The Unknown God

We admit the doctrine of limited manifestations. God may manifest himself to a certain extent, and he does so. He manifests the fact of his existence by the works, which he has made. He manifests also, in the same manner, some of the incidents or attributes of his existence, such as his wisdom, his power, and goodness. And it is certainly possible for him, departing from the usual method of his proceedings, to manifest himself, even at the present time, in special or supernatural sights and sounds, in displays and visions of heaven and of earth, which shall be impressive to the outward senses. But what we contend for is, that such manifestations do not constitute, and cannot constitute the real knowledge, or rather the knowledge of the nature of the I AM; but are only a sign, adapted to the nature of our capacities, that the I AM is; that he has certain attributes; and that there is yet something beyond what the eye sees and the ear hears and the intellect knows; a region of existence, vast, unmeasured, infinite, which belongs to faith. Thomas, the doubting disciple, believed, as far as he could see, and only because he could see. Jesus said to him; “Thomas because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they, that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

The love of manifestations, of that which is visible and tangible, in distinction from that, which is addressed to faith, is one of the evils of the present age. Men love visions, more than they love holiness. They would have God in their hands, rather than in their hearts. They would set him up as a thing to be looked at, and with decorated cars would transport him, if they could realize what their hearts desire, from place to place, on the precise principles of heathenism; because, being weak in faith, they find it difficult to recognize the existence, and to love and to do the will of an “unknown God.” But this was not the religion of the Apostle Paul. “As I passed by,” he says to the Athenians, “and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you.” We must be so humble, so sunk in the depths of our own nothingness, as to be willing to receive, worship, and love the God unknown; and who, because he is infinite, and man is finite, always must be unknown in a great degree; except in the MANIFESTATION OF HIS WILL. It is in his will, believing that his will is righteous, that we may meet with him, may know him, may rejoice in him, may become one with him. “BELIEVE in the Lord your God; so shall you be established.”

— edited from the Life of Faith (1852) Part 2, Chapter 1.

No Manifestantion of God Can Exclude the Principle of Faith.

There may, undoubtedly, in the proper sense of the terms, be what may be called a manifestation of God; that is to say, a manifestation, which has relation to God; a manifestation, which indicates the fact of his existence and some of the attributes of his character. But God himself, including the mode of his existence, as well as the fact of his existence, God, in the fullness and extent of his being, never can be manifested. This, we think, however repugnant it may be to our first thoughts, is self-evident.

Unbelief Seeks the Manifestation of God

Unbelief attaches itself to that, which is seen. Faith attaches itself to that, which is not seen. Accordingly those, who do not live by faith, must live by sight; that is to say, must live, not merely by what God is, but by what he manifests himself to be; not merely by the reality of God, which is one thing, but by the manifestation of God, so far as he can be comprehended by our limited faculties, which is another and a very different thing. And hence it is, that just in proportion as our faith is strong, we rest upon the reality of God, though clouds and darkness may be upon it. And just in proportion as our faith is weak, we desire a manifestation; something which we can see, something which we can touch. 

Holiness is One in Nature, But Diverse in Expression

It is one of the characteristics of a holy life, when it is not merely incipient but has become a nature, that, with the single exception of that, which, in being sin, is the opposite of itself, it easily harmonizes and sympathizes with what now is. In other words, while the inward fountain of holy love at the heart is always the same, and always full, the streams which flow from it, repelled by opposition, or attracted by sympathy, take their course variously, in the diversified channels of Providence.

Accordingly, harmonizing with the present objects of his thoughts and affections, the holy man is one in nature, but diversified in manifestation. He "weeps with those who weep, and rejoices with those who rejoice." Under the unerring impulses of the life which is from God, he becomes "all things to all men," but without losing the identity of his character as one united with God, and as being the "temple of the Holy Ghost." Instructed by the teachings of love, which is the best of all teachers, he is a man of smiles or of tears, of action or of rest. He rests when it is the time to rest, because rest in its time is better than toil out of time; but he labors when Providence calls him to labor, and love makes his labor sweet. He has a heart for humanity, and a heart for nature. More than a mere amateur of the outward world, he loves the rocks and the mountains for their own beauty and sublimity, and for the God that dwells in them. His heart warms and melts in the summer sunshine; but the thunder is his also, and the lightning. Nothing is out of place, because place is subordinated to the eternity and ubiquity of the life within. He is a citizen of his country, and serves her well, with­out losing the evidence of his citizenship in heaven; a subject of the powers that are ordained of God, without ceasing to be the subject of Him who has ordained them. He sings praises with the devoted Christian, and his heart yearns and melts over the impenitent sinner. In his simplicity, he is the companion of children; and in his wisdom, the counselor of age. He can sit at meat with the "publican and sinner," or receive the  hospitality of the unhumbled Pharisee; and, in both cases, he unites the proprieties of love with the faithfulness of duty.

And all this, which seems to imply contradiction, and to require effort, is what it is, in all its ease and all its promptness, because it is not the result of worldly calculation, but the infallible working of a divine nature.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 9.

