God Worshipped in His Works

"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." — Ps. 19. 1, 2, 3.

Men use a different speech in different climes,
But Nature hath one voice and only one.
Her wandering moon, her stars, her golden sun,
Her woods and waters, in all lands and times,
In one deep song proclaim the wondrous story.
They tell it to each other in the sky,
Upon the winds they send it sounding high,
Jehovah's wisdom, goodness, power, and glory.
I hear it come from mountain, cliff, and tree,
Ten thousand voices in one voice united;
On every side the song encircles me,
The whole round world reveres and is delighted.
Ah! why, when heaven and earth lift up their voice,
Ah! why should man alone nor worship nor rejoice!

— The Religious Offering (1835) XXVI.

God Worshipped in His Works

"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." — Ps. 19. 1, 2, 3.

Men use a different speech in different climes,
But Nature hath one voice and only one.
Her wandering moon, her stars, her golden sun,
Her woods and waters, in all lands and times,
In one deep song proclaim the wondrous story.
They tell it to each other in the sky,
Upon the winds they send it sounding high,
Jehovah's wisdom, goodness, power, and glory.
I hear it come from mountain, cliff, and tree,
Ten thousand voices in one voice united;
On every side the song encircles me,
The whole round world reveres and is delighted.
Ah! why, when heaven and earth lift up their voice,
Ah! why should man alone nor worship nor rejoice?

— from The Religious Offering (1835) XXVI.

Faith is the Basis of All Great, Active Enterprises

Faith is the basis of all great, active enterprises. If a man cannot think well, nor write well, without faith; so in all difficult enterprises, which imply physical as well as mental effort, he cannot act well. Without faith there would have been no Parthenon, and no Pyramids of Egypt. Without faith there would have been no Thermopylae, and no memorable Marathon. Hannibal could not have passed the Alps without faith. Cincinnatus could neither have ploughed nor have left the plough; could neither have sowed for the harvest, nor trained soldiers for victory, without faith. Columbus could not have crossed the ocean without faith. And we speak here, not of religious, but of natural faith. Cortes could not have conquered Mexico without faith. Park, and Ledyard, and Cooke, and Bruce could not have explored unknown countries without faith. The English Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, whatever faults or crimes may have accompanied any or all of them, could not have been accomplished without faith. The same may be said of all great civil and political movements. A mere sneerer, the man who sits in his easy chair, believing in nothing and laughing at every thing, could have done nothing of these things. No oceans are crossed by him; no nations are conquered; no boundless forests are subdued; no rude barbarism is tamed; no new civilization is planted and reared up, at the expense of toil and blood, in mighty triumph.

It is one of the favorable signs of the times, that the existence of this important element of our nature begins to be generally recognized. Philosophy, though lingering long, has at last come to the aid of religion. She endeavored to solve the problems of human nature, without admitting this principle; but found herself unable to do it. Men of literature, men of philosophic inquiry, unite in acknowledging, not merely the existence of faith, but its mighty influence, even when considered out of its religious relations. As men of observation and thought, they see clearly, that there are a multitude of facts in human history, both individual and national, which preclude altogether any satisfactory explanation, except on the ground of its existence and its great power. And these men, men whose testimony is weighty, and whose concurrence every good man would desire, begin to look, in consequence of the advance of their philosophy, with a more favorable eye on religion. They found the Bible filled with declarations in relation to faith, which they did not understand; declarations which they found no where else, and which they hesitated to receive. But it is now no longer a matter of surprise, that a principle should effect so much in religion, which is seen and acknowledged to be so powerful in nature.

— edited from The Life of Faith (1853) Part 1, Chapter 2.

God's Kingdom & Nature

God, in being restored to the human soul and made at peace with it, not only sets up his kingdom in man, but in other things with which man is essentially connected. When the kingdom of God is restored in the human heart, it is restored everywhere. It should not be forgotten, that the world, in all its varieties, is but one system; a connection obviously running through all its parts; each part being sustained by and harmonizing with the others.  The mineral kingdom has a definite relation to the vegetable; the vegetable to the animal; the animal to the sentient; and the sentient to the moral. They expand and develop themselves in progression, and with an infinity of ties and relations. They are parts of one great and harmonious system of arrangements, conceived by one perfect wisdom, and sustained by one perfect love. The completion of all is in man. He stands at the head; and if all are made for man, it is equally true that man is made for all.

