Harmonizing With God in Prayer

The soul, which is fully in the experience of divine union, will harmonize perfectly with the emotions and desires of the divine mind. If, for instance, there are soon to be especial operations of tbs Holy Spirit, and if souls are to be enlightened and restored to God, the preparations for such events will always exist first in the mind of God himself. It is not possible that such things should exist accidentally They are the developments, coming in their appropriate order and under appropriate circumstances, of the divine thought, of the divine  feeling. But if it be true that the heavings of the billows, whether gently or more powerfully, will first show themselves in the great ocean of thought and feeling, it will also be true that they will excite a correspondent movement in all smaller steams and fountains which are in alliance with them. In other words, God, in all good works, moves first; and the minds of his people, (all those who come within the particular sphere of movement,) move in harmony with him.

If God desires a particular thing to take place within their particular sphere of feeling and action, the desire of the Infinite mind sympathetically takes shape and develops itself in the finite mind; and the unspoken desire of the Father shows itself in the uttered prayer of the children. As in nature a small moaning sound of the winds often precedes a wide and powerful movement, so the sighing in the bosoms of the finite denotes an approaching movement of far greater power in the Infinite.

In connection with these views we have one of the methods given us, by which we discover the particular thing or purpose which now exists in the mind of God. It is obviously the dictate of the common sense of mankind, that the fact of unity of spirit implies and involves the fact of unity of movement. All those who are "born of God," in the higher sense of the expressions, (for instance, in the sense in which the expressions are used in St. John's epistles,) are in unity with him, whose spiritual birth is within them. It is not more true that God is their Father, than it is that they are God's children. They are one; — as the planets are one with the sun, as the billow is one with the ocean, as the branch is one with the vine, as the son is one with the father. And, in the existence of such union, there cannot, as a general thing, be a feeling or purpose in one party, without the existence of a correspondent feeling and purpose in the other. There are some limitations and exceptions undoubtedly; but, as a general thing, when we know the thoughts of God's true people, we know God's thoughts; when we know what God's true people desire, we know what God desires; when we know what the people of God are determined to do, we know what God is deter­mined to do.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 11.

God Is Not Impassive

It is sometimes said of God, that, being infinite and perfect, he is beyond the reach of emotionality; in other words, is an "impassive" existence, a being without feeling. The truth seems to us to be directly the opposite. God, so far from being the negation, is the perfection of feeling; that  is to say, he feels, and cannot help feeling, just as he ought to feel, on all possible occasions.

This remark we proceed now to illustrate in some particulars. And, accordingly, it may be said, in the first place, that God, instead of being impassive and without sensibility, is a being of desires and aversions. Can it be supposed, for instance, that any good takes place in the universe, without God's desiring it to take place? And if such a supposition is impossible, it is equally so that any evil can take place without causing in him feelings of dissatisfaction and aversion. And this is not all. He not only desires good to take place, but he rejoices in it, when it has taken place. And he cannot do otherwise. And, on the other hand, he not only disapproves of wrong-doing, and desires that it may not take place, but it cannot take place without exciting grief in him.

The Great Work of Prayer

The work of redemption, in all the various forms in which it is carried on, is truly and emphatically God's work. But it is worthy of grateful notice, that our heavenly Father, in doing his own work, condescends to accept of human agency. Placing the Infinite in alliance with the finite, he allows man to be a co-worker with himself. And one of man's great works, that work without which nothing else is available, is prayer.

But, in saying this, it should be added, that we use the term prayer, not in the restricted sense of particular or specific supplication, but in the more general sense in which it is sometimes employed, namely, as expressive of communion with God in all its forms.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union, (1851) Part 7, Chapter 11.

Something Left

Let want and persecution come,

And grief in all its forms of gloom;

Fear not. Thy strength is from above.

Fear not. Thou yet hast power to LOVE.

Let tribulation's evil day

Take friend, and home, and wealth away;

Fear not. Though all things else may part,

They cannot take away the heart.

The power to LOVE doth still remain,

With goods bereft, and prospects slain;

The power to LOVE, which cannot die,

When all things else in ruin lie.

If this is left, not all is gone;

If this is left, march boldly on;

If this is left, thou still art whole;

LOVE is the Heaven of the soul.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) XLIV.

Food of the Soul

The hungry, starving soul doth cry,
Feed me, or I must cease to be;
And let the bread of love supply
My spirit's great necessity.

Nor think it strange. All things of life
Require their food, their vital air;
And perish on their field of strife,
If life's supplies are wanting there.

The dews descend on thirsty flower;
The heavens send radiance from above;
And so these hungry souls of ours
Live in the dews and rays of love.

Jesus is Love; the living Bread;
His own dear life He doth bestow;
And souls who on that life are fed,
The pangs of hunger shall not know.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) XLIII.

How to Grow in Holiness

Some persons may admit the fact of growth in holiness after the experience of full sanctification, and still be in some degree of perplexity as to the manner of it. We proceed, therefore, ...without promising to remove this perplexity altogether, to enter into some explanations upon this topic.

Evangelical holiness, it will be recollected, is nothing more nor less than perfect love. Love is based, in part, upon knowledge, and is necessarily based upon it.  It is entirely evident, that we can never love an object of which we have no knowledge; and it is equally so, that, in proportion as our knowledge extends, we have a wider intellectual basis for the action of this principle. And accordingly every new manifestation of God's character, every new exhibition of his attributes, every additional development of his providences, will furnish new occasions for accessions of love. It is the privilege, therefore, of a person perfected in love, and consequently a holy person, to increase in holiness in exact proportion with his increase in knowledge.

Examples of Growth in Holiness from Scripture

We learn in relation to John the Baptist, that he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his birth, and that consequently he was sanctified from that early period. But when we contemplate him in after life, in the temptations and labors he underwent, in his faithful preaching, in his stern rebukes of wickedness in high places as well as low, in his imprisonment, and in the general growth and expansion of his matured and consecrated powers, can there possibly be any difficulty in ascribing to him a growth in holiness? Does not the opposite idea, viz., that in the degree of holiness he was not more advanced than at the period of his birth, carry an absurdity upon the very face of it? And we may remark further, that it is expressly said of him, "And the child grew, and waxed STRONG IN SPIRIT."