Favor of God

“ Now you see for yourself that all those who do not at at all times trust God and do not in all their works or sufferings, life and death, trust in His favor, grace and good-will, but seek His favor in other things or in themselves, do not keep this Commandment, and practise real idolatry, even if they were to do the works of all the other Commandments, and in addition had all the prayers, fasting, obedience, patience, chastity, and innocence of all the saints combined. ”

“ So when the Christian quietly goes on his circle of duties, ever seeking, by the help of God's grace, to do the will of his Lord,—he shows to the world a living example of the power and truth of religion; he does good not for the look of the thing, but because the love of Christ constraineth him to act as conscience directs. ”

“ Nothing, one would think, should be more powerful with us to convince us that there is a God, and to engage us to seek his honour and glory in our services, and to seek our happiness in his favour and love, than the consideration of our own nature, especially the noble powers and faculties of our own souls. ”

“ On the other hand, the more perfectly he is disposed by frequent and fervent acts of faith, hope, and charity, and other holy virtues, the more abundant grace he will receive, both because these more perfect dispositions move Almighty God to be more liberal of His graces to him, and they also enlarge the capacity of the soul to receive a more abundant communication of grace. ”

“ Who so says that he loves God, but does not love his neighbor, in him there is no divine charity.
We have seen, therefore, how the three divine virtues are the foundation of the Christian life, and that their practise constitutes Christian life. The true worship of God consists in practising these virtues which, at the same time, are the sole way to eternal bliss. ”

“ For this reason: that God contains everything in Himself, the whole sum of being; so that there is no beauty or truth or goodness in the world which does not fall to you to delight in as part of your love and service of God. Loving God and serving Him should lead you to watch for and respond to all the truth and beauty that there is in God’s world, all the traits of excellence in human character, and to own your allegiance to your family, to your friends, to your country, to your Church, and to humanity as a whole. ”

“ What can be more acceptable to God and advantageous to man than a life lived, in its own calling, in the way that contributes to the honor of God, and that by its example influences others to love God's Word and to praise his name? Moreover, what virtues, of all man possesses, serve him better than humility, meekness, patience and harmony of mind? ”

“ The Christian, then, if he will direct his rejoicing to God with regard to moral good, must realize that the value of his good works, fasts, alms, penances, etc., is based, not upon the number or the quality of them, but upon the love of God which inspires him to do them ”

“ But have I made you understand that it really is possible for one who has apprehended even imperfectly the illimitable extent of the goodness of Christ and the divine nature of that goodness, to feel heartily and sincerely that, of all things in heaven and earth and in the waters under the earth, the goodness and power and wisdom of God in Christ are the fittest objects for our love, our trust and our reverence, in other words, for our worship? ”

“ If the foundation of virtue is in utility, then there is nothing in the divine being that prevents pardon, the good of the creature, and not the demands of God's holiness, being the reason for Christ's suffering. ”

“ The good that is in Him, that (strictly speaking) is God Himself,—we can, by Love, will Him to have it, when we find our delight in God being what He is. And the good that is but referred to God,—His honour and Kingdom and the Obedience we owe him,—this we can will, not only by finding our pleasure in it, but by labouring at its maintenance and increase with all our might. ”

“ So that if we are to make any advance in appropriating to ourselves God’s salvation, it can only be by submitting ourselves implicitly to His providence, and taking care that in the commonest and most secular actions of our lives we are having respect to His will with us, and that in those actions in which our own feelings and desires [253] seem sufficient to guide us, we are having regard to His controlling wisdom and goodness. ”

“ CLXVIII.—ABSURDITY OF THE MORALITY AND OF THE RELIGIOUS VIRTUES ESTABLISHED SOLELY IN THE INTEREST OF THE PRIESTS.
What is virtue according to theology? It is, we are told, the conformity of men's actions with the will of God. But who is God? He is a being whom no one is able to conceive of, and whom, consequently, each one modifies in his own way. What is the will of God? It is what men who have seen God, or whom God has inspired, have told us. Who are those who have seen God? They are either fanatics, or scoundrels, or ambitious men, whose word we can not rely upon. ”

“ We exalt our calling, not to gain glory among men, or money, or satisfaction, or favor, but because people need to be assured that the words we speak are the words of God. This is no sinful pride. It is holy pride. ”

“ Do you thirst for holiness? Do you follow after holiness? Do you prize it above all prosperity and worldly greatness? Do you hate every sin, and long to be rid of it as your most irksome burden, and use all God’s means against it as far as you know them? If it be thus with you, Christ hath set his stamp upon your hearts, and hath set you as a seal upon his heart. ”

“ This favour of God and man, i.e., not of all indiscriminately, but first and pre-eminently of the wise and devout, such as agree with God’s judgment, is evidently in the view of the poet the highest and most precious of the multiform blessings of wisdom which he enumerates. What, however, is this favour of God and man but the being a true child of God, the belonging to the fellowship of God and His people, the co-citizenship in the kingdom of truth and blessedness? ”

“ He shows the moral supremacy, even in this imperfect empirical world, of the perfectly good will, and He impresses those who see Him—see Him, I mean, with eyes that can penetrate through the temporal to the eternal and find His real nature—as being the supreme personal unveiling of God, as worthy to be our Leader, our Ideal Life, our typical personal Character, and strong enough in His infinite Grace and divine self-giving to convince us of the eternal co-operation of God with our struggling humanity, and to settle our Faith in the essential Saviourhood of God. ”

