Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/324

 something of worldly honour and importance might probably be gained; and the Lord, to shew that he knew his thoughts, and to undeceive him in this, replied, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head." These words teach that the Lord cannot be followed while worldly, cunning, and selfish thoughts, denoted by foxes and birds of the air, have a dwelling-place in the mind. These find their holes and nests in the worldly-minded, while the Son of Man—the Divine Truth which opens heaven to the soul, has no reception—no place to lay his head. So, in respect to "let the dead bury their dead," this literally, is an impossibility, as none but the living can bury the dead. The thought in the mind of him who asked permission to leave the Lord, to go home to bury his father, and that afterwards he would follow Jesus, was, that all the affairs of his own earthly house ought to be settled and arranged first, and that afterwards the following of Jesus should be commenced. But this is opposite to the Divine command, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things shall be added unto you." (Matt. vi. 33.) The Lord is to be followed first—the kingdom of heaven sought first! these must take precedence of all other desires. The father, who was to be buried, is self-love, whence all our hereditary evils and corruptions spring; to leave the Lord, and return to our own house or selfish state, in order to bury the father, or "bid them farewell which are at home in our house" (Luke ix. 61), is to forsake the Lord, and to look back with fondness on our unreformed mind. It is a dangerous experiment to leave the Lord and go back and take a farewell of those evil affections and desires that are at