Self-Love

Another of the Propensities, which may be regarded as implanted or connatural to us, is the principle of SELF-LOVE; in other words, the desire of our own happiness. It is natural and right to desire our own good or happiness; it is unnatural and wrong not to desire it. But in the natural man, the man who is without true faith in God, this desire is exceedingly apt to exaggerate itself and to become inordinate. 

The man of faith, subordinating all his desires of personal good to that standard which God has established, is willing and desirous to trust all his happiness, whether it relate to the present or the future, with that great and good Being, who never does otherwise than right. He may be a wanderer from his country with Abraham, he may be sold into exile with the young but believing Joseph, he may undergo all the deprivations and sorrows of Job, of Jeremiah, and of Daniel, and yet find a consolation and support in faith, which is as wonderful as on any natural principles it is inexplicable.

He, who has truly resigned or abandoned himself to God in the exercise of faith, will remain calm, peaceful, and thankful, under interior as well as exterior desolation. The common forms of Christianity will, in general, be found capable of supporting what may be called outward desolation, such as the loss of property, reputation, health, and friends. But a state of interior desolation, in which we have no sensible joys, no inward illuminations, but on the contrary are sterile alike of edifying thoughts and quickening emotions, and are beset continually with heavy temptations, (a state to which the people of God are for wise reasons sometimes subjected,) is, generally speaking, far more trying. In this state, as well as in that of exterior trials, the mind that has abandoned all into the hands of God, will wait, in humble and holy quietness, for the divine salvation. Faith remains; a firm, realizing, unchangeable faith. And the language of the heart is, under the keen anguish which it is permitted to experience, “though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

— edited from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 5.

Evening Reflections

Hushed was the tumult of the day,

The evening's wonted breeze was still,

The placid moon, with silver ray,

Chequered the groves of vale and hill,

And not a cloud o'er all the sky,

Was witnessed by my wandering eye.

The light was out in each lone cot,

The farmer slept at nature's call,

And sound or action reached me not,

Save but the cricket in the wall.

The beast was on his lair; his breast

The bird had pillowed on his nest.

Then thought my soul of each dear scene,

Where childhood sported gay and boon;

The gambols on the village green,

Beneath the pale and watchful moon,

When friends and nature had a charm

The sting of sorrow to disarm.

Nor did my soul find resting here;

But prompted by this hour of bliss,

She soared above this earthly sphere,

And found a scene more calm than this;

A heaven, where there is endless joy,

No cares invade, no griefs annoy.

— The Religious Offering (1835).

The Quiet Person of Faith

The religiously quiet man, like other men less advanced in grace, has experienced the sharpness of the inward contest; but God has helped him. Having striven with his corrupt nature, having passed through, as it were, the storms of regeneration, he has at last entered into the haven of inward rest.

Inwardly instructed in the limitations of the human understanding, he rests from reasonings in all cases where reasoning owes homage to faith. God is his reason. Taught by the great Teacher of the soul, that the true end of desires is to be found in the wisdom of the Infinite, he quietly ceases from all those desires which have their origin in a corrupted nature, and finds all his aims and purposes harmonized and fulfilled in the fulfillment of God's purposes. God is his desire. While he condemns sin, he is not impatient with it; but bears with it in the same spirit of calmness that God does; never doubting that, in the great issue of things which is rapidly approaching, the unity and love of God will over­come the divisions and hatreds of Satan. Devoted to the will of God to the extent of his power, and resting firmly upon the promises in unshaken faith, he is exempt alike from the reproofs of conscience and the agitations of fear.

A divine peace, of which God alone could be the author, is written upon his heart, his countenance, his actions, his whole life. The outward man is the calm mirror of the man within. He sees the commotions of the world; he beholds the surges and hears the noise of its contentions; but it does not move him from his position; it does not alter the fixedness of his purpose;  it does not disturb the peace of his spirit. His countenance, written over with signatures which have their source in the centre of his spirit, shows neither the scowl of anger, nor the distortions of fear. Not that he is indifferent to the strife; but he believes and knows that the God in whom he trusts has power to control it. He sees the calm beyond.

Such men, more than any others, bear the image of God; whose mighty power is established and operates in peace and in silence. A perfect being is, by the very fact of his perfection, unalterably tranquil. Jesus Christ, who was God revealed in humanity, and who, therefore, was the model of the perfect man, was a quiet man; he did not attract the world's notice by his noise. On the contrary, the world, disappointed that he came without observation, was attracted to him, contrary to what is usual with it, by the calm but mighty influence of his purity and gentleness. Meek, quiet, loving, doing what the divine order of things called him to do, he gave no occasion for reconsiderations and repentance, but left the evidence of his divinity in the perfection of everything he said and did. And in all cases will it be found, in the history of all good men of all ages, that the harmony of thought with truth, of feeling with thought, and of conscience with feeling; in other words, the perfect adjustment of character, will find its result and its testimony in inward and outward peace.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 11.

The Contemplative State

One of the characteristics of a soul which is brought into union with God, is that it is contemplative.  This is so much the case, that it seems to be proper here to give some explanations of a state which is eminently delightful and profitable; and especially because it is in this state of mind that we find one of the elements and sources of that divine peace which we have been endeavoring to explain.

Faith is Calm Where Reason is Confounded

During some years past, there have been great changes and perplexities in nations. All the positions of society have been reversed; problems have been started which affect the basis of civilization; governments have been overturned; the low have been elevated to places of power; and the great have been driven into exile or cast into dungeons. The man of the world reasons; politicians gather up the letters of history, and try to spell something which will disclose the mysteries of the future. But God keeps his own counsels. The wheels of his vast government move on. But he who trusts in God is not troubled. His belief in the Creator harmonizes and triumphs over the confusions of the creature. And faith is calm, where reason is confounded.

Thou who seekest the truth! Having exercised thy reason, till thou findest there is no peace in it, rest at last in the God of reason. Link the weakness of finite wisdom to the strength of Infinite wisdom. What thou knowest not, believe that God knows. Blindfolded to the future, nevertheless walk on, with God's hand to guide thee. And thus accept the fulness and strength of Infinite wisdom, which is pledged to all those who have faith, as a compensation for the deficiencies and weakness of thine own. God will work out problems for the humility of faith, which he hides from the confidence of unsanctified deduction. And thus the truly humble and devout Christian, who knows nothing but his Bible, will have more true peace of spirit than the unbelieving philosopher.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 2.

'Tis Not in Vain the Mind

'Tis not in vain the mind,
By many a tempest driven,
Shall seek a resting-place to find,
A calm like that of heaven.

The weak one and dismayed,
Scarce knowing where to flee,
How happy, when he finds the aid
That comes alone from Thee!

In Thee, oh God, is REST! —
Rest from the world's desires,
From pride that agitates the breast,
From passion's angry fires.

In Thee is rest from fear,
That brings its strange alarm;
And sorrow, with its rising tear,
Thou hast the power to calm.

— from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 1.

The True Rest

'Tis not in vain the mind,
By many a tempest driven,
Shall seek a resting-place to find,
A calm like that of heaven.

The weak one and dismayed,
Scarce knowing where to flee,
How happy, when he finds the aid,
That comes alone from Thee.

In Thee, O God, is REST;
Rest from the world's desires,
From pride that agitates the breast,
From passion's angry fires.

In Thee is rest from fear,
That brings its strange alarm,
And sorrow, with its rising tear,
Thou hast the power to calm.

— American Cottage Life (1850).