God's Life Existing as a Nature

[There is] something which we have noticed in the writings of Madame Guyon. All nature conveyed to her a lesson of religion; — the woods, the waters, the flowers, every living and moving thing. Hence her beautiful lines to the swallow:­

"I am fond of the swallow; — I learn from her flight,

Had I skill to improve it, a lesson of love.

How seldom on earth do we see her alight!

She dwells in the skies, she is ever above."

She saw a great deal of God in the birds, and in the sheep, and in the oxen, and in all the various lower animals that live and move around us. And she repeat­edly says of herself, that she seemed to be like them;­ meaning that there was something, in the operations of her own inward life, which led her to sympathize with them. The explanation of what she says is this: The life of the lower animals is not a device, a calculation, but a  nature.  They move, as they are moved by that instinctive power within them, which obviously has its origin in something out of themselves. The life of animals, although it is not elevated to the rank of moral life, is yet a life from God. And it was her clear perception of this, which led her to study their habits, and to sympathize with them so much. She saw in them God's life existing as a nature. The life of God in her own soul, though greatly superior in kind, was like that of animals, in one respect, — it had become a nature to her. And it seemed to her to operate much in the same way and with the same certainty that the instincts operate in the lower animals. It was not more natural and easy for the swallow to lift its wing, and to ascend in a clear summer sky, than for her own soul to ascend and unite itself with God.

And how wonderful her inward peace was, all know who are acquainted with her history. She gives us expressly to understand that she did not undertake to regulate herself by the common human methods; conscious as she was that God, by a new law of life, had become her inward regulator. And she was thus freed from a thousand anxieties and dangers.

And it is obvious how greatly this state of things must contribute to the true peace and rest of the soul in all cases. Happy, thrice happy, is such a man! His countenance is cheerful, because he has joy in his heart. If he seems to do nothing, it is because God works in him. If his burden is light, it is because God bears it. Satan, envious of their happiness, sometimes says to such, "Ye are deceived. Why do ye not fast, as did John's disciples?” But Jesus replies now, as he replied in former times: — "Can the children of the bride-chamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?”

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

God Now Conforms the Soul to Action

It is important to understand the view which has now been presented. The want of a full understanding of it has sometimes perplexed those persons who have been led by the Holy Ghost into the higher stages of experience. They doubt their love, because they find it so easy and natural to love. The suggestion arises in their minds, because the perception of their own working is lost in the fact of God's working, that perhaps nothing is done at all. Certain it is that their present state is very different from their former state, when they were but beginners in the religious life.

Formerly, their life was a divided one. The inward struggle was almost incessant. Comparatively speaking, there was no rest, no peace. But now, the unity of their affections in God has put an end to all interior trouble, except so far as the soul is tried by temptations originating from without. Formerly, they found the service of God, both in its inward and outward forms, obstructed and hard, requiring the greatest effort. But now they rejoice in God always, as if they had no other business, and no other desire. Formerly, they could hardly eat, or speak, or move, without great anxiety, in consequence of finding sin intermingled with everything. But now they find the grace of God sufficient for the regulation of the appetites and the social principles; and those things which were once occasions of temptation and sorrow, are now occasions of gratitude. Formerly, they conformed their actions to God, who was a God afar off'; — and this was troublesome, because the agency was in a great degree in themselves. But now God, who dwells within, conforms the soul to the action; and thus they are not conscious either of effort or trouble. In a word, "their yoke is easy, and their burden is light."

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

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.

