To continue to commit sin is to be a doer of sin, a follower of self, and not a doer of righteousness and a follower of Christ. Sin and Christ cannot dwell together, and he who accepts the Christ life of pure Goodness, ceases from sin. To follow Christ means to give up all, in our mind and conduct, that antagonizes the spirit of Love, and this, we shall find as we proceed, necessitates complete self-surrender, refusing to harbor any thought that is not pure, compassionate and gentle. The Christ-spirit of Love puts an end, not only to all sin, but to all division and contention. If I contend for an opinion, say, about the divinity of Jesus Christ, against the opinion of another as to his non-divinity, I at once create division and strife, and depart from the Christ, the spirit of Love. When Christ is disputed about, Christ is lost.
It is no less selfish and sinful to cling to opinion than to cling to impure desire. Knowing this, the good man gives up himself unreservedly to the spirit of Love, and dwells in Love towards all, contending with none, condemning none, hating none, but loving all, seeing behind their opinions, their creeds and their sins, into their striving, suffering and sorrowing hearts. "He that loveth his life shall lose it."
Eternal Life belongs to him who will obediently relinquish his petty, narrowing, sin-loving,
strifeproducing personal self, for only by so doing can he enter into the large, beautiful, free and glorious life of abounding Love. Herein is the Path of Life; for the strait Gate is the Gate of Goodness, and the narrow Way is the Way of Renunciation, or selfsacrifice. So strait is the Gate that no sin can pass through, and so narrow is the Way that he who essays to walk it can take with him no selfish thought as his companion.
2. The Law And The Prophets
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Jesus
If thou wilt enter info life; keep the Commandments
Jesus
The commandments and precepts of Jesus were given to men to be kept. This is so simple and self-evident a truth that there ought to be no necessity to state it; yet, after the precepts of Jesus have been before the world for nearly nineteen hundred years, this necessity not only exists, but is very great, so widespread is the belief that the tasks embodied in the precepts are not only utterly impracticable, but altogether impossible of human accomplishment. This disbelief in the possibility of carrying out the divine commands is the primary delusion, due to ignorance, in which men are caught, and it is
impossible for any man to comprehend spiritual things until he destroys it.
The words of Jesus are the direct outcome of an intimate knowledge of divine Law, and his every utterance is in harmonious relationship with the Eternal Substance. This a man finds as he molds the spiritual life contained in those words into his own life ? that is, as he succeeds in living the precepts.
Let us now examine these precepts, and see how they are to be carried out, and what they imply and involve. Most of them are embodied in the Sermon on the Mount, and all of them are directly related to individual conduct, so that there are only two possible ways of dealing with them, namely, to practice them or to ignore them.
It is not necessary for me to refer to them all separately, as, not only have my readers the Bible at their command, but each precept is based upon the same divine principle, and to learn the spirit of one is to know the spirit of them all. Indeed, seeing that not only all the precepts, but that the whole duty of life in its human and divine relationship has been embodied in the seventeen words, "all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," it is only necessary to refer to the other precepts in order to elucidate the carrying out of this one, for in learning this one precept, the whole range of spiritual life and knowledge is involved: "This is the Law and the Prophets."
The precept is extremely simple; this is why men have failed to understand it and to put it into effect.
