In God There is Rest

It is well sometimes to remember, that the good which is promised to God's people is sure to them, not only because it is promised, but because it is a necessary result of the excellences of the divine nature. There is a love, a mercy back of the promise, from which the promise originated; — not only God's word, but his nature is pledged.

In giving ourselves to God, (as all holy persons profess to do and must do,) we do not do it in part only. We not only renounce ourselves in the strict sense of the terms, but also the means of supporting ourselves; — not only our persons, but all earthly and finite dependencies. We not only give ourselves to God, to be servants to do his work, but to be sons, whom it is his delight to provide for. The support of those whom God has adopted into his family, and who are properly called his sons, ceases to be a contingency. It is only when and so long as we are out of God, and are separate from him, that we are left to our own wretched resources. In all other situations, it is not only a truth, but a necessity, that God should provide for us. If God had never promised to clothe, and feed, and watch over, his people, it would nevertheless have been done, because the holiness, well as the benevolence of his nature necessarily requires it. In other words, it is his nature to give where there is a disposition to receive; — to fill the hand which is truly open to take what is presented to it. His promise is only the expression of his nature.

It is thus, that, in having nothing, by mingling our desires with the divine desires, we have all things. The loss of ourselves by the moral union of ourselves with God, is necessarily the possession of God. In God is the fulfillment of our desires. In God, therefore, there is rest.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 3.

Once More Becoming the Children of God

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

In once more becoming the children of God, we receive and retain a filial nature, but without ceasing to possess a moral nature. Much is involved in that free and full consecration which every true Christian is supposed to have made of himself to his heavenly Father. As free and moral agents, we consent now, and forever, if we do what we ought to do, that God shall be a truth, a life, a nature in us; which he never has been and never will be without our consent. Adam before he fell, Christ in his humanity, angels in heaven, all holy beings everywhere, either have existed, or do now exist, as  holy beings, by means of the operation of God in the soul; and yet without any alienation of their moral attributes and responsibilities, because they have received this operation with their own choice, and have sanctioned it by their own approbation.

There is no true place of rest and safety, short of the reestablishment of those relations which we have endeavored to illustrate. Accordingly, we cannot regard it as safe for any one to stop in the progress of inward experience, until he feels and knows that he has become, in the Scripture sense of the terms, a LITTLE CHILD; not only having a child's name, but a child's nature. And when this relation is reestablished, not as a name merely, but as a reality, not as a mere conventional arrangement, but as a true nature, — then, and not till then, we are brought into true union with our heavenly Father.

It is on these principles, and these only, that we can make our position harmonize with our prayers. When we pray, we address God as our Father. This implies that we either are, or ought to be, his children. And our language throughout in prayer corresponds to the idea that our true position is the filial position. We pray that we may distrust and renounce ourselves, and look only to God for guidance and support. Recognizing our inability to supply our own wants, we pray for faith, for wisdom, for love, for the guidance of our wills. We go to him, in form at least, just as the little child goes to its earthly parent. If we will go in the same sincerity, our heavenly Father will recognize the relationship, and we shall thus become the true sons of God.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.­