Divine Light

"For Thou art my lamp, oh Lord, and the Lord will enlighten my darkness." — "The Spirit  of  the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach recovery of sight to the blind." — 2 Sam. 22.29. Luke 4.18

On every side mysterious things abound,
In earth and sky and ocean's deep domain,
Which man's poor reason utterly confound,
Beyond his power to fathom or explain.
His mind is dark. In what way shall he see?
Oh, God! Form thou thine image in my heart,
Implant thy likeness in my spiritual part,
And help me to behold all things in thee.
Thou art the source of light. That light, when through
My darkened mind its radiance is streaming,
In all its shadowy, secret places beaming,
At once dispels the dimness of my view.
In thy light seeing light, my raptured eye
Doth every where behold love and infinity.

— The Religious Offering (1835) Scripture Sonnets II.

The Incarnation of Life and Love

The doctrine that Love is identical with Life, brings the subject of the Essential Life within the sphere of human cognitions. It is true that Love, considered as Life, operates in all space and all time; but it is also true that it does this, without being identical with either. So that it can be said, in expressions which imperfectly convey the idea, that it is the life of space without being space, the life of time without being time; in other words, a principle and not an expansion, an elemental activity, and not an outward, material measurement.

And hence arises both the fact and the possibility of its incarnation. The Essential Life, whether called Life or Love, is individual as well as universal; dwelling in God, and dwelling more or less, in all the creatures of God who are born into his image. And since the day when Christ walked in the valley of Nazareth, and wept in the garden of Gethsemane, it can be said that the life of God dwells in the soul of man, and the problem of the Infinite, so far as its most essential element is concerned, is brought within the field of human consciousness, and is made the subject of human affirmation.

The holy man, whoever and wherever he may be, walks in life; — the same divine and essential life which dwells in the bosom of the Infinite. The life of the follower of Christ is the same in its essence with the life of Christ. There is a philosophical and substantial foundation for that wonderful but most true assertion of the apostle Paul, “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” The essential life of Christ was LOVE;—the cross of Calvary was only its necessary resultant, and its divine symbol. The cross is Love: and in that view of the interior and subjective nature of the cross, it stands as a bright and perpetual reality in the heart of every Christian.

— edited from Absolute Religion (1873), Chapter 4.

Turning From God

What is it to turn from God? 

In the earlier stages of experience, we are apt (and perhaps it is difficult to do otherwise) to assign to God a form and locality. The term from, in its original meaning, involves the idea of place; and regarding God as having form and locality, we easily adjust the expression to our conceptions, and speak with a degree of propriety, relatively to our view of things, of turning our thoughts and feelings from God. But when, in a more advanced state of experience, the idea of a local God expands itself into the idea of God  “un-local" and infinite, not only associating himself with all things as an attendant, but existing in all things as a living spirit; — what is meant by turning from God then?

In the experience of a truly sanctified mind, to turn from God, in one important sense at least, is to be out of harmony with his providences. For God, in being expanded, as it were, from the local and the finite to the un-local and infinite, can be found, as a God developing himself within the sphere of human knowledge, only in those things, acts and events, which constitute providences. To be out of harmony with these things, acts, and events, which God in his providence has seen fit to array around us, — that is to say, not to meet them in a humble, believing, and thankful spirit, — is to turn from God. And, on the other hand, to see in them the developments of God's presence, and of the divine will, and to accept that will with all the appropriate dispositions, is to turn in the opposite direction, and to be in union with him.

The man who is thus united with God in his providences, not only sees God in everything else, but he has God in himself. His soul is the "temple of the Holy Ghost." The God inward, or perhaps we should say the purified soul in the likeness of God, corresponds to the God outward. God manifests himself in his providences, sometimes in sending joy and sometimes in sending sorrow — and the life of Jesus in the heart, the God in miniature, if we may so express it, corresponds, with entire facility and perfection of movement, to the God that is manifested in the events and things around. And thus it is easy to understand, looking at the subject in these various points of view, and especially when we consider that God in his providences is the exact counterpart of God reestablished in the sanctified human heart, how man may be said, in the language of Scripture, "to walk" with his Maker, and that harmony with Providence is union with the Divinity.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 6, Chapter 8.

