Relinquishment

“ Do you know what it is, in the hour of adversity, to repair to "the Rock of your strength?" Do you believe in His willingness to hear, and in His power to save? How sad the case of those who, in their seasons of trial, have no refuge to which they can betake themselves, but some fluctuating, perishing, earthly one;—who, when they lose the world, lose their all! ”

“ Here we are in trouble enough, surely. In what sense is God a ‘refuge’ to us—or ‘strength,’ or a ‘present help’? Why, we are left absolutely destitute here, without so much as a bite of food to keep our bodies and souls together. ”

“ How was it any natural preparation for a vast spiritual revolution, that men should first of all acknowledge any special duty of repentance? The repentance, if any movement of that nature could intelligibly be supposed called for, should more naturally follow this great revolution—which, as yet, both in its principle and in its purpose, was altogether mysterious—than herald it, or ground it. ”

“ Ah, Legree, try all your forces now! Utmost agony, woe, degradation, want, and loss of all things, shall only hasten on the process by which he shall be made a king and a priest unto God!
From this time, an inviolable sphere of peace encompassed the lowly heart of the oppressed one,—an ever-present Saviour hallowed it as a temple. Past now the bleeding of earthly regrets; past its fluctuations of hope, and fear, and desire; the human will, bent, and bleeding, and struggling long, was now entirely merged in the Divine. ”

“ But when, in the regular course of our duty, temptations are presented to us, inviting us to sin,—"Now," we should say to ourselves, "now is the opportunity for self-conquest,—now is the opportunity for moral and spiritual advancement,—now can we, by an effort, take a leap towards the kingdom of heaven." ”

“ Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; Page 214 to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. ”

“ ON REGENERATION.—We believe that the Scriptures teach that regeneration is the act of God, the Holy Ghost, by which, through the truth, the sinner is persuaded to abandon his sins and submit to God, on the terms made known in the gospel. ”

“ Probably all great suffering comes accompanied with a reserve of strength or with a power of resistance which may even spring from weakness, but which invests the sufferer with courage, and perhaps, too, with hope, to meet it. ”

“ Anarchy, confusion, even chaos, would reign supreme: for this salvation must come by our endeavors, and we cannot fail. Individuals may fail to do their part, and be rejected for their failure, but the work of the Lord shall go on and increase from day to day, until redemption of the dead shall be accomplished. ”

“ Why should the disengaged spirit again be fastened to the drag of that grosser and heavier substance, which many think has only the effect of weighing down its activity? What is the use of a resurrection, if the union that then takes place, is to deaden or to reduce all those energies which are ascribed to the living principle in a state of separation? ”

“ In the struggle all seems to be chaos and destruction; but after each shock the elevation is greater. Perhaps it is that always the concussion of the shock impresses, while the soft, slow, silent constancy accustoms us and is unheeded; but I think there is another cause. In any church you are not sure of sincerity, of earnestness. ”

“ Dresser, for example, believes all suffering to be the result of struggle. Directly we cease to struggle we cease to suffer, provided, of course, that our cessation is in the direction of relaxation and a trust in a higher power. ”

“ A fast ebbing life, so crowded with the accumulated anxieties, disappointments, treacheries and sorrows of a tragic ministry, now moved swiftly towards its climax. The most turbulent period of the Heroic Age of the new Dispensation was rapidly attaining its culmination. ”

“ The pardon of sins, expiation, propitiation, and redemption, are nothing else than purification from evils and falsities, the implantation of good and truth, and their conjunction, thus regeneration. The whole process of regeneration is also described by the particular rituals of each sacrifice and burnt-offering, and is explained when the representatives are unfolded by the internal sense. ”

“ Then begins the struggle to break from old ties and associations that still fetter the soul; then repentance and reformation commence, and the spirit pauses not until he or she has arisen out of old errors, and gained knowledge, light, and peace. ”

“ Every one who is justified, is also regenerated; but the one places us in a new relation, and the other in a new moral state. Our Lord, in one instance, uses the term regeneration for the resurrection state: “Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging,” Matt. xix, 28. And, accordingly, Dr. Campbell translates the passage thus: “At the renovation, when the Son of man shall be seated on the glorious throne, ye, my followers, sitting also upon twelve thrones, shall judge.” ”

“ Is it true, that the heathen world are sinking to perdition? As fast as the beating of my pulse, they are passing into the world of retribution, and the inquiry is, What is the doom they meet? Do they rise to unite with angels in the songs of heaven? ”

“ Regeneration is the beginning of holiness in the soul, and admits of no progression; sanctification is carried on progressively in the heart of the renewed, and will be continued until it is completed in the concluding moment of life. ”

“ To think of the world’s activity as God’s activity; of mankind’s development, filled with struggles and sufferings, as the story of a divine struggle and Passion; of the world-process as the process of a God, who in each individual creature fights, suffers, conquers and dies, so that he may overcome the limitations of the finite in the religious consciousness of man and anticipate his future triumph over all the suffering of the world—that is the real Christian doctrine of redemption. ”

“ But when thou hast found that thy conscience still remains perturbed and unpacified, and thy heart still continues corrupt and sinful, then look away from thy agency and thy offering, to My clemency and My offering,—trust not in these finite sacrifices of the lamb and the goat, but let them merely remind thee of the infinite sacrifice which in the fulness of time I will provide for the sin of the world,—and thy peace shall be as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. ”

