Childlike Confidence in God

Religious faith, like natural faith, has its appropriate objects; objects, which are in some way connected with religious experience. As natural faith is known in part, by attaching itself to natural objects; so one of the marks or characteristics of religious faith is, that it attaches itself to religious objects.

The facts, which we notice in children, furnish an illustration of what has now been said. The life of children, I suppose, may in general be regarded as a life of faith. Not of religious faith, it is true; but still of faith, of natural faith. It is interesting to see, though they know that they are entirely dependent for food, raiment, and a home, what entire confidence they repose in their parents; a confidence, which, in excluding doubt, banishes anxiety. Hence it is that they live in such simplicity and quietness of spirit; and in the language of Scripture, are “careful for nothing.” When the object of this state of mind is changed, and it is transferred from the earthly parent to God, it becomes religious faith. The existence of such faith not only constitutes God our Father; but those who exercise it, become, in the language of the Savior, “like little children.” They have the same simple-hearted confidence. Freed from the anxieties of unbelief, they leave their life and their health, their food and their raiment, their joy and their sorrow, in the divine keeping. The resemblance or analogy between the two states of mind, as represented in these two cases, is essentially complete. And yet one of them is to be regarded and spoken of as an instance of natural faith merely. The other is a religious faith.

I find, in the writings of Richard Cecil, an illustration of the view of the subject just given, which seems to me to be suitable to be introduced here.—

“I imprinted on my daughter,” this devout writer remarks, “the idea of Faith, at a very early age. She was playing one day with a few beads, which seemed to delight her wonderfully. Her whole soul was absorbed in her beads. I said—‘My dear, you have some pretty beads there.’ ‘Yes, Papa!’ ‘And you seem to be vastly pleased with them.’ ‘Yes, Papa!’ ‘Well now, throw them behind the fire.’ The tears started into her eyes. She looked earnestly at me, as though she ought to have a reason for such a cruel sacrifice. ‘Well, my dear, do as you please; but you know I never told you to do any thing, which I did not think would be good for you.’ She looked at me a few moments longer, and then summoning up all her fortitude — her breast heaving with the effort — she dashed them into the fire. ‘Well,’ said I: ‘there let them lie: you shall hear more about them another time; but say no more about them now.’ Some days after, I bought her a box full of larger beads, and toys of the same kind. When I returned home, I opened the treasure and set it before her: she burst into tears with ecstasy. ‘Those, my child,’ said I, ‘are yours, because you believed me, when I told you it would be better for you to throw those two or three paltry beads behind the fire. Now that has brought you this treasure. But now, my dear, remember, as long as you live, what FAITH is. I did all this to teach you the meaning of Faith. You threw your beads away when I bade you, because you had faith in me that I never advised you but for your good. Put the same confidence in God. Believe every thing that he says in his word. Whether you understand it or not, have faith in him that he means your good.”

— edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 3.

God Has an Interest in all Creation

Our heavenly Father takes an interest in all the works of his hands. He beholds the reflection of his own wisdom in every blade of grass, in every flower of the desert, in every waterfall. There is no living thing in the earth, the air, or the waters, over which God does not watch with a Father's love. Those, who bear God's image in being possessed of a holy heart, not only connect God with all his works, but sympathize with him in his deep interest for everything he has made.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLIII.

God Felt It First

When we are injured and afflicted by our fellow men, we should remember, that our heavenly Father felt the wound first.  He always feels in what his people feel, and if, for wise purposes, he is patient and bears with the infliction, whatever it may be, we should both be taught and be encouraged to do likewise.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLII.

Laying Our Thoughts and Plans Before God

Whenever we propose to change our situation in life, by establishing some new relations, or by entering into some new business, it becomes, first of all, a most important religious duty, to lay all our thoughts and plans before our Heavenly Father for his approbation. Otherwise it is possible, and even probable, that we shall be found running the immense risk of moving in our own wisdom and out of God's wisdom, in our own order and out of God's order, for our own ends and out of God's ends.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXXIII.

