[Pryr-1.2-36]
Thus when our Lord says, unless a Man
forsake all that he has he cannot be my Disciple;(Mark x:21) the Reason is plain, and
the Necessity absolute. It is because all that the natural Man has is the
Possession of his own Self-love, and therefore this Possession has to be
absolutely forsaken, and done away with. For all
that man has, has to be put into other Hands, or the natural Man cannot be
changed into a Disciple of Christ.
This is because Self-love is an earthly,
sensual, and devilish thing. It must
have all its accessories taken away from it; because just feeding it a bit will
give it energy, and then the natural Man will find that his heavenly yearnings
are for naught and he is back to where he was: nowhere with nothing left, to
lay down at the Feet of Jesus, and then all Earthly Things become common, and Self-love
loses its love of its former Possessions.
For then as a Disciple of Christ, though
having nothing, because the natural Man has forsaken them; then he is restored as
a Disciple of Christ a hundred-fold as though there were no intervening times
between them.
For Self-love, the greatest of all Thieves,
is now cast out, and all that the former Man had stolen, and hidden away from
him, are now put into the Hands of Divine Love, every Mite {this is a small
unassuming thing} now becomes a large Treasure, and Mammon* opens the Door into
everlasting Habitations.
For this was the Spirit of the first
Draught of a Christian Church at Jerusalem, a Church made truly after the
Pattern of Heaven, where the Love that reigns in Heaven reigned also in it; where
Divine Love broke down all the selfish Fences, the Locks and Bolts of me, mine,
my own, &c., and laid all Things common to the Members of this new Kingdom
of God on Earth.
·
{Mammon comes to us from the New Testament
where he is the personification of wealth and avarice as a pawn of the devil;
Ye cannot serve God and Mammon -- Matthew vi:24
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