Faith Has Various Objects

Faith, in itself considered, is a very simple principle; but it possesses this peculiarity, a peculiarity which explains in part the great extent of its influence, that, on different occasions and under different circumstances, it may attach itself to any and every object; and consequently the sphere of its operations is very wide, perhaps we may say, as wide as the universe itself. And then there is this remark further to be made, that of all the various objects in this wide and unlimited sphere, it may make its selection, if we may so speak; that is to say, it may believe in many of them, or it may believe in a smaller number of them, or it may believe only in one of them; and it may also believe in that one, considered in one of its aspects and relations only, or as considered in many.

In religion, faith attaches itself to God as the primary object of belief. A belief in God, such a belief as issues in the soul’s renovation and salvation, involves undoubtedly the fact of other objects and other exercises of belief. It involves a belief in the mission of Jesus Christ. It involves a belief in the mission and operations of the Holy Ghost. God, nevertheless, is the primary object; the object to which all other belief tends, and in which it ultimately centers. But men may believe in God, in accordance with the remark just now made, considered in a part of his attributes and relations, or in the whole. They may believe in him, for instance, as the God merely of the natural creation; or they may believe in him as the God of events, the God of providence as well as of nature; or they may believe in him as the God of the Bible also.

— The Life of Faith, (1852) Part 1, Chapter 13.

Design in Creation

More than a hundred years ago, Mr. Addison, speaking of the evidences of design in the works of creation, made a remark to this effect, that, if our inquiries should be adequately extended, it would be found, that the earth in its interior structure is as curious and well-contrived a frame, as that of a human body. “We should see,” he says, “the same concatenation and subserviency, the same necessity and usefulness, the same beauty and harmony in all and every of its parts, as what we discover in the body of every single animal.” The mineralogy and geology of modern times have already done enough to verify this suggestion.

But if the presence of God, if his wonderful wisdom and power, are seen in layers of earth, in successive strata of rocks, and in the deposition of fossil remains, how much more may they reasonably be expected to be seen in the organized and living bodies that cover the earth’s surface, in animals, and especially in man. And then the heavens above us, the sun, moon, and stars, all give their testimony. So that we may well say, if we had only the book of outward nature to look in, it would be hard to be an unbeliever; and could almost add, in the slightly altered language of a popular poet,

How canst thou disbelieve, and hope to be forgiven!

— The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 4.

The Power of God in Creation

"Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel my called! I am he! I am the first; I also am the last. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned out the heavens." — Isaiah 48.12, 13.

The boundless heavens, oh Lord, are made by Thee,
And Thou hast made the stars that through them gleam,
And Thou, the silver moon with placid beam;
They all proclaim Thy power and majesty.
And Thou hast made the earth and all its fountains,
The fountains, where the wild beast slakes its throat;
The myriads of birds, with vernal note,
Cheering the forests waving on the mountains.
And thou hast made the sea and all therein,
Its cavern'd solitudes and rocky shore,
Its heaving waves and everlasting roar,
Its fishes and its huge Leviathan.
Great God! The everlasting God art Thou;
Before Thee let all hearts with humble reverence bow.

— The Religious Offering (1835) Scripture Sonnets V.

God Desires Human Happiness

God's nature, including all his acts and feelings, corresponds precisely to the truth and relations of things. If he is a perfect being, it cannot be otherwise.  It is not possible for him, being what he is, to sunder himself from the things he has made, and from the relations they sustain to himself and each other; nor to act otherwise, and to be otherwise, than in perfect consistency with such things and relations.

Among other works which are to be attributed to him, God has formed moral agents. Of all his various works, this is, in some respects, the greatest. He has formed angels; he has formed men. The mere fact that he has made them, which involves the additional fact of the relationship of cause and effect, in other words, of father and child, constitutes an alliance, which is both an alliance of morality and an alliance of the affections In other words, he is allied to them by duty and allied to them by love.

If God is a good and holy being, it is not possible for him to create a being or beings susceptible of happiness, without making provision for their happiness, and without rejoicing in their happiness. To be indifferent to and not to rejoice in the happiness of his creatures, would be the characteristic of an evil and not of a good being. But no moral being which God has created can be truly and permanently happy without loving God and all other beings as God would have them love; in other words, without being holy. We come, then, to the conclusion, that another and very great source of God’s happiness is the contemplation of the holiness and happiness of his creatures. If they are holy, they cannot be otherwise than happy; and if they are happy, God must be happy in them.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 12.

The Restoration of the Earth

Of the restoration of the earth, Isaiah says:

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon." [Isa. 35:1, 2.] 

Of the animal creation, he says:

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." [Isa. 11: 6.] 

It may undoubtedly be said of these, and other similar passages, that they are figurative. But it will be found, in the end, that the truth which they anticipate and predict will exceed the beauty of the picture, as it existed in the imagination of the prophetic poet. When the head of creation resumes his nature of holy love, the untamed and violent passions of the inferior members will become extinct. And the earth herself, as if conscious of the mighty change, will withdraw her thorns and crown herself with roses.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

Love Rejoices in All That Exists

The doctrine of man's creation in the image of God involves, as one of its consequences, that, in his true and normal state, he loves and must love God with all his heart. And the reason is this. The law of love's movement, all other things being equal, is the amount of being, or existence in the object beloved. Accordingly, it can be said of love, that it notices and rejoices in everything which exists. It loves each insect that floats in the summer's sun; it delights in the happiness of the birds that sing in the branches; it wipes the tears and binds up the wounds of man, however degraded and fallen; but it is God, the  infinite Being, who represents in himself all other existences, that supremely attracts and absorbs it. In him all love centers, as all streams and waters center in the parent ocean. In God, uniting and consolidating all things in himself, we love the infinitude of being, the Life of the universe, the everywhere present, the silent but universal Operator, the All-in-all.

— A Treatise on Divine Union, Part 4, Chapter 4.

God's Life in Humanity

From God all things come. To God, as the universal originator and governor, all things are in subjection. In ascertaining what God is, we necessarily ascertain the position and responsibilities of those beings that come from God, and are dependent on him. The life of his moral creatures, so far as it is a right and true life, is a reproduction, in a finite form, of the elements of his own life. "God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him." (Genesis 1:27.) The Savior, in speaking of himself, in his incarnate state, says, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." (John 13:11.) God, in carrying out and perfecting the great idea of a moral creation, subjects the infinity of his being to the limitations of humanity, and reproduces himself in the human soul. So that man's life may truly be described, as God's life in humanity.

Nor, in the strict sense of the terms, can any­ thing but the DIVINE LIFE, or the life of God in the soul, be called life. Those who have gone astray from God, just so far as they have lost the divine life, and have sunk into the natural life, are dead. Hence, the expressions of the apostle: — "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Ephesians 2:1.) The eternal vitality, the breath from the Infinite, the life of God in the soul, ceases to be in them. And being dead, by the absence of God as an indwelling principle, they must be recreated, or born again, by his restoration. It is not enough, that provision has been made, in the death of Christ, for man's forgiveness. Forgiveness, it is true, has its appropriate work. It cancels the iniquity of the past; but this is not all that is necessary. It is not without reason, that the learned Schlegel commences his profound work on the philosophy of history by saying, that "the most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God." The immortal nature must be made anew, must be re-constituted, if we may so express it, on the principle of life linked with life, of the created sustained in the uncreated, in the bonds of divine union.

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