Page:Heaven Revealed.djvu/108

 the truth. Only by doing it—shunning as sins against God the indulgence of those dispositions and feelings which the truth condemns, can the nature of our ruling love be changed. By first compelling ourselves to yield obedience to the requirements of truth, we are brought at last into a state in which obedience is spontaneous and delightful. This is the heavenly state. And then our hearts are open to the influx of the Lord's love which is the life and soul of truth. We then eat his flesh and drink his blood, and He dwells in us and we in Him.

This, then, is the sure way to heaven; for it is the way to pass out of that low, carnal, selfish state in which we all are by inheritance, into that high, spiritual, unselfish state in which the angels are. Nor is any other way possible—any other than this: first learning and then religiously practicing the revealed laws of the heavenly life. This is the teaching of Sacred Scripture as well as of enlightened reason and human experience. Accordingly we read:

"Not every one that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. vii. 21.)

"Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock. . . . And every one that doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand." (v. 24.)

Jesus saith: "And why call ye me, Lord. Lord, and do not the things which I say?" (Luke vi. 46.)

"And He answered and said unto them. My mother