Love and God's Infinity

Love, by which we mean pure or holy love, cannot by any possibility exist in any but an Infinite Being, or in those beings who rest on the Infinite. Plants and flowers might as well grow upon rocks where there is no earth, as pure love grow out of the finite; — we mean the finite, standing alone and sustained by its own strength. Such is the nature of this love, transcending as it does all limited interests, that it claims a natural and necessary affinity with the unlimited. All other love is bounded. Pure love knows no bounds  It does not ask whether the object of its regard is good or evil, a friend or an enemy. It transcends the restrictions, which are multiplied and piled up one upon another of human passion and interest, and gives its affections without reward. Strong in its own divinity, it "casts out fear."  Fear, which has no place in the infinite, is the necessary law of inferiority, except where the weak are united with the strong. All beings that are not God and are not united with God, in neither being the source of things nor being united with that great and benevolent source, are condemned to selfishness by their position, and are condemned to weakness and sorrow, to fear and shame, by their selfishness. Having nothing else to rest upon, their thoughts and their love turn to themselves. Pure love, which rejects all such restrictions, they have not and cannot have. But God's love, growing out of and constituting, or at least perfecting, a nature which is infinite and which in being infinite knows no partial interests and has no fear, reaches all, encircles all, blesses all.

— adapted from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 2.

There Can Be No God Without Love

God, considered as the Infinite, or I AM, sustains a fixed and necessary relation to everything which is. His relation to space is realized and fulfilled in his omnipresence. His relation to duration finds its expression and fulfillment in his eternity. His relation, as an infinite and perfect being to objects of knowledge, is realized and fulfilled in his omniscience. His relation to percipient and sentient beings, to all beings that are susceptible of happiness, is corresponded to and completed by his love; or, what is the same thing, by his desire of their happiness. So that it may be said, that he is present to and envelopes time by his eternity, space by his omnipresence, all things knowable by his omniscience, and all percipient and sentient existences by his LOVE. And as there can be no God without eternity, no God without omniscience and omnipresence, so, still more truly and emphatically, there can be no God without love. Take  away  love, and then, in distinction from the infinity of his natural existence, nothing which constitutes God, remains; nothing to give birth to happy existences, nothing to protect them and to secure their happiness, nothing to give them confidence, nothing lovely, and nothing to be loved. Take away love from the divine nature, and what would remain would be either an infinite indifferent being, or an infinite Satan.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 2.

God Is Love

We must understand what God's love is, before we can understand the union of God and man in love. And in doing this our attention is first arrested by the declaration of the Scriptures, — a declaration which is worthy of the particular notice of Christians,— that "God is love." It would be difficult to find a parallel form of expression. It is not anywhere said of God, so far as we recollect, that he is omniscience, or that he is omnipresence. It is true that the attributes of omniscience and omnipresence are essential to him as an infinite existence; but it should always be remembered that God is something more than infinity. There must be something beyond and above infinity, which shall baptize it with the character of goodness; otherwise there is no God. "God is Love."

God is love by essence.  That is to say, love is forever and unchangeably essential to his existence  as God. He was not at first, as some may be led to suppose, a mere percipient being, having all knowledge, who formed conjecturally an idea of love, came to the conclusion that it was a good and desirable thing, and then added it as an accessory to his original existence. On the contrary, God always had a heart; always had a true and effective sensibility, operating, by an eternal law of action, in the line of right and goodness. And if, by universal consent, the heart takes the precedence of the head, — if no greatness of intellect can elevate and save a man who has evil and depraved affections, — then God cannot be what he is, the infinitely desirable and infinitely good, without love as the central and leading element, the basis and the completion of his character.

— adapted from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 2.