These three words, Salvation, Escape, and Neglect, then, are not
casually, but organically and necessarily connected. Their doctrine is
scientific, not arbitrary. Escape means nothing more than the gradual
emergence of the higher being from the lower, and nothing less. It means
the gradual putting off of all that cannot enter the higher state, or
heaven, and simultaneously the putting on of Christ. It involves the
slow completing of the soul and the development of the capacity for God.
Should any one object that from this scientific standpoint the opposite
of salvation is annihilation, the answer is at hand. From this
standpoint there is no such word.
If, then, escape is to be open to us, it is not to come to us somehow,
vaguely. We are not to hope for anything startling or mysterious. It is
a definite opening along certain lines which are definitely marked by
God, which begin at the Cross of Christ, and lead direct to Him. Each
man in the silence of his own soul must work out this salvation for
himself with fear and trembling--with fear, realizing the momentous
issues of his task; with trembling, lest before the tardy work be done
the voice of Death should summon him to stop.
What these lines are may, in closing, be indicated in a word. The true
problem of the spiritual life may be said to be, do the opposite of
Neglect. Whatever this is, do it, and you shall escape. It will just
mean that you are so to cultivate the soul that all its powers will open
out to God, and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. The idea really
is to develop among the ruins of the old a new "creature"--a new
creature which, while the old is suffering Degeneration from Neglect, is
gradually to unfold, to escape away and develop on spiritual lines to
spiritual beauty and strength. And as our conception of spiritual being
must be taken simply from natural being, our ideas of the lines along
which the new religious nature is to run must be borrowed from the known
lines of the old.
There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the religious nature. Neglect
this, leave it undeveloped and you never miss it. You simply see
nothing. But develop it and you see God. And the line along which to
develop it is known to us. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shall
see God. Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture--the avenue through
purity of heart to the spiritual seeing of God.
Then there is a Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, and
you never miss it. You simply hear nothing. Develop it, and you hear
God. And the line along which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ.
Become one of Christ's flock. "The sheep hear His voice, and He calleth
them by name." Here, then, is another opportunity for the culture of the
soul--a gateway through the Shepherd's fold to hear the Shepherd's
voice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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