In the Sight of God

Men bestow honor upon one another. Sometimes they build up, sometimes they pull down. But human opinions cannot alter the reality of things, by making it greater or less than it is. Every man is truly such and such only AS HE IS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD.

— Religious Maxims (1846), LXXVI.

Thomas à Kempis on Christian Perfection

There are various views of Christian perfection, which, on being analyzed, amount to the same thing; and when properly understood, may be regarded as all equally correct. The author of the Imitation of Christ, says, it consists in man's offering up himself "with his whole heart to the will of God; never seeking his own will either in small or great respects, either in time or eternity; but with an equal mind weighing all things in the balance of the sanctuary; and receiving both prosperity and adversity with continual thanksgiving." 

— Religious Maxims (1846) LXXV.

The Image of Christ

The height and sum of religion is to bear the image of Christ. But can those flatter themselves that they bear the Savior's image, who are overcome and are rendered impatient by every trifling incident of an adverse nature? O, remember that the life of Christ was from beginning to end a life of trouble. He was often misunderstood and ill-treated by all classes; he was persecuted by the Pharisees; sold by the traitor whom he had chosen as one of his disciples; reviled by the thief on the cross; put to death. But he was far more desirous of the salvation and good of his enemies, than he was of personal exemption from their persecutions. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

— Religious Maxims (1846), LXXIV.

Humility

In endeavoring to estimate the genuineness of our religious experiences, we should ever keep in mind that all those experiences, which are wrought by the Spirit of God, and are genuine in their character, tend decidedly and uniformly to personal HUMILITY. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." How can it be otherwise? The tendency of all true religion is to make God every thing, and ourselves comparatively nothing; to sink the creature while it elevates and enthrones the Creator in the center of the heart. "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."

— Religious Maxims (1846), LXXIII.

The Christian's Possesion of All Things

We are told in the Scriptures that all things are the Christian's. Heaven, Christ, God, things present and things to come, all are his. But the possession in the present life is of a two-fold nature — sometimes by present enjoyment, and sometimes by faith.  More commonly, and undoubtedly for wise reasons; the possession is by faith. But in the view of Him, whose life is hid with Christ, the possession is not on that account any the less sure.

— Religious Maxims (1846), LXXII.

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.

Broken Cisterns

Original truth is aphoristic. Its declaration is its argument. It carries conviction in its simplest affirmations. It is enough, therefore, merely to affirm, that the created must flow out of the uncreated; that the temporal must flow out of the eternal. God is the uncreated; God is the eternal. God, therefore, God alone, God beyond time, beyond and above all creating power, is the "living" or perpetual fountain. He has the true life in himself, and that life is Love. — All other life is from him and by him.

Hence it is said, in the language of Scripture,— language not more simply eloquent and affecting than it is true: — "My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken ME, the fountain of living waters,  and hewn out broken cisterns that can hold no water." [Jer. 2: 13] And it is here, more than anywhere else, that we find the source of trouble with men. God, in creating men, not only gave them the principle of faith, but opened also the eternal fountain of love in their hearts; but men, in an evil hour, stopped it by ceasing to believe in the source from which it came. Satan, reminding them that God had made them moral agents, maliciously whispered that they would do well to avail themselves of their power by hewing out cisterns of their own, — in other words, that they should try to live as originators, and not as recipients; that they should try to live without living in and from God. They made the attempt; turned away from God, and, in striving to live in their own strength, found, in their sins and sorrows, that they had exchanged the living fountain for "broken cisterns, which could hold no water."

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