“ And this we also earnestly desire for their good, that as we have been called of God to be a people to His praise, through His Grace, none may be offended at the truth we testify of, but, seeing the excellency of it, walk in it, and obtain the true end of religion, the salvation of the soul. ”

“ Given faith, there will ultimately emerge all the successive qualities of true goodness—knowledge, temperance, patience—the personal virtues, rising upwards to godliness or the love of God, and widening out to brotherhood, and thence to charity or a love of mankind—a charity which embraces the whole world, even those who are not Christian: the enemy, the outcast, and the alien. ”

“ What is it worth to the Christian, and what is it worth to those about him, to have his life brought by Christ into such vital living contact with the Heavenly Father, that that life becomes the means through which the goodness of God pours out to the world? ”

“ Let us not content ourselves with loving God for the mere sensible favors, how elevated soever, which He has done or may do us. Such favors, though never so great, cannot bring us so near to Him as faith does in one simple act. ”

“ God will not give to vice, to carelessness, or sloth, the prize he has proposed to virtue. You have every help that can animate your endeavours: You have written laws to direct you—the example of Christ and his disciples to encourage you—the most awakening motives to engage you—and you have, besides, the comfortable promise of constant assistance from the Holy Spirit, if you diligently and sincerely pray for it. ”

“ Who would not in this respect employ his substance in God’s fear, seeing thereby thou dost honour Him, whom to serve is a high honour to the highest angels.—Jermin.
To devote a portion of our substance directly to the worship of God, and the good of men, is a duty plainly enjoined in the Scriptures. It is not a thing that a man may do, or may not do, as he pleases. ”

“ When a man yields to the suggestions and exhortations of divine grace, and, proving obedient to the Word, begins to withdraw from his vicious life, then the grace of God endows him with all those virtues which the Gospel requires. It is then that faith springs up in the soul, the original principle of all other virtues. ”

“ F. how ought this to excite our zeal and love for the holy Jesus. Why should we desire to plead for a righteousness of our own, and cry up freewill, when we have an infinitely better righteousness than our own to appear in, and a God that will crown us with eternal glory for working in us both to will and to do after his good pleasure? ”

“ And to tell such a man of the beauty of holiness, or call him to the denial of his own will, for this reason, because the true foundation of virtue, is the will of God, would be to as much purpose, as if you was only to require him never to sleep any more, because holy angels never sleep in heaven. ”

“ The virtue that we demand in the worshippers of God, under the rule of the Christian dispensation, is the virtue that flows from religious faith; that faith being, the exercise of trust in the redemption of the gospel. ”

“ Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasing and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us [or going before us] , that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will. ”

“ Now, to give glory to God, is to believe in him; to count him true, wise, righteous, merciful, almighty. The chiefest thing God requireth of man is, that he giveth unto him his glory and divinity; that is to say, that he taketh him not for an idol, but for God; who regardeth him, heareth him, showeth mercy unto him, and helpeth him. For faith saith thus, 'I believe thee, O God, when thou speakest.'"
But our great wisdom, he says, is to look away from all these questionings,—from our sins, our works, ourselves, to Christ, who is our righteousness, our Saviour, our all. ”

“ Do you think it possible that [174] we can love God too much; that we can love the Redeemer too much; that we can be too much attached to the great principles of justice, benevolence, or moral purity?"
"O no, certainly not; but then I think it possible for us to think and talk so much about religion as to render ourselves uncomfortable. ”

“ If we scrutinize more closely the particular acts We have above referred to, we shall discover that oftentimes they have more the appearance than the reality of virtue. But let us grant that these are real. If we do not wish to run in vain, if we do not wish to lose sight of the eternal blessedness to which God in His goodness has destined us, of what use are the natural virtues unless the gift and strength of divine grace be added? ”

“ We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God; of which necessarily no trace can be found in those who reject as unknown the redemption of mankind, the grace of God, the sacraments, and the happiness to be obtained in heaven. We speak now of the duties which have their origin in natural probity. ”

“ The right ways of God to those that are good are, and will be, a savour of life unto life: The just shall walk in them; they shall conform to the will of God both in his precepts and in his providences, and shall have the comfort of so doing. ”

“ The human race need no exhortation to stimulate them to go in quest of this good. The child begins his search after this good as soon as he is conscious of need and finds himself in possession of power to seek it. And until old age these good things are sought without any admonition from God to lead a man to seek them. 2. But there is a higher good—the good which ministers to the spiritual nature and forms a holy character—the good of which Christ speaks when He says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” ”

“ The moral discernment is to be filled and animated by the religious spirit, so that the moral training may be carried on and completed together with the development and consummation of the Christian life. Thus the form of the appeal is: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." In a high and peculiar emphasis all duty is required to be done as unto God. ”

“ Or do you question whether God be able to reward your entire love and compleat obedience? If you indeed believe that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, as even your indifferent way of serving him seems to suppose, then you must needs think it wisdom, to lift up the hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees; to be heartily and thoroughly religious, and not to be guilty of so inconsistent a folly as to take some pains all your life for heaven, and yet go at last to hell. ”

“ God is worth everything. Christ is worth everything. Oh, come to-day, and say, "Lord, at any cost help me; I do want to live this life." And if you find it difficult to say this, and if there is a struggle within the heart, never mind; say to God, "Lord, I thought I was willing, but I see how much unwillingness there is; come and discover what the evil is still in the heart." By His grace, if you will lie at His feet and trust Him you may depend upon it deliverance will come. ”