Redemption

The great result, therefore, of the plan of redemption, when fully carried out in relation to man, is to restore him to such a position of harmony with God, that he may be said ever afterwards to live in and from God. Nothing short of this is redemption; — nothing short of this is worthy to be thought of and to be regarded as redemption.

And this great result, — a result on which depends union or separation, life or death, happiness or woe, — is made to turn upon his own free choice. It is not left to him, however, to choose a mixed or middle course. And the reason is that there is no such course. "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." There can be but one true life, and that is life from God. Our heavenly Father, dwelling in man as the Divine Teacher or Comforter, must be the whole, the true life and the whole life in us or he can be nothing. And this is a matter, which, as a moral agent, man is called upon to decide for himself; — namely, whether God, without dividing his influence with any other master or teacher, shall be his inward life, and thus be, in all coming time, the inspiration and source of all good. This choice is given him in Christ. If he accepts God, he lives. If he rejects him, he dies.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 2.

Let God Answer

When wicked men thy patience try,
With haughty words and threats and blows,
Let God, and not thyself, reply;
Thy wants the Father knows.

'Tis He, with kindly presence near,
Thy words and feelings shall inspire;
Thy foes shall tremble when they hear
Lips touch'd by heaven's own fire.

The strength of human argument
And human wit, shall fail to reach
The mighty power, the great intent,
Of God's interior speech.

LEAVE ALL WITH GOD and, in the hour
Of greatest feebleness and need,
Behold the triumph of His power;
TO GOD ALONE TAKE HEED.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) XXIX.

The Judge and Father of the Nations

God, in the exercise of his providential care, is the Judge and Father also of great commonwealths. The idea that God should be united to man as an individual, and in his relation to families, but forgetful of and alien to those bodies of men which are denominated civil societies, — governing the one, and leaving the other without government,— would be exceedingly absurd. If he cannot abandon a man, nor the hair of a man's head, how can he abandon a nation or any part of a nation's interests? It is an obvious dictate of reason, therefore, that he who is watchful over the less, will be careful of the greater; that he, who watches over the members of the body, will take care of the whole body, if he has the power and qualification to do so; and that he, who is the head of the citizen, a fortiori if his capacity equals the impulses of his benevolence, will be the head of the state.

And it is certain that what is reasonable in this case is also scriptural. The Bible everywhere represents God as the God of nations. How often is it said, in Daniel, in Job, in the Psalms, and everywhere, that "the kingdom is the Lord's;" that "He is Governor among the nations;" that He "removes and sets up kings!" What was the language which David used in his great contest with the Philistine chief, — young as he was, and just come from the flocks and the pastures of Bethlehem? "Thou comest to me," said David, "with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come unto thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the  Lord  deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee. And I will give the carcasses of the hosts of the Philistines unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for  the battle is the Lords, and He will give you into our hands.”

What was the declaration of the Spirit of the Lord, by the mouth of his prophet, to Jehoshaphat, king of Judah? "Thus saith the Lord unto you, Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Ye shall not need to fight in this battle; set yourselves, stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you. O Judah and Jerusalem fear not, nor be dismayed; to-morrow go out against them, for the Lord will be with you.” And  it is added, after some account of the great victory which the Lord gave: "So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet; for his God gave him rest round about."  [2nd Chron., chapter 20.]

— A Treatise on Divine Union Part 6, Chapter 1.

Once More Becoming the Children of God

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

In once more becoming the children of God, we receive and retain a filial nature, but without ceasing to possess a moral nature. Much is involved in that free and full consecration which every true Christian is supposed to have made of himself to his heavenly Father. As free and moral agents, we consent now, and forever, if we do what we ought to do, that God shall be a truth, a life, a nature in us; which he never has been and never will be without our consent. Adam before he fell, Christ in his humanity, angels in heaven, all holy beings everywhere, either have existed, or do now exist, as  holy beings, by means of the operation of God in the soul; and yet without any alienation of their moral attributes and responsibilities, because they have received this operation with their own choice, and have sanctioned it by their own approbation.

