Depending on God for the Means as Well as the End

God is not only in the beginning and the end; but in all the intermediate methods and instrumentalities which connect them together. He, who lifts a finger or moves a foot in any enterprise without God, does it at the hazard, not only of displeasing God, but of failing of his object. We ought, therefore, to exercise the same sense of dependence and the same submissiveness of spirit in the choice and employment of the means applicable to a given end, which we exercise in relation to the end, when in the Providence of God it is either accomplished or fails to be accomplished. "Except the Lord build  the  house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." Ps. 127:1.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLVI.

Christ Inward and Christ Outward

In the early periods of our religious experience, we are chiefly interested in what Christ was by SITUATION, his birth in the manger, the incidents of his childhood, his temptations and labors, his betrayal and his crucifixion. At a later period we are interested, in a still higher degree, in what Christ was and is by CHARACTER, his purity, his condescension, his forbearance, his readiness to do and suffer his Father's will, his love. The first method of contemplating Christ is profitable; the second still more so. The tendency of the one is to lead to a Christ outward, to Christ of the times of Herod and of Pilate, to a Christ with blood-stained feet and with a crown of thorns; who is now gone, and who never can exist again, as he was then. The tendency of the other is to lead us to a Christ inward; who lives unchanged in his unity and likeness with his Father; forever  the same in himself, and forever the same in the hearts of those who are born in his image. Christ outward is precious, and always will be precious, historically; "THE STAR OF MEMORY." Christ inward, who can never die, and who reproduces himself in the hearts of his followers, is still more precious, by present realization; the star, the sun of the affections. 

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLV.

Mirrors of God

God, in the formation of his spiritual work, can stamp no image and form no feature, but the image and the feature which exists eternally in himself. And accordingly all holy souls are not only lights in the world; but being born of God and bearing his image, are necessarily mirrors of the Divinity. If the mirror is clear, God is manifest. And just in proportion, as it is stained and soiled, there is no divine reflection. God is no longer a subject of inward consciousness, nor of outward observation.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLIV.

God Has an Interest in all Creation

Our heavenly Father takes an interest in all the works of his hands. He beholds the reflection of his own wisdom in every blade of grass, in every flower of the desert, in every waterfall. There is no living thing in the earth, the air, or the waters, over which God does not watch with a Father's love. Those, who bear God's image in being possessed of a holy heart, not only connect God with all his works, but sympathize with him in his deep interest for everything he has made.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLIII.

God Felt It First

When we are injured and afflicted by our fellow men, we should remember, that our heavenly Father felt the wound first.  He always feels in what his people feel, and if, for wise purposes, he is patient and bears with the infliction, whatever it may be, we should both be taught and be encouraged to do likewise.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLII.

The Power of Prayer

Whenever thou hearest God's people praying, perhaps in yonder little prayer-meeting, perhaps in some solitary place in the wilderness, perhaps in the desolate and lonely room of some poor widow, then know that the day of divine manifestation is near at hand. We cannot tell, perhaps, in what direction or in what way the manifestation of God's presence is to be made; but we cannot doubt the general fact that it is approaching.

All persons whose fullness of faith has brought them into the state of union with God, know this to be the case. They know (without knowing how they  know it) that the movement of desire in their own souls, arising sometimes under remarkable circumstances and in a remarkable way, is the continuation, the distant but affiliated throbbing, of the great heart of the universe. And with such a conviction existing in their minds, it obviously becomes easy, and, perhaps we may say, necessary for them, to exercise that particular form of faith which is appropriate to their state of desire. Having, therefore, a desire for a particular thing, and believing that this desire is only the vibration from the great center, the finite repetition of the infinite desire, they cannot doubt that there will be a manifestation of God, correspondent to that form of inward feeling which exists in him as well as in themselves.

If what has been said is correct, then it may properly be added, that there is something not only impressive but sublime, and almost terrible, in a holy man's prayer; whether it take the form of supplication, or of blessing, or of praise. That praying voice which thou hearest, broken though it may be with weakness and trembling with age, is not more the voice of man than of God. Oh, do not trifle with it, if thou wouldst not trifle with God himself! Uttered in these last days, it is nevertheless true, that, in its attributes of origin and power, it is the voice of Abraham, of Moses, of Daniel; — men who had power with God, because God had power with them. It is the chain of communication between two worlds; the circumference, showing the light and heat of the center. It brings down the sunlight of God's favor, or the lightning of his displeasure. If it curses thee, then thou art cursed; if it blesses thee, then thou art blessed. If it expresses itself in pity, then the tear of compassion is falling upon thee from the omniscient eye. Listen reverently, therefore, to the good man's prayer. God is in it.

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

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.