A Holy Life is Natural to Those Who are Holy

A holy life, also, when it is once fully and permanently established, is as natural to those who are holy, as a sinful life is to those who are sinful. In the mixed, or partly sanctified life, which is intermediate between the sinful and the holy, there is a conflict of natures; and we cannot well say, for any length of time, what the true or real nature of the man is. But when a person has obtained inward victory, when selfishness has ceased to exist, and when also he is freed from the lingering and perplexing influences of former evil habits, he is then the subject of a truly natural life. Just the opposite of the unregenerated man, — with a life as true and just as that of the other is untrue and unjust,— he does right, not by an effort which has the appearance, as well as the reality, of going against nature, but because, with his present disposition, he cannot do otherwise. He not only loves God, but he does it without reflecting on his love, without any effort, which would imply a conflict with some inward, opposing principle. He does it freely, easily, and perfectly; which would not be the case if he did it with conscious effort, or if his mind were diverted from the object of his love to reflections on the love itself. Holiness has become a nature.

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

God is the Life of Nature & Events

God's providence extends both to things and events. Inanimate nature, even in the lowest forms, is under the divine care. Not a rock is placed without a hand that placed it. Not a tree grows without a divine vitality, which is the inspiration of its growth. Not a wave of the ocean rolls without the power of God's presence to propel it. The storms and the earthquakes are the Lord’s.

God is thus the life of nature. And the man who is in harmony with God, has no controversy with him in any of these things. On the contrary, he accepts all, is at peace with all.

God is also the life of events, including in that term human actions. There is no good action which is not from God. The wisdom of the Supreme mind is the good man’s inspiration. And, on the other hand,  there is no evil action which God does not notice, and over which he has not some degree of control. The essence of evil actions, it is well understood, is the evil motive from which they proceed, —  a motive which is not and cannot be from God; but still, God will not allow the action, which proceeds from the motive, to take effect, except in the manner and the degree which pleases him. In other words, God has the prerogative, which can pertain only to an infinite being, of overruling evil, and of bringing good out of it. So that there is a providence of evil as well as a providence of good. And hence, the good man can be in peace even when the evil man triumphs, because he knows that the "triumphing of the wicked is short."

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

The Everlasting Basis of the Family

We proceed now, in the natural order of these inquires, from the individual to the family.

Holiness does not annul, or even alter, the laws of nature, but only restores and perfects their action. And, accordingly, we shall be united with our heavenly Father in the great work of restoring and perfecting the family, when we endeavor to ascertain and to aid in the fulfillment of the intentions of nature.

Every being must have its home. By home, we do not mean simply a locality, a place of residence. The man, who is banished from his native land, and is confined to some rocky isle in the ocean, has his locality, but it is not his home. If it is so, why does he so often cast his streaming eye over the broad ocean, as if to catch the glance of some other land? Home, therefore, in being something more than simple locality, is that locality where the affections find their center and are at rest. 

End the War with Providence

Man is at war with Providence (there are exceptions, it is true, but not enough to reverse, or to modify essentially the assertion). "All seek their own," says the apostle, "not the things which are Jesus Christ.”

In this state of things it is obviously impossible that there should be peace or happiness. The divine harmony is broken. Man, in being by his selfishness antagonistical to God and God's arrangements, is necessarily antagonistical to his neighbor. Place is at war with place, and feeling with feeling. Judgment is arrayed against judgment, because false and conflicting judgments necessarily grow out of the soil of perverted affections. On every side are the outcries of passion, the competitions of interest, and the crush of broken hearts.

Shall it always be so? The remedy, and the only remedy, is an adherence to the law of Providence. Renounce man's wisdom, and seek that of God. Subject the human to the divine. Harmonize the imperfect thoughts and purposes of the creature with the wisdom of the Eternal Will. Let the clamors of nature cease, that the still small voice of the Godhead may speak in the soul. Go where God may lead thee.

When this shall be the general disposition, when all shall cease to seek their own, and shall begin to seek the things which are Christ's, when man's life shall be again engrafted on the Universal Life, then will the Law of Providence universally take effect, and God will reign among men.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 6, Chapter 9.

