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.

Friday, July 10, 2015

Christ is Our Example

In the matter of union with God in the great work of the world's redemption, "Christ is our example.” Those who are now in the world, called upon to realize its situation, and to labor for its restoration, can be in union with God only so far as they have Christ's spirit. There is a sense in which it can be said, with great truth, that holy souls are the perpetuation of Christ. We are called upon, therefore, to be just what Christ would be if he were now living. If he were now on earth, it is certain that he would live, and labor, and suffer for the completion of that great object for which he lived and suffered so many centuries ago. In the same spirit of meekness, in the same fixedness of purpose, in the same readiness to act and to endure, he would say now, as then, "I come to do thy will.”

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 1.

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