“ I must brave Heaven, or die under its exaction of the last pang of an overstrained retribution; death will not come to my prayer, and I am stung to rebellion. Will you, sir, use your operating knife against the wrath of Heaven? I am resolved. Though conscience cannot be amputated, this hell-scorched nerve may be severed. ”

“ Redemption is the recoil wave of creation, the echo of the fiat returning to the Creator's ear.
The manifestation of the ideas of God is in unity; but in opposition to unity exists anarchy; in antagonism with creation emerges the principle of destruction. ”

“ But looking at this scripture from the objector’s stand-point, the singular inquiry at once forces itself upon us, Can the immortal soul in its disembodied state suffer tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword!?
2 Cor. 4:16. “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” ”

“ This is why this record of destruction will be shown to you Gentiles, to give you the chance to repent, that you may not allow these murderous combinations to get above you. If you do build up and support these secret combinations, then the work of destruction will come upon you as the Eternal God's sword of justice falls upon you, causing your overthrow. ”

“ Then we shall, with all contrition and humility, but still in spirit and in truth, claim and obtain our share in the body and the blood, in the spirit and in the mind, of Him Who sacrificed Himself for a rebellious world. ”

“ We may also claim for reincarnation, the great law which causes all things in Nature, to take the path of least resistance. Every soul will be actuated in a greater or less degree by this law, and the path of least resistance would naturally be towards its own kindred. I have my pedigree to five generations before the Conquest, and I feel as if I had always incarnated among my kindred, scattered through the beautiful Valley of the Duddon, and the mountains of the western part of the Lake Country. ”

“ They are the means by which evils and falses are loosened and dispersed in man, and by which horror is excited for them, and by which moreover the conscience is formed and strengthened, and thus man is regenerated. This is the reason why those who become regenerated, are let into combats, and undergo temptations ”

“ But there have come into play those healing forces which are as little within the grasp of human power as the destructive ones. Bright, fruitful sunbeams have announced the dawn of a new age, and a Higher Voice than that of man has called out of the chaos new creations, whose germ could scarcely have been imagined in the preceding centuries. ”

“ Revive us, and we shall live in thy sight. Thou must ever be first. It is in our nature to backslide for ever: and whenever we see a backslider restored, or a rebel lay down the weapons of rebellion, there we may trace thy footsteps, O God of grace.
"No external providence will touch our hard, our deceitful hearts. All that goes under the name of misfortune will but drive us from thee, never to thee, till thou teach us to profit, and lead us by the way that we should go. ”

“ The experience of so miraculous a recovery from so devastating an ordeal should, alone, prove sufficient to infuse an invigorating spirit into those who have been subjected to it, as well as into the new generation who are still close enough to those events to appreciate its extreme violence, such as will not only enable them to withstand onslaughts of still greater severity, but impel them, both young and old, men and women alike, to struggle, with redoubled vigour and deeper consecration, to meet the pressing and the manifold requirements of the present hour. ”

“ And, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.—The third woe is the Reign of the Lord begun, with its attendant upsetting of the present order. The woes are visited upon those interested in maintaining the present order of things, who would like to retain indefinitely the advantages they have obtained. “The battle of this great Day of God Almighty will be the greatest revolution the world has ever seen. ”

“ The true sanctification, which I came to perceive something of later, is the result of a process of endless patience and infinite delay, and the attainment of it implies a humility, seven times refined in the fires of self-contempt, in which there remains no smallest touch of superiority or aloofness. ”

“ Oh! what a confession of unrest are the rush and recklessness, the fever and the fret of our modern life with its ever renewed and ever disappointed quest after good! You go about our streets and look men in the face, and you see how all manner of hungry desires and eager wishes have imprinted themselves there. And now and then—how seldom!—you come across a face out of which beams a deep and settled peace. How many of you are there who dare not be quiet because then you are most troubled? How many of you are there who dare not reflect because then you are wretched? ”

“ Those who have reached this stage have already made great and encouraging progress; for God has made them conquerors over their inward foes. The rule and reign of pride and malice, envy and lust, covetousness and sensuality, and every other evil thing have come to an end. ”

“ Such a faith and such an unrest be ours: faith which is mistrust of the visible; unrest which is full of a hidden surety and radiance. We, when we fall into pleasant places, rest and dream our strength away. Before every enterprise and adventure of the soul we calculate in fear our power to do. ”

“ Our Lord, most compassionate, pitiful, noble, and precious, let a time be given the people to repent; let the past chastisement suffice; let it end here, to begin again if the reform endure not. Pardon and overlook the sins of the people; cause thine anger and thy resentment to cease ”

“ For example, as the burnt-offering shadows forth the reconciliation and surrender to the Lord of the person offering the sacrifice, whilst the meat-offering shadows forth the fruit of this surrender, the sanctification of the life in good works, the increase in the quantity of the meat-offering connected with the burnt-offering, indicates that the people offering these sacrifices will bring forth more of the fruit of sanctification in good works upon the ground of the reconciliation which it has received. ”

“ The dreadful phantom of a Deity hostile to Mankind has vanished, and the Human Race is now delivered from this horror, and enjoys tranquillity and freedom. Who has eradicated this error, so widely spread and deeply rooted among all nations?—has this been accomplished without sacrifice?—what has been the reward of such sacrifice? ”

“ Meanwhile, another cause for Our silence arose, from the insolence of faction, which laboured again to raise the standard of rebellion. Finding that long endurance and mildness, instead of softening, appeared rather to foment the spirit of licentiousness, We were at last, With extreme sorrow of heart, compelled to raise the scourge entrusted to Us by the Almighty, for subduing the obstinacy of men ”