There is no true place of rest and safety, short of the reestablishment of those relations which we have endeavored to illustrate. Accordingly, we cannot regard it as safe for any one to stop in the progress of inward experience, until he feels and knows that he has become, in the Scripture sense of the terms, a LITTLE CHILD; not only having a child's name, but a child's nature. And when this relation is reestablished, not as a name merely, but as a reality, not as a mere conventional arrangement, but as a true nature, — then, and not till then, we are brought into true union with our heavenly Father.

It is on these principles, and these only, that we can make our position harmonize with our prayers. When we pray, we address God as our Father. This implies that we either are, or ought to be, his children. And our language throughout in prayer corresponds to the idea that our true position is the filial position. We pray that we may distrust and renounce ourselves, and look only to God for guidance and support. Recognizing our inability to supply our own wants, we pray for faith, for wisdom, for love, for the guidance of our wills. We go to him, in form at least, just as the little child goes to its earthly parent. If we will go in the same sincerity, our heavenly Father will recognize the relationship, and we shall thus become the true sons of God.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.­

Childlike Love

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

Again, the child LOVES his father. The evidences of this are constantly exhibited. He rejoices with his father's joy, and weeps with his father's sorrow. The slightest injury to his father's honor is felt as an injury to his own. The true child would not hesitate to die for its father or mother, if the occasion presented. And this strong and permanent love is not a matter of calculation, but a nature.  It is born with him, grows with him, lives with him. Blows will not beat it down; waters will not drown it; fires will not burn it.

At  his first creation, man's love to his heavenly Father was like this, — a love implanted by a divine power and kept in operation by a divine presence. He afterwards lost it, it is true; but he could not have lost it, if he had not first possessed it. As a moral being, man allowed, and perhaps we may say, was expected and required, to sanction the principles and methods of his inward vitality, by his own voluntary concurrence. Failing to do this, in a way and under circumstances which the human mind does not now perhaps fully understand, God withdrew himself as the central element of his being; and he became from that time the subject of spiritual alienation and death. But in his restoration to God through Christ, he is necessarily restored to the possession of that divine nature from which he fell. As he is made anew in faith and knowledge, so he is made anew in love. The lost principle of holy love is not only restored, but becomes again, under the transforming operations of divine grace, what it was in the beginning, namely, a nature, —  an operative life, moved by a power of movement existing in itself. In other words, it once more becomes in relation to God what the child's love is in relation to its earthly father.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.

Childlike Faith

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

The earthly child, in its relations to its earthly father, is the representation, the earthly development, if we may so express it, of the relations of the child of God to his Father in heaven.

And this is seen, in the first place, in the matter of FAITH. It is very obvious, in regard to the faith which the earthly child has in its earthly parent, that it is a faith given, a faith implanted.  The filial confidence which it exhibits is not something which the child makes himself; nor is it, as some seem to suppose, the result of experience; but is innate. God himself is the giver of it. Implanted by the divine hand, and operating instinctively, the faith of the child is seen in the earliest movements of its infancy. And ever afterwards, in the various situations in which the child is placed, it retains all the attributes and exhibits all the results of an implanted or connatural principle; so much so, that, to withhold confidence from a father or mother, we all feel to be doing that which is a violation of nature.

And such precisely was the character of the faith which man possessed in his heavenly Father before he fell.

 The first man was created in the possession of faith. He could not have been created in any other way. To believe in God was a nature to him; just as we find, at the present time, that it is natural for the child to place confidence in its earthly parent. And in the full restoration of man to God, (a restoration for which provision is made in the coming and atonement of Christ, and in the renewing agency of the Holy Spirit,) the principle of faith will be re-established, not merely as a variable exercise of the mind originating in the will, but as a permanent element or nature of the mind existing in harmony with the will, and with the  will's  consent. And those who are thus restored will become, in respect to their faith, "little children."