God is Present in All Events

Every event which takes place in God's providential government may be said to be God to us; — that is to say, not merely to remind us of God as coldly beholding the event at a  distance, but to bring God with it, and to manifest him in a very especial manner. I am aware that it is a common saying, and one which is generally assented to, that God is present in all events. The man of the world will assert this; — the disbelievers in the Bible will sometimes assert it. But it is hardly necessary to say, that they have not the faith which enables them to realize that which they assert. The mere declaration of his presence is a very different thing from a practical conviction, a realizing sense, of his presence. If God, in the events of his providence, afflicts me with sickness, or if he permits my neighbor to defame me, God, it is true, is not the sickness, and is not the defamation; but he is in the sickness and in the defamation, in such a sense that we are to think of him and receive him as a present God, and present probably for the specific purpose of trying our faith and patience. The event, painful as it is, and criminal as it is under some circumstances, is nevertheless a manifestation of God; and not of a God absent, but of a God present. And happy is the man that can receive this.

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

Seeing Everything as a Manifestation of God

He, that standeth in God in such a manner as to have no will but the divine will, accounts every thing which takes place as a manifestation of God. If God is not the thing itself, God is nevertheless manifested IN the thing. And thus it is with God that he first communicates through the medium of the thing in which he manifests himself. And consequently, as God is the first object which presents itself, he imputes nothing to the subordinate creatures, neither condemning nor approving, neither sorrowing nor rejoicing, without first referring whatever takes place to God, and viewing it in the clearness and truth of the divine light.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXIII.

To Pray Aright is to Receive

The exercises of a sanctified heart are not always the same; but will vary more or less with the occasions, which call them into exercise. The grace of patience is especially appropriate to one occasion; the grace of gratitude to another. And these and all other christian graces come from the same great fountain, viz. God himself; and they will come, with the exception perhaps of very extraordinary cases, all in the same way, and in connection with the same great principles.

If, for instance, I need especial wisdom and prudence, appropriate to a particular trying crisis, I must go to God and ask for it, just as I had done before in relation to the general object of sanctification: FIRST, in the spirit of entire consecration, and SECOND in the exercise of simple faith. And by faith here ... we mean a faith, which, fully believes that God will do, and that, if the present is in his view the appropriate time, he does even NOW accomplish that which he has promised.

I recollect to have heard a Congregational minister assert on some public occasion, that TO PRAY ARIGHT IS TO RECEIVE. This declaration obviously embodies the great principle now under consideration.

Many persons go to God and ask earnestly for the things they need, and which they know it is agreeable to his will to give; but they appear to have no faith that God will hear them, or that he does now hear them, unless they have a sign, a manifestation, a visible outward sight or an inward audible voice, or the definite experience of some preconceived feeling, or something, (it makes but little difference what it is,) which they expect to use and which they do use AS A PROP FOR THEIR FAITH TO REST UPON instead of letting it rest upon the sure and blessed Word of God.

O, the unutterable blindness of the human mind, when left to itself! To look at any thing but the simple declaration of God, and to require anything but that as a ground of belief, is to go directly out of the true path. It is, as it seems to us, deliberately and of choice to throw away those precious gifts which faith imparts. It is made known throughout the Scriptures, deliberately, repeatedly, and with the clearness of a sunbeam, that the life of God in the soul is, and must be, a LIFE OF SIMPLE FAITH. And in the exercise of this faith, accompanied with the indispensable condition of entire consecration, it may be regarded as certain, that, when we pray for those spiritual gifts and exercises which we know to be agreeable to the will of God, we shall not only have them, but if, in God's view the present time is really the appropriate time for them, WE DO HAVE THEM NOW.

We do not say, that the specific blessing for which we ask either comes now or will come hereafter, in precise accordance with our preconceived opinions; but that makes no difference as to the fact. If there is really and absolutely no failure in the consecration and faith, there will be no failure in the fact and promptness of the divine answer. The answer, God's answer and not ours, will certainly come, in accordance with the reality of God' s knowledge and goodness; however, it may fail to come in accordance with the fallibility of our own previous conceptions.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd. edition 1844) Part 1, Chapter 6.

Give All and Take All

There is in reality, no need, as a preparation for sanctification, of much mental excitement, of protracted sighing and lamentation, of long fastings, and macerations and mighty strugglings of body. It is true, that some of these things may exist to a certain extent, without being altogether profitless. But what we mean to say, is, that they do not appear to be absolutely necessary; and there is sometimes danger, especially when there is a disposition to trust in them, of their being decidedly injurious. The process, as it really takes place, may probably be all embraced in a single sentence. "Give all, and take all." Lay all upon the altar, and believe that God, in accordance with his word, receives it; and always continue in that state of present and entire consecration, and of present and entire faith, and all is done. If God is true, it cannot be otherwise.

And we may properly add here, that the experience of very many persons is found to coincide with this statement. They have labored; they have prayed earnestly, so far as a man can pray without the requisite faith; they have fasted for a great length of time; they have endured physical and mental suffering in various ways, but all without securing the great object of their desires; till at length wearied with this apparently fruitless method of pursuit, they have simply left themselves in the hands of God without reserve; and have believed, in accordance with his own declaration, that he did now accept them. And thus ceasing from their own unavailing efforts, to which perhaps they were secretly but wickedly inclined to attach some personal merit, they have entered, by simple faith alone, into the favor and the rest of God. They are from that moment cut off from the fatal system, which demands a sign or manifestation, either inward or outward, additional to the mere word of God and confirmatory of it, and from all preconceived and self-originated notions of what they should like to have and what they should not like to have; and have become, as already remarked, like little children; willing to let their heavenly Father guide them without imposing upon him any conditions, willing to have much or little, to be wise or to be ignorant, to go or to stay, to sit down or rise up, to speak or be silent, to be honored or dishonored, to be on the mount of joy or in the valley of temptation and sorrow, to be any thing or nothing, just as God wills.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd. edition 1844) Part 1, Chapter 6.