In God There is Rest

It is well sometimes to remember, that the good which is promised to God's people is sure to them, not only because it is promised, but because it is a necessary result of the excellences of the divine nature. There is a love, a mercy back of the promise, from which the promise originated; — not only God's word, but his nature is pledged.

In giving ourselves to God, (as all holy persons profess to do and must do,) we do not do it in part only. We not only renounce ourselves in the strict sense of the terms, but also the means of supporting ourselves; — not only our persons, but all earthly and finite dependencies. We not only give ourselves to God, to be servants to do his work, but to be sons, whom it is his delight to provide for. The support of those whom God has adopted into his family, and who are properly called his sons, ceases to be a contingency. It is only when and so long as we are out of God, and are separate from him, that we are left to our own wretched resources. In all other situations, it is not only a truth, but a necessity, that God should provide for us. If God had never promised to clothe, and feed, and watch over, his people, it would nevertheless have been done, because the holiness, well as the benevolence of his nature necessarily requires it. In other words, it is his nature to give where there is a disposition to receive; — to fill the hand which is truly open to take what is presented to it. His promise is only the expression of his nature.

It is thus, that, in having nothing, by mingling our desires with the divine desires, we have all things. The loss of ourselves by the moral union of ourselves with God, is necessarily the possession of God. In God is the fulfillment of our desires. In God, therefore, there is rest.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 3.