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union Part 5, Chapter 8.

Jesus' Illustration of the Little Children

One of the striking incidents in the history of our Savior is the notice which he takes of little children. "And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God." Mark 10: 13, 14. And again it is said in Matthew [Matthew 18: 3], "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Taking all the various passages which may be found on this subject, we may properly deduce from them the following general proposition, namely: It is necessary to possess and to exhibit towards our heavenly Father such dispositions, both in kind and degree, as exist in the minds of children towards their earthly parents.

The analogy between the two cases is very striking; and it was the clear perception of its closeness, and of the beautiful and important instruction involved in it, which seems to have so much interested the Savior’s mind. As he looked upon little children, he perceived that they felt towards their earthly fathers very much as he felt towards his own Father in heaven; and, with such a striking illustration before him of what he experienced in his own bosom, he could not fail to be interested.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.

Peace in Seasons of Temptation

In seasons of temptation, it is highly important, that we should remain recollected, and in the exercise of true patience of spirit. The adversary of our souls gains great advantages at such times, if he can succeed in disturbing our peace. And in order to help us in retaining this valuable state of mind, we should always remember that our heavenly Father is present in temptations, as he is in everything else. It is true he is not the tempter, but he permits the temptation; and he permits it, however mysterious it may sometimes seem, both for our good, and for his own glory. And the temptation, however threatening it may appear, and from whatever source it may come, will not be allowed to go farther than he shall see to be connected with those great objects. This consideration should have great influence with us. It should exclude disquieting thoughts; it should keep us in perfect submission and peace, till the day of our visitation be passed.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 1, Chapter 19.

The Joy of Faith in Times of Trial

When all earthly comforts are dried up, and when faith alone remains as the sustaining principle of the soul, there is an interior consolation, deep and tranquil, flowing out from faith itself. This is a circumstance which is often overlooked. But it is a great truth contrary to the opinion of some who do not fully understand the nature of the divine operation in the soul, that there is a JOY IN FAITH. The life of faith, though it may be destitute of every outward support and comfort, is not so desolate in itself, so wanting in every thing that brings inward happiness, as some seem to suppose. It is true, sustained in the spirit of self-sacrifice, and seeking nothing but unity with the divine will, it never aims at consolation as an ultimate object. It thinks more of what God is, than of what he gives. And thus God himself, the great original of all good, becomes the fountain of the soul's joy. And the joy, which is thus experienced, is necessarily a pure joy, uncontaminated by any mixture of self. Ask those pious persons; who in the exercise of faith are endeavoring to lay all upon the altar of God, but who, nevertheless, are called in the course of his wise but mysterious dealings and providences to pass through the extremity of interior and exterior desolation, if they are sustained by anything in the nature of consolation, and they will readily answer in the affirmative. Their language is, if they have nothing else, they have the consolation which flows from believing. If the sweetness of every other fountain is closed, they still have the joy of faith.

This is one of the unalterable conditions of faith, especially when it exists in a high degree, viz. that it is attended with a pure and tranquil consolation; consolation so sure and permanent, that we can never be deprived of it, whatever else may be taken away. The soul is led up, as it were, into the mountain of God's protection. In the attitude of calm repose, it remains established on that sublime height with the sunlight of heavenly peace for its companion, while there is nothing but darkness and the roaring of tempests in the valleys below. Such was the pure and sublime consolation, which our Savior experienced, when his heavenly Father had withdrawn from him the manifestations of his love, and left him in extreme and inexpressible desolation of spirit He still possessed, though apparently and terribly forsaken, the consolation and the joy of faith. He could still recognize the bond of union, and still appropriate, as it were, his Heavenly Father to himself, and say, "My God" "My God."

— from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 1, Chapter 18.