Internal Providence

God's providence is internal as well as external. God is the inspirer of the feelings of the heart as well as the director and controller of outward events. Our thoughts and feelings are from God, so far as they are right thoughts and right feelings. Accordingly, the man who is fully united with God, rests from all anxiety in relation to the particular form or mode of his inward experience. Among the various thoughts and feelings which are right and good, he has no choice. For instance, he does not desire inward joys, nor great illuminations of mind, nor freedom and gifts of utterance; but desires and accepts only that degree of light and joy, whether more or less, which God sees fit to send. It is true we are directed to covet "the best gifts," [1 Cor. 12:31.] but it is equally true that those gifts are the best which God selects and gives. In everything, in gifts and the exercise of gifts, for time and for eternity, the wise man chooses for himself what God chooses for him: which is the same as to say that he rests from choice, or that he is without choice. God's providence is his guide.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 6.

God is the Life of Nature & Events

God's providence extends both to things and events. Inanimate nature, even in the lowest forms, is under the divine care. Not a rock is placed without a hand that placed it. Not a tree grows without a divine vitality, which is the inspiration of its growth. Not a wave of the ocean rolls without the power of God's presence to propel it. The storms and the earthquakes are the Lord’s.

God is thus the life of nature. And the man who is in harmony with God, has no controversy with him in any of these things. On the contrary, he accepts all, is at peace with all.

God is also the life of events, including in that term human actions. There is no good action which is not from God. The wisdom of the Supreme mind is the good man’s inspiration. And, on the other hand,  there is no evil action which God does not notice, and over which he has not some degree of control. The essence of evil actions, it is well understood, is the evil motive from which they proceed, —  a motive which is not and cannot be from God; but still, God will not allow the action, which proceeds from the motive, to take effect, except in the manner and the degree which pleases him. In other words, God has the prerogative, which can pertain only to an infinite being, of overruling evil, and of bringing good out of it. So that there is a providence of evil as well as a providence of good. And hence, the good man can be in peace even when the evil man triumphs, because he knows that the "triumphing of the wicked is short."

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 6.

No Longer at War with Providence

The sinful man has no true peace, among other sources of disquiet, because his position is at variance with Providence. One view to be taken of sin, is, that it is war. It is not only war against God's character, but against his commands; not only war against his commands, but against his providential arrangements. God has one way and plan of arrangement; the sinful man, who is in a state of rebellion against God, has another plan. The center of God's arrangements is benevolence or the love of all; the center of the sinful man's arrangements is the inordinate love of himself. Radiating from such different centers, the plans which are formed continually come in conflict. Under such circumstances it is impossible that the sinner should have rest. Finding himself face to face in opposition to what God has determined, and thus in conflicting lines of movement, he is continually met and counteracted, continually smitten and driven back. His life is a warfare commenced and carried on under the most hopeless circumstances; a warfare attended everywhere and unceasingly with discomfiture and suffering.

On the contrary, the man who is united with God in the possession of a common central feeling, is necessarily united with him in all the movements and arrangements which he makes. In other words, he rests from the perplexities and uncertainties of making his own choice, by accepting, under all circumstances, the choice which his heavenly Father has made for him. With the exception of sin, God's choice never varies, and never can vary, from the facts and incidents of that state of things which now exists. And it is this choice, however painful it may be in some of its personal relations, which the godly man takes and sanctions as his own. So that his choice being already made by the unvarying adoption of that which is from God, he may be said not to have any preference of his own, but to rest from his own choice, that he may repose in God's choice. And God's choice is only another name for his providence. There is, therefore, no conflict; there never can be any.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 6.

Indifference

Indifference to religion is a great evil. Indifference to SELF, (that is to say, indifference to our own interests considered as separate from those of God,) is a great good. Such is the nature of the human mind that we cannot be indifferent to every thing. To say, therefore, that we are indifferent to ourselves, if we properly recognize and feel the relations we sustain, and if we say it in a Christian spirit, is essentially the same thing as to say, that we possess a heart truly given to God. Self is forgotten, in order that God may be remembered; SELF is crucified in order that God may live in the soul.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLXXIX.

The Promise of the Lord

We thank Thee, Lord, before 'tis done;
We know Thy promise doth endure;
And battles fought are battles won,
Because Thy word is sure.

Look back, and confirmation see
In the long history of years;
When God hath uttered his decree,
No place remains for fears.

There's something brighter than the light
Of burnish'd spear and gleaming sword;
Gird on the heavenly armor bright,
The strength of God's great word.

Behold the boasting foemen flee
With flags and cohorts crush'd and broken;
'Tis God, that gives the victory;
The Lord himself hath spoken.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LIV.

God No Respecter of Persons

"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, with respect  of persons." "Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the  kingdom, which he hath promised to them that love him?"  James ii. 1, 5.

BEHOLD yon poor old man, that plods along,
Sadly and slowly in the crowded street.
How beggarly! Of those whom he doth meet,
Scarce one doth note him in that countless throng.
The very winds make sport of him, and rend
His tattered garments rude. Yet  do not deem,
That he is all so lost, as he doth seem.
Though all desert him else, he hath one friend.
There is a God, who hath an equal eye,
Who marks the high, nor spurns the lowly one;
The wretched, whom the world pass scornfully,
May be the blood-bought purchase of' his Son.
He deeper looks than the outside of things;
The beggar's soul to Him is as the soul of kings.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XXXIV.

Despise Not the Beginnings

"The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which  a man took and sowed in his field; which indeed is the least of  all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree." Matt. xiii. 31, 32.

See, how beyond the hills, the morning bright
Doth write its coming with a single ray;
But gleam is joined to gleam, and light to light,
Till feeblest dawn expands to perfect day.
Despise not the beginnings. When the heart
Receives, however small, the primal beam,
Which God doth to the new-born soul impart,
Revere and cherish its incipient gleam.
Though the first ray from Heaven's eternal throne,
The frail young shoot from Glory's morning star,
Yet fostered well, it dwelleth not alone,
But grows in its own light, and shineth far,
And bindeth ray with ray, till what was one,
Compacted of itself, expands a new-born sun.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XXXIII.