Please listen to the article below from Unity of Good (Mrs. Eddy considered this book her masterpiece). Consider how this addressing suffering differs from what Christians generally believe, and also from what Christian Scientists typically believe. Does it contradict the following from S&H?
"It is error to suffer for aught but your own sins. Christ, or Truth, will destroy all other supposed suffering, and real suffering for your own sins will cease in proportion as the sin ceases."
Instead of Playback of session, Dale has transcribed the high points - quotes from our text in blue:
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Opening Hymn 416, Be true and list the voice within
Gospel of Suffering: Mary Baker Eddy's Precious Instruction
He was the Way-shower; and CS'ts who would demonstrate "the way" must keep close to his path, that they may win the prize. "The way," in the flesh, is the suffering which leads out of the flesh. Nobody has talked about that yet.
I think I just had a slight epiphany on that. I want to think of Jesus as being immune to suffering, that somehow he was above all that; ergo, as a CS't I should be above all that. This article is really saying that suffering is inescapable. You are either suffering for your own sins or you are suffering because of others' thought and suffering is the path out of this mortal coil. The culture uses CS to escape from suffering rather than letting suffering help them escape.
"The way," in Spirit, is "the way" of Life, Truth, and Love, redeeming us from the false sense of the flesh and the wounds it bears... If Jesus suffered, as the Scriptures declare, it must have been from the mentality of others... In the divine order of Science every follower of Christ shares his cup of sorrows. [is that not clear?] He also suffereth in the flesh, and from the mentality which opposes the law of Spirit; but the divine law is supreme, for it freeth him from the law of sin and death.
It does not say it frees him from suffering and he can have everything he wants without suffering, it does not say that, but it is talking about the idea that this fleshly experience, if we, in fact, really want to rise above it, we are going to be having these experiences, and it is from "the better we are the more heat we are going to take." The higher understanding or the stronger stand you take, the more heat you are going to take, and in the course of that, the more you are going to be lifted out of the flesh.
And is not it interesting how CS'ts have reversed that, so that the less heat you take, the more smooth things are, the better Christian Scientist you are believed to be. --- You got it!
And what is so interesting, you find this in her writings everywhere, yet it is completely [overlooked]; but this [article] is particularly clear.
Prophets and apostles suffered from the thoughts of others. Well, not because they were defective but because they were purer.
Until he awakes from his delusion, he suffers least from sin who is a hardened sinner.
So, what you have is a movement, a Christian Science movement, of hardened sinners. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! Now, of course, this is not really what is uniformly out there, but the picture is, as you pointed out, of people who do not show any suffering [and] are obviously purer and [at] a higher level of understanding, which is pure [delusion].
The hypocrite's affections must first be made to fret in their chains; and the pangs of hell must lay hold of him ere he can change from flesh to Spirit, become acquainted with that Love which is without dissimulation and endureth all things. Such mental conditions as ingratitude, lust, malice, hate, constitute the miasma of earth. More obnoxious than Chinese stenchpots are these dispositions which offend the spiritual sense.
It is not pretty. Ingratitude is not just "well I could do that;" no, it is obnoxious to the spiritual sense. And we all need to watch it because it is very easy to slip, to forget, and to get mesmerized by all the things that are not going the way you want them to go. Ingratitude and the Chinese stenchpots!
This whole article should shake us from the foundations. Inadequacy is in all of us if we are still walking around in the flesh; let us not think we have enough understanding and we do not need any more, that we just need to justify what we already know or do. That is no good! So, the big message here: the gospel of suffering brought life and bliss. This is earth's Bethel in stone, its pillow. Remember Jacob, suffering on a couple of occasions, so the suffering is the pillow supporting the ladder which reaches heaven: what a picture! Now, what I take from this article is that suffering is not something we want to embrace and look for, but we certainly do not want to be whining over it either. Everyone on this call is privileged to know enough about CS that they should be past the point of coming to CS and looking for your healing. Why come [then]? The "why come" is to get out of the flesh, so we can find our true selfhood as an idea and expression of God, free of this [Adam man]. I hope everyone on the call does realize that this is a ghastly farce; material existence is a ghastly farce. If we are still impressed by the political situation we have not recognized that this is the very nature of material existence, a ghastly farce. Now wake up. Look at it and be honest. It is not just a political situation down in DC. It is when we see somebody who suffers with some disease that just comes out of the blue. How fair is that? Do you think it is because they deserve it for their wrong thinking? There is no moral basis for material existence. If you are looking for it, you will be disappointed.
Why is Mrs. Eddy writing this? Why does she bother? Do you think she is just having a grand old time writing some more stuff? This is instruction of the most precious kind. And so, it does take Love, also, to progress because the reason people do not speak up typically when they need to is because they do not want to take the heat that comes with it. And that is why Mrs. Eddy says in the textbook,
S&H It requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race.
The sentence before that, I am sure you are all familiar with it, but I bet you have not thought enough about it.
S&H Many are willing to open the eyes of the people to the power of good resident in divine Mind, but they are not so willing to point out the evil in human thought, and expose evil's hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity. Why this backwardness, since exposure is necessary to ensure the avoidance of the evil? Because people like you better when you tell them their virtues than when you tell them their vices. [And it goes on]. It requires the spirit of our blessed Master to tell a man his faults, and so risk human displeasure for the sake of doing right and benefiting our race.
Think upon this and let us hope it has expanded thought beyond where it was before. Go study it, from the light of this go back read it, take it in and think about, feel, why Mrs. Eddy is writing this for us.