The Vessel of Providence

There is a multitude of things which reasoning cannot resolve. All attempts to satisfy ourselves on such subjects must be attended with disquiet and anxiety. And the mind which is fully right with God, will not be likely to make such an attempt. The true wisdom is, to wish to know all that God would have us to know; to employ our perception and reasoning under a divine guidance, and to seek nothing beyond that limit. All beyond that we may properly and safely leave, knowing that all things work together for the good of those who love God.

We may illustrate our position, perhaps, by comparing ourselves to persons on a voyage. Providence is the vessel, if we may so speak, in which we are embarked, and in which we are borne on over the vicissitudes of our allotment, over the waves of changing time. The vessel, in a world like this, where good and evil are convicting, may be tossed with violence; but the mariners should be calm. Let the vessel float on. The winds and the currents are not accidents; but every movement of them, every rolling wave, every breath of wind, is under a divine control. The pilot is awake when he seems to sleep. The rest of God is not the rest of weakness or of forgetfulness, but the rest of security. And his work is not the less effectual and the less certain because it is done "without observation."  It is our business, when we have done all that he has commanded us, to leave the result with him, without fear and without questions.

The vessel which bore the Saviour over the sea of Tiberias, was tossed by the storm. His disciples came to him in great agitation, and called upon him for help. In quieting the raging of the tempest, he thought it a suitable occasion to rebuke them for giving themselves up so easily to the reasonings and fears of unbelieving nature. “And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith!  Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. But the men marveled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 2.

Rest from Reasonings

The soul, in the highest results of spiritual experience,  rests from reasonings. The reverse of this proposition is true in respect to those who have never experienced the power and the guidance of religious sentiments. It is difficult for the soul, so long as it remains in a state of alienation from God, to suppress or avoid reasonings.  It  reasons, because it has lost the God of reason.

God is not more the center of the life of the soul, than he is the center of all truth; that is to say, he does not move the soul more to right action, than he does to right perception. When God is displaced from his center in the soul, the relations of truth, considered as the subjects of our perceptions, are entirely unsettled. It is then that man, cast as it were on an ocean without soundings and without shore, knows not where he is, nor what he is. He resorts to reasoning, therefore, from the necessity of his position. So great are his perplexities, that he is obliged to reason. He doubts, he inquires, he compares, he draws conclusions, he pronounces judgment. His whole mental nature is in action, without its being the action of rest, the quiet movement of the divine order. Perhaps it is well that it should be so, until, by making inquiries without results, and without finding the true rest of the spirit, he feels the necessity of turning to God in humility, who is the only source of truth for the understanding, and of pacification for the heart.

It is different with the truly holy soul. The soul, which is united with God in the full exercise of faith, rests from reasonings.

In order to understand this proposition, however, it is proper to say something in explanation of the terms used in it. The term REST is relative. It has relation to and implies the existence of the opposite, namely, unquietness or unrest. The term REASONING, is the name of that important intellectual power which compares and combines truth, in order to discover new truth. Under a divine direction, this power is susceptible of useful applications and results. It is then entirely calm in its action, and is consistent with the highest peace and joy of the spirit. To rest from such reasonings, from reasonings which do not disturb rest, would be an absurdity. Such rest would be cessation from action, and not rest or quietude in action. When, therefore, the remark is made by spiritual writers, that the truly renewed soul has rest from reasonings, the meaning is, that it has rest from the vicious and perplexing reasonings of nature; in other words, from reasonings which are not from God. It is certainly a great religious grace to be free from such reasonings.

He who has no rest, except what he can find in reasonings, (we mean such reasonings as have just been described,) can never enjoy the true rest, because such reasoning never can give it. It is not an instrument adequate to such a result. And it may properly be added here, that there are some mysteries in the universe which reasoning, in any of its forms, has not power to solve. To a created mind, for instance, a mind which is uncreated must always be a mystery. From the nature of the case, God is a mystery to the human mind, because, being uncreated, he is, and always must be, incomprehensible. Incomprehensible in his nature, he is incomprehensible also in many of his creative and administrative acts. The apostle, in speaking of the depths of God's wisdom, exclaims: "How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Rom. 11: 33. Well may those judgments be called unsearchable, and those ways past finding out, which pertain to the Infinite,  It is obviously impossible that the finite should fully explore them.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 2.

On Hating Wrong-Doing

He who hates crime, or any kind of wrong­doing because wrong-doing is hateful in itself, does well; but he who, on analyzing his feelings, finds that he hates it, through fear of its punishment rather than from aversion to its nature, cannot with any good reason be said  to hate it at all.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLXII.

Waiting and Guidance

WAIT ON THE LORD, to learn the time
And circumstance of every deed;
He loves to bow His thought sublime
To those who wait, and feel their need.

He knows the time, He knows the way,
And He alone can give the light,
Which will not lead our steps astray,
But teach and guide them in the right.

Oh, then in RECOLLECTION wait,
In calmness look, till light is given;
And thus thou shalt not miss the straight
And narrow way that leads to heaven.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) XLVIII.

Submission in Sickness

"It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of  the  Lord."  Lam. iii. 26.

"Behold, we count them happy  which  endure.  Ye  have heard of the  patience of Job, and have seen  the  end of  the  Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender  mercy." James v. 11.

God gives to each his task; but what is mine?
What work doth he require of one like me?
Who, grieving, on the couch of sickness pine,
And know no hours but those of misery.
By others I am tended. Would I go
To feed the poor, or unto heathen lands,
Here am I fastened on this bed of woe,
With feet that walk not, and with moveless hands.
'Twas thus I cherished wicked discontent,
And inly blamed Jehovah's righteous ways,
When suddenly a voice, in mercy sent,
Reproves my striving heart, and gently says:
If thou indeed for nothing else art fit,
This work at least is thine, in patience to submit.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XXVIII.

A Divided Mind

"For where your treasure is, there  will  your heart be also.  The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body  shall  be full of light.  But  if thine eye be evil, thy whole body  shall be full of darkness."  Matt. vi. 21, 22, 23.

Oh, that I had not this divided heart,
A mind, self-sundered, and at war within;
Which gives, or seems to give, to heaven a part,
But gives, alas, a greater part to sin.
Sometimes I think the victory to gain,
And plant my standard on the heavenly height;
But suddenly imperious passions reign,
And put my faithfulness and hopes to flight.
My conscience prompts me to the better way,
The Holy Spirit makes it still more clear,
But foul temptation leads my steps astray,
And Heaven is lost, because the World is dear.
'Tis he in triumph and in peace shall run,
The Christian's trying race, whose heart, whose soul, is one.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XXVIL.

Nothing Is Small That Offends God

Nothing can be properly called small, which really offends God; because the offense is to be estimated not only by the occasion, however small it may be, on which it takes place but especially and chiefly by its relation to a Being of infinite wisdom, goodness, and holiness.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLXI.