Mrs. Eddy’s 1887 sermon on Luke 14:30 — “This man began to build (Unfinished and Finished)” — goes to the heart of Christ’s teaching concerning building my house on the right foundation. Also of great importance here is 1 Cor. 3:10-15.
Mrs. Eddy defines “finish” as “completeness, to be perfect and permanent”. She discusses briefly but pointedly the tragic impermanence of mighty civilizations built on unstable foundations. She explains how Enoch, Elijah, and Job (after he learned to know God better) each exemplified the finished rather than the unfinished life. Why? Because in everything they experienced, they put God first — God as Principle, not person, and God as good only.
Here is an excerpt, concerning Adam’s unfinished life:
A good builder finishes his work and, before he begins it, counts the whole cost of foundation and superstructure. He selects the right place in which to build, makes his foundations sure, and employs only the materials in building that are fit and time-worthy.
Adam began to build the human race but was not able to finish it.
Adam was not man made in God’s image and likeness.
According to the Genesis of his creation, his foundation was red sand stone, and he built on sand.
He was a type of mortals, and a poor type of humanity. Not content with God’s company, unwilling to commune with the divine Principle of being and be guided by God, he sought person for companionship and guidance. This was the awful mistake. He could not look outside of self for even that person, nor bear a surgical operation in a state of consciousness. His self-mesmerism closed consciousness. And in a deep sleep he dreamed he was self-divided and [that] his better half was a woman.
He was afraid to recognize this state of being in animal magnetism, and when he sinned and suffered for it, he imputed the cause to his better half rather than the worse half of his nature.
Mistaken, misguided, deluded all the way, he became deceitful, dishonorable, and dishonest. He would shirk the responsibility of correcting his own faults and fasten them upon another; hence his progeny are built on wrong foundations, and the materials with which they are built are sin, sickness and death, which are the doom rather than the finish of mankind.