Unchastened Curiosity

The principle of curiosity, like the other propensities which have been mentioned, is an original principle of our mental constitution. It is implanted there in the wisdom and goodness of the great Being, who constituted the mind; and may justly be regarded as an appropriate and essential attribute of every rational nature. It is hardly necessary to say, that this principle is given to be employed. It is altogether desirable and proper, that men should inquire, and reflect, and obtain knowledge. But this principle also is liable to be perverted. One of the greatest obstacles, which practical sanctification has to contend with, is the prevalence of a spirit of irregular and unchastened curiosity. It is here that Satan has taken up his position in great security and strength, almost unseen by any one; and is throwing his weapons, and slaying numbers, who seem to be entirely ignorant what poisoned dart has hit them.

I will take a case, by no means an uncommon one, which will stand for many others. Here is an individual, a member of a church, who sustains in the view of his brethren, a fair religious reputation, but who, by his own confession, has but little real communion with God, and like many others, has but little religious enjoyment. And what is the reason of this? He is constant at church; he is regular in his family devotions; he is fair and honest in his transactions in business; he is liberal to the poor and to the cause of religious missions; and he does not perceive himself, and others do not clearly perceive, why he does not walk with God, and enjoy continually the light of his countenance. But  the reason is, that he is ignorantly seeking himself and making an idol of himself, contrary to the will and the honor of God, by indulging a wandering and excessive curiosity. It has perhaps never occurred to him that he is as much accountable to God for the regulation of the curious or inquisitive propensity, as for any other principle of our nature. This principle he exercises in a way to gratify himself, by indulging inordinately in a variety of miscellaneous reading, by lending an itching ear to the constant influx of political news, by taking an undue interest in the constantly circulating gossip of families and neighborhoods; in a word, by a strong and almost irresistible craving to hear every thing that is to be heard, and to know every thing that is to be known, whether good or evil, profitable or unprofitable. Like the Athenians of old, he spends no small portion of that time which God has committed to him as a precious trust, in telling or hearing some new thing. Such is the melancholy statement, which is applicable to hundreds and thousands of those who bear the Christian name. There can be no doubt that the evils of this state of things are manifold and great.

— from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 2, Chapter 7.

Seeing God in Nature

Providence, expansive as the agency of the Divine Mind, includes things as well as events, material nature as well as human action. To be in harmony, therefore, with God's Providence, we must be in harmony with everything; — not excepting the material world. It is true, that things inanimate have no life in themselves; but they are the residence of a living mind. We might almost say, in a mitigated sense of the terms, that every thing, not excluding objects the most remote from moral intelligence, becomes God to us. There is no grass, no flower, no tree, no insect, no creeping thing, no singing bird, nothing which does not bring God with it, and in such a manner that the thing which we behold becomes a clear and bright revelation of that which is invisible.

We go, for instance, into a garden and pluck a flower; and, as we permit our eye to wander over it and to behold the various elements of its graceful beauty, we not only see the flower, but the eye of faith, making a telescope of the bodily eye, and reading the invisible in the visible, sees, also, the God of the  flower. Often has the devout Christian, in all ages of the world used expressions, which indicate the fact of this divine perception. "The God, whom I love," he says, "shines upon me from these blooming leaves." And the expressions he uses convey a great truth to him, however they may fail to convey it to others. That flower is God's development.  It  is not only God present indirectly by a material token, by a mere manifested sign, while the reality of the thing signified is absent; but it is God present as a being, living, perceptive, and operative. We  do not mean to say, that God and the flower are identical. Far from  it. But what we do mean to say is, —  that  the life of God lives and operates in the life of the flower. It is not enough to say, as we contemplate  the flower, that God created  it; implying, in the remark, that, having created it, he then cast it upon the bosom of the earth to live or die, as a thing friendless and uncared for. This is the low view which unbelief taken. The  vision of faith sees much further than this. God is still in it; — not virtually, but really; not merely by signs, but as the thing signified. God is the "God of the living." And while the flower lives, he, who made it, is still its vital principle just as much as when his unseen hand propelled it from its stalk; not only the author, but the support of its life, the present and not the absent source of its beauty and fragrance, still delighting in it as an object of his skill and care.

The  sanctified mind realizes this in a new and higher sense; —  so much so that the truly holy man enjoys especial intercourse with God, and enters into a close and  divine unity with him, when he walks amid the various works which nature, or rather the God of nature, constantly  presents to his view.

