— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851), Part 1, Chapter 1.
A blog drawn from the writings of Thomas Cogswell Upham (1799-1872).
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.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Step by Step
It must be admitted that [union with God] is not reached at once. At least this is not the general method of God's operation. God works gradatim, step by step; by the gradualism of continually developed law, and not by the impromptus and ejaculations of blind effort, without any wise and permanent principles as the foundation of effort. It is a great thing to begin to return; it is a much greater to complete the return. It is a great thing even to look towards God with feelings of humility and faith. It is a much greater to find him, encouraged as it were by these solicitations of humble faith, approaching nearer and nearer, in the mild radiance of a reconciled divinity; — melting away and removing, at every step of his approach, some envelopment of selfishness, until, the doors of every faculty being open, he enters his own purified temple, and becomes its everlasting center.
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