Alas! we have incense enough to offer to idols. We swing the censer to wealth, honors, and pleasures; we bow the knee, and worship houses, and lands, and cattle, and fine clothes, and sumptuous fare, and sell our very souls for a few pieces of gold; but we have but little incense for God—no pure and sincere homage for Him, the eternal, uncreated Source of all our good.
And when you offer the incense of your adoration to God, offer pure and clear incense. Do not mix with the frankincense resin or other foul-smelling drugs. And what are they? Those desires of the heart by which you cling to the creatures of earth with a passionate eagerness. Clear your heart of such desires, so that you may say, "My God and my all." "My God, if I possess Thee and lack all else, I am rich in deed." "If I have the whole world, and all it contains, and have not Thee, I am poor, and blind, and miserable, and naked." Then will your prayer arise as a sweet odor from the golden altar before the throne of God, and in numerable blessings descend upon you, not only for eternity, but even in this present life.
Offer frankincense, or you will have no gold to offer. When you open your treasures, if there is not plenty of incense—that is, prayer—you will find the chest, in which you thought there was much gold, to be empty. For without prayer there is no charity or love of God. Prayer is the food by which you nourish and keep charity alive and on the increase. Prayer is the capital in trade by which you are to make your fortune in the charity of God to enrich you for eternity.
And having offered your gold and frankincense, do not forget the myrrh. And what is signified by myrrh? It means self-denial, or, as it is more commonly called, mortification. I wish we all understood the value of self-denial better than we do, because nearly all the miseries which afflict the soul come from the fact that we do not deny ourselves as much as we ought. We give the reins to our natural desires and inclinations, and they run away with us. Just as if we were driving a span of spirited horses, and instead of putting a curb-bit upon them and holding them in, we should throw the reins down upon their necks and let them go without restraint. When they once begin to go fast, they break into a headlong race, and never stop until they have dashed everything in pieces. Thus we let our desires for amusement and pleasure run away with us, until we find our pious resolutions and the spirit of devotion entirely gone, and drowned in the sea of forgetfulness. How can we love God if we be absorbed in a love of good eating and drinking? Can God come and take up His abode in a soul which occupies itself and is taken up with the satisfaction of sumptuous fare, rich meats, and choice wines or liquors. Such souls are vividly described in Holy Scripture: "For many walk, of whom I have told you often (and now tell you weeping) that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; whose end is destruction; whose God is their belly; and whose glory is in their shame; who mind earthly things." [Footnote 7]
[Footnote 7: Philip., iii. 18, 19.]
How can God give Himself to the man who is absorbed in money-making and heaping up possessions? It is impossible for such a soul to enjoy the presence of God. Neither can He divide the empire of the soul with worldly honors, nor even with a passionate human love of wife or children. He is God, and they are creatures, the mere work of His hand. They shall pass away and be gone, and He shall remain. Such inordinate love is like disgusting vermin in the mansion of the soul, and all such vermin must be swept out. What ever we love must be loved on account of God, and in subordination to His love, or God will not come and take up His abode with us. This is the plain dictate of our reason.
We must deny ourselves, and that not merely in forbidden things, but in those which are lawful. If we go to the limit of what is lawful in self-indulgence, depend upon it we shall soon pass the limit. We shall fall into sin, and very likely into mortal sin. Many a one has fallen in this way. He has said to himself, I can do this thing, for it is not forbidden. Again, I can do that; it is not certain it comes within the letter of the law. I can indulge myself in this respect, for, even if sinful, it is a matter of small consequence. Thus he goes on in a downhill progress, until he becomes utterly selfish, and virtue has died out in his soul. Our Saviour has laid down the rule for a Christian; "He that will be My disciple, let him deny him self daily, and take up his cross and follow Me." Again, "He that loveth father or mother, wife or child, houses or lands, more than Me, is not worthy to be My disciple."