VIII.
THE SURE WAY TO HEAVEN.
A SUBJECT of transcendent interest and importance,—and this seems as suitable a place as any for its treatment. It is none other, indeed, than an inquiry as to the sure way of attaining the end for which we were created—a state of internal and spiritual conjunction with the Lord; which is the highest and most perfect state that a human being is capable of attaining—a state of unutterable bliss.
We have already shown—we trust with sufficient clearness—that heaven is not a place, but a state of life. And the nature of that state has also been made sufficiently plain. But we are none of us naturally or by inheritance in the state denoted by heaven, but in one quite the opposite; for we are naturally dominated by a supreme love of self, which is the ruling love of those in hell. If we ever reach the kingdom of heaven, therefore, our hereditary state must be wholly changed, and a new state be formed, by a process which the Bible calls regeneration, or a new creation. Thus the old hereditary life of self-love and the love of the world must be cast aside or die, and a new and higher life be received from the Divine Humanity—the life of love to the Lord and the neighbor.
It needs no argument to prove that the state of the natural man is the very opposite to that of heaven. This is well known to all. Look at the character and conduct of men who follow their natural bent, who never
