The life of those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High may be called a Hidden Life, because the animating principle, the vital or operative element, is not so much in itself as in another. It is a life grafted into another life. It is the life of the soul, incorporated into the life of Christ; and in such a way, that, while it has a distinct vitality, it has so very much in the sense, in which the branch of a tree may be said to have a distinct vitality from the root.

Thursday, July 6, 2023

The Importance of Faith


Faith is the continuance, as well as the beginning of the religious life. No man can be justified in Christ, unless he is willing to renounce all merit and hope in himself; and in the exercise of faith receive Christ alone as the propitiation for his sins. No man can experience the grace of sanctification, unless, renouncing all other means of sanctification, all wisdom and all strength of his own, he is willing to receive from God, in the exercise of faith, that wisdom and that strength, moment by moment, without which the sanctification of the heart cannot exist.

— from Religious Maxims (1846), I.

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