Dying and Rising With Chirst

Without mentioning other devout men, we may properly repeat here, as being in harmony with some of the views hitherto given, the expressions of the learned and venerable John Arndt, whose name is deservedly dear to the Christian world. "If thou believest,” he says, "that Christ was crucified for the sins of the world, thou must with him be crucified to the same. If thou refusest  to comply with this, thou canst not be a living member of Christ, nor be united with him by faith. If thou believest that Christ is risen from the dead, it is thy duty to rise spiritually with Him. In a word, the birth, cross, passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, must, after a spiritual manner, be transacted in thee." And again he remarks in another place: — "Let us renounce wholly our own strength, our own wisdom, our own will and self-love, that, being thus resigned to God alone, we may suffer his power freely to work in us, so that nothing may, in the least, oppose the will and operations of the Lord."

I am aware that this is a hard doctrine to the natural heart. It strikes heavily upon that feeling of self-confidence, which is one of the evil fruits of our fallen condition. But, as it respects myself, if I may be allowed in humility of spirit to refer to my own feelings, it is a doctrine which is inexpressibly dear to me. I have been taught for many years, and by painful experience, that I can place no confidence in my own thoughts, feelings, or purposes. In none of these respects can I be my own keeper. On the contrary, I have seen, with the greatest clearness, that to be left to myself, either in these respects or in anything else, is always to be left in sin. And so great has been my anguish of spirit, in view of my entire inability to guide myself aright, that I could only pray that I might be struck out of existence and be annihilated, or that God would return and keep that which I could not keep myself. 

IF THOU, O GOD, WILT MAKE MY SPIRIT FREE.

If thou, O God, wilt make my spirit free,

Then will that darkened soul be free indeed;

I cannot break my bonds, apart from thee;

Without thy help I bow, and serve, and bleed.

Arise, O Lord, and in thy matchless strength,

Asunder rend the links my heart that bind,

And liberate, and raise, and save at length

My long enthralled and subjugated mind.

And then, with strength and beauty in her wings,

My quickened soul shall take an upward flight,

And in thy blissful presence, King of kings,

Rejoice  in liberty, and life, and light,

In renovated power and conscious truth,

In faith and cheerful hope, in love and endless youth.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

The Divine and the Human Are Made to go Together

It is obvious that thought, desire and volition, are essential to man's nature, and are in fact embraced in the very idea of man. It is a matter of necessity that the human mind shall act by thinking and desiring, and in other ways, in the appropriate time of its action. All this is true. And it is equally true that all human action, when it is what it ought to be, is divine action. And this is always the case, (namely, human action is what it ought to be and becomes divine,) when the power of action, which exists in man's nature, is brought out in its appropriate issues, not by human preference, but by the decisions of Providence.

The divine and the human are made, if we may so express it, to go together. Nothing is gained either by the exclusion of God or by the extinction of humanity. Undoubtedly man must act when the time of action comes. Action is his nature. It cannot be otherwise. But if the action is decided, not by subjective or personal preferences, not by a regard to himself, but by a regard to the whole,  including himself, — in other words, by the divine intimations of an overruling Providence, — then it is true, that the action, which is his own, is also God’s; and that by his own choice, which is to have no choice out of God, the thing done, which would otherwise merely human, comes to bear the radiant stamp of divinity.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

Choose God to Choose for You

Men have made a mistake in locating, if we may so express it, the action of man's free agency. The true action of man's moral agency is found, not in the choice of particulars, but in the choice of the universal; — not in deciding upon this particular thing or that particular thing, which he cannot do with certainty on account of his limited powers, but in committing his power of choice into God's hands, and choosing God to choose for him.

There are different degrees of union in the work of redemption, as there are different degrees of union in other things. But in the case of the man who fully unites with God in the work of his personal recovery, the choice which we have just mentioned is the choice which is actually made by him, — made for the present and made for the future, made now and made forever; — namely, the substitution, at the present time and in all time to come, of the divine choice for his own. His choice is to let God choose for him, — to cease to lead himself, that he may be led, not in some things merely, but in all things, by the Spirit of God. He alienates himself, that he may be possessed by another; and he does it, because he has in another that degree of confidence and hope, which he does not and cannot have in himself. He ceases from his own thoughts, that God may think in him and for him; — he ceases from his own desires, that God may inspire in him true and heavenly desires; — he relinquishes his own purposes, that he may fulfill the purposes of God and of God only. He is buried a dead Adam; and so renewed and beautified are the features of his nature, that he may be said, in a mitigated sense of the terms, to be raised again a living Christ.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

Spiritual Resurrection

It is a great mistake to suppose, that those, who go down into the tomb by the death of their earthly or sensual life, must remain there; — as if, because they are dead to sin, they must therefore be dead to humanity. We become dead to one system of life, which is wholly evil, that we may become alive to another, which is intrinsically and wholly good. And as we cooperate with God in our crucifixion, by submitting to all the pains he inflicts; so we cooperate with him in our spiritual resurrection by voluntarily accepting the terms by which he becomes in us a new life.  And the only terms which God does or can propose, are, that he shall be All in All to the soul; — becoming its life just as truly, though under different circumstances and in a different way, as he is the life of the material universe, — just as truly as he is the life or life-giving principle of plants and trees, and of the instincts of the lower animals. If plants and trees grow by their own law of growth, it is still true that God is in the law. If animals move by their own law of movement, it is still true that the central principle of the law of movement is a divine power. And if the holy man acts, it is still true that God acts in him. And the only difference between this case, and those which have just been mentioned, is this. God acts in the holy man in connection with, and perhaps we should say, in subordination to, his own choice.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

Human Restoration

The great object of Christ’s coming is the restoration of man. And pursuing the subject of the union of man with God in this new aspect, namely, in the work of redemption, the question arises here, how can man be said to be united with God, in the work of his own restoration?

Man corresponds in his position, and may be said to be united with God in the work of his personal recovery, when he willingly and firmly yields his disfigured spirit to the restoring power of the hands of the great workman. In other words, he unites with God in his own restoration, when he lets the great Master of the mind work upon him.

The Restoration of the Earth

Of the restoration of the earth, Isaiah says:

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon." [Isa. 35:1, 2.] 

Of the animal creation, he says:

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them." [Isa. 11: 6.] 

It may undoubtedly be said of these, and other similar passages, that they are figurative. But it will be found, in the end, that the truth which they anticipate and predict will exceed the beauty of the picture, as it existed in the imagination of the prophetic poet. When the head of creation resumes his nature of holy love, the untamed and violent passions of the inferior members will become extinct. And the earth herself, as if conscious of the mighty change, will withdraw her thorns and crown herself with roses.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 3.

The Joys of Pentitence

FAREWELL! Thine earthly strife is o'er;

Thine earthly sorrows past;

Jesus, thy friend, hath gone before;

And thou art free at last.

No more the solitude and pain;

No more the bitter tear;

A better land thy soul shall gain,

Than that, which held thee here.

Earth's children did not understand

The sorrows of thy heart;

But spirits of the heavenly land

Shall judge thee as thou art.

A soul that erred, a soul restored,

A soul that sinned, a soul forgiven;

Dear to the Christ, the loving Lord,

And safe, at last, in heaven.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) XXXV.