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

The Death and Resurrection of the Human Will

Properly speaking, or perhaps we should rather say, in this case, psychologically speaking, man's will can never die. A will is essential to man's nature, as it is to the nature of every moral being. Man, without a will, ceases to be man.

When, therefore, in examining the topics connected with religious experience, we speak of the death of the human will, we mean the human will considered in its action and its tendency to action, out of the divine order. It is the human will divergent, —  resting in the origin of its movement on the limited and depraved basis of personal interest,  and out of harmony with the will of God.

In the sense which has just been given, the human will, before it can have a higher and divine life, not only may die, but must die. Its death is not only possible but necessary. In its present life, if we may so express it, it has its principle of movement in motives which God cannot respect and approve; but, on the contrary, he disapproves and condemns them as inconsistent with the highest good of the universe. From such a will he is necessarily excluded.

It is impossible, therefore, that there should be any mitigation of its sentence; any pity or compromise whatever with its natural life. The hand of God himself, through the working of his unerring providences, nails it to the cross. It may exhibit much resistance; it may experience a painful and lingering death; with the nails driven through its hands and feet, it may plead that its bones may not be broken, and that its side may not be pierced; but no attention can, or ought to be given to its supplications.

The death of the will (that is to say, its death to the selfishness of nature) is the antecedent of its resurrection to holiness. In its resurrection love takes the place of selfishness. The will can no more be born into its new and divine life, and expand and flourish in its new beauty and maturity of love, before the extinction and death of its natural life of selfishness, than the spiritual body of the resurrection, adorned with immortal beauty, can come into existence before the death of the natural body. "That which thou sowest," says the apostle Paul, speaking of wheat and other grains, "is not quickened except it die." "So also," he adds, "is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

And these expressions, applied to the resurrection of the body, are applicable to the death and resurrection of the will. If it dies to all that is the opposite of God, it is made alive to all that has God in it. Dishonored and corrupted in its selfish nature, it perishes and is thrown lifeless into its burial place, until the spirit of God, brooding over and operating in its ruins, brings life out of death, and glory out of shame.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 4.

The Image of God

All holy beings, inasmuch as they come from God, are, and must be, formed originally in the divine image. It  is thus that angels and all angelic and seraphic natures are formed. They are miniatures of God. It is thus that man himself was originally formed. And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him." 

The likeness of God to man is not in form, for God is without form; — not in intellect, for the intellect of God embraces all things, while man can know only a part; — but in that which constitutes, more than anything else, the element, the life, of the divine nature, namely, HOLY LOVE. Man, in the infancy of his existence, was created a love being. Love, as the center of his existence, was not a speculation, but a nature;  not an accessory of life, but the life itself. Spontaneous in its action, acting because it had a principle of movement in itself, it did not wait for the slow deductions of reason, but flowed out in all directions, like a living stream. As man, thus formed in the love spirit, looked around upon the works of nature, he saw all things in the possession of life and beauty, and he rejoiced in all things, because all things had God in them. He loved the tree and the flower, which reflected the divine wisdom and goodness. But far more did he delight in the happiness of everything which had a sentient existence. He  called all animals to him. The birds dropped their wings at the sound of his voice, and came. The beasts of the field and of the forests flocked around him from their near or distant habitations. He loved them; and he gave them their names. When the occasion was presented, when the sentient object, no matter to what scale or degree of sentient being it belonged, was before him, his simple and pure heart flowed out at once. 

It  was thus, beyond all question, that the primitive man was constituted. Such is the representation of Scripture. Love, resting upon faith, was his nature And, coming from God, he could not have been constituted otherwise. God being what he is, he could not have created man otherwise than he did. The principles of right, which apply to the fact of creation as well as to the government of things created, are not susceptible of change.  It is impossible, therefore, to conceive of more than one pattern or model, according to which holy beings were at first created. And this one pattern, which, in being the true pattern, condemns and excludes all others, is that of the Divine Mind itself. The model, in being perfect, can never be altered; in being eternal, can never be broken.

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