but the
result of their cultivated spiritual understand-
ing of the divine Science, which their Master demonstrated
by healing the sick and sinning. Hence the universal ap-
plication of his saying: “Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me [understand
me] through their word.

SH 270:31-2

The life of Christ Jesus was not miraculous, but it was
indigenous to his spirituality, – the good soil wherein the
seed of Truth springs up and bears much fruit. Christ’s
Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing

SH 318:5-15

Corporeal senses define diseases as realities; but the
Scriptures declare that God made all, even while the cor-
poreal senses are saying that matter causes
disease and the divine Mind cannot or will
not heal it. The material senses originate and
support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased.
They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom
all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material
sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause
the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death
and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence.

SH 361:25-28

A germ of in-
finite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven is the
higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled
until God prepares the soil for the seed.

SH 517:30-1

Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to
multiply, – to manifest His power. Man is not made
to till the soil.

SH 520:30

Spirit acts through the Science of Mind,
never causing man to till the ground, but making him
superior to the soil. Knowledge of this lifts man above
the sod, above earth and its environments, to conscious
spiritual harmony and eternal being.

SH 190:14-20

Human birth, growth, maturity, and decay are as the
grass springing from the soil with beautiful green blades,
afterwards to wither and return to its native
nothingness. This mortal seeming is temporal;
it never merges into immortal being, but finally disap-
pears, and immortal man, spiritual and eternal, is found
to be the real man.