Christian Devotedness

CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS, or The Consideration of Our Saviour's Precept, Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth . By Anthony Norris Groves (1795--1853). Second Edition, London, James Nisbet, Berners Street, MDCCCXXIX.
Before this second edition was issued Groves had taken the step which he here had advocated. The tract is a revelation of the man, and affords an insight into the spirit and the glow which made his ministry attractive to sincere souls, and effectual. It being long since unobtainable we give it in full. By it he, being dead, may yet speak, and other hearts be enlarged and enriched, to the glory of God. It reads:--
In sending a second impression of the following little work into the world after a lapse of four years from the publication of the former edition, it may be right to state, that my views on the subject of it, have undergone no change in the way of relinquishment; but on the contrary the experience of every day in my own history,--every observation I have been able to make on the history of those with whom I have come into the closest contact, and who have either received or rejected the view, and in whatever degree, has tended exceedingly to strengthen the conviction on my mind, of the infinitely deep knowledge of the human heart, and springs of human actions which these injunctions of our Blessed Lord manifest: and that he means simply what he says in Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, etc. There is an eye-salve in this doctrine, when received by faith, that wonderfully clears the field of our spiritual perceptions; therefore, he that can receive it, let him receive it. Many more, certainly, have been influenced by it, and some to a much greater extent than I had expected; and the clusters that have adorned their branches seem to be of the true Eschol grapes; however, of these, and many other things, time will be the manifester, and the Lord the judge.
The principal objections urged, seem to arrange themselves under three heads:--The influence of which this principle would rob the Church;--the children it would leave without a provision;--and that it would require those having estates to sell them, and would not be satisfied with the dedication of the interest or profits arising out of such property. My business, however, is not with the consequences of the precept, but with the precept itself. Yet still I would say, there is in this reasoning as deistical a disregard of the Lord's especial government of his Church and people, as could be expected from an infidel.