Spiritual man

“ Nothing, then, would be more shortsighted than to try and keep the soul from a deep, ample, recollective movement, from feeding upon and relishing, from as it were stretching itself out and bathing in, spiritual air and sunshine, in a rapt admiration, in a deep experience of the greatness, the beauty, the truth, and the goodness of the World, of Life, of God. ”

“ The inner man is the heart or soul. To be strengthened with might is to be mightily strengthened, much more than they were at present; to be endued with a high degree of grace, and spiritual abilities for discharging duty, resisting temptations, enduring persecutions, &c. And the apostle prays that this may be according to the riches of his glory, or according to his glorious riches—answerable to that great abundance of grace, mercy, and power, which resides in God, and is his glory: and this by his Spirit, who is the immediate worker of grace in the souls of God's people. ”

“ And then refresh your hearts as well as your brains—tired it may be, too often, with the drudgery of some mechanical, or merely calculating, occupation—refresh your hearts, I say, by lifting them up unto the Lord, in truly spiritual, truly heavenly thoughts; which bring nobleness, and trust, and peace, to the humblest and the most hardworked man.
For you can say in your hearts—All the things which I see, are God’s things. They are thoughts of God. God gives them law, and life, and use. ”

“ True being is to live on the spiritual side of life and to manifest the perfection of spiritual being in the personal side of life. Thus the Word becomes flesh and the glory of God is made visible in man. ”

“ Now by these divine and spiritual senses, which are distinct and distinguishable from all the natural faculties of the soul, whether of imagination, or natural reason, spiritual minded men do behold the glory and beauty of God, in respect whereof, and for which, all the glory of this world is despicable to them; yea, even as dross and dung. And they also hear God inwardly speaking in their souls, words truly divine and heavenly, full of virtue and divine life; and the savour and taste of divine things, and do, as it were, handle them with the hands of their souls. ”

“ So believing, so aspiring, so meditating, divinely sweet and beautiful will be your spiritual experiences, and glorious the revelations that will enrapture your inward vision. As you realize the divine Love, the divine Justice, the divine Purity, the Perfect Law of Good, or God, great will be your bliss and deep your peace. ”

“ When once the inward core of things has been grasped and the transforming experience has occurred, making a new man—freed, illuminated, sin-delivered, with "God the Life of the life and the Soul of the soul" [25] —the outward forms and the external things will fall into the right perspective and will receive their proper emphasis. ”

“ Then you are compelled to admit his immediate agency in imparting a spiritual discernment; and an inclination also to receive those truths as the source of your most sacred and elevated joy, which appear to the natural man either as unnecessary or absurd. ”

“ Or religious still even more than they—for those were mental, these spiritual—you beheld there men, whose heads before their time were becoming grey, meditating on their own souls, and in holy hope and humble trust in their Redeemer, if not yet prepared, perpetually preparing themselves for the world to come! ”

“ That is: "The powers of my soul, O my Bridegroom, the eyes by which I can see You, although once fallen and miserable in the vileness of their mean occupations, have merited to look upon You." To look upon God is to do good works in His grace. Thus the powers of the soul merit in adoring because they adore in the grace of God, in which every act is meritorious. ”

“ The spiritual vitality, all the higher powers as we call them, of thought and feeling and conscience, if they be life, no hand but His strung and tuned their manifold and subtle cords. Everywhere there is no life but what He gives. ”

“ When the Spirit comes as the initiator of this abundant life, then we "know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit," and it becomes possible for the Spirit-led person to be guided "into all the truth," to "love even as He loved," and to "overcome the world." ”

“ And yet for those in these days who can "look through the vayle or shell within which the Eternal Spirit works its Wonders," the visible things of the world prove to be "a glasse wherein the similitude of spirituall things are represented" and "the Minde of man is a most clear and undeceiving glasse wherein we may perceive the motions and activities of that Work-Master, the Spirit who hath created everything in the world." ”

“ He demands, first, a fundamental cleavage in the inmost being of man, and a deliverance from the natural view of things; and he contends, secondly, for a spiritual awakening and an energetic endeavour to realise our spiritual resources. ”

“ But from that Divine Love and Wisdom there proceed goodness and truth, which are spiritual heat and light: these flow from the Lord down into the heavens, and into the minds of angels there, and also into the minds of men on earth, giving light to the understanding and warmth to the heart. ”

“ The good receive that Divine life, (for the Divine life, as before shown, is love and wisdom) into a mental organisation or form which is correspondent thereto; they receive that love or spiritual heat, and bring it forth again in the delicious fruits of good and benevolent actions; and they reflect that wisdom or spiritual light in the beautiful lights and colours of true, wise, and sparkling thoughts. ”

“ A heart purified by the grace of God, and firmly rooted in truth as its ground, is the source and common fountain for the successful development of all the main activities and functions of human life, those belonging to the sphere of sense, as well as to the psychical and spiritual realms, and this must more and more manifest itself as such a centre of the personality, sending forth light and life.—Lange’s Commentary. ”

“ They leave us the spiritual—that is, command of the conscience, soul, heart, and judgment—the spiritual—that is, the distribution of heaven’s rewards, and punishments, and pardons—without check, without control, in the secrecy of the confessional—and that dolt, the temporal, has nothing but brute matter for his portion, and yet rubs his paunch for joy. ”

“ Into his spiritual sight will come the Principles of the divine Life, and as he approaches them, their incomparable beauty and majestic symmetry will astonish his vision, and gladden his heart with a gladness hitherto unknown. ”

“ Five they are, and they comprehend all; first prayer, then temperance, alms, poverty, patience. These, performed with longing desire and set purpose, are words of the soul spoken by the Lord and heard by the heart. The Lord works, and then the Spirit speaks without sound, and the heart performs in outward manifestation, in proportion as it desires.
9. And as these virtues contain all virtues, so they are productive of each other. If the first is wanting, there is an end of all. ”

“ Finally, the general influence of Spiritualism on the individual is to inspire him with self-respect, with a love of justice and truth, with a reverence for Divine [401] law, and with a sense of harmony between man, the universe, and God. ”

“ For the more emphasis the soul lays upon what it understands, experiences and imagines, and the more it esteems this, whether it be spiritual or no, the more it loses of the supreme good, and the more it is hindered from attaining thereto. ”

“ Let each give heed to himself, and examine his own conscience at all times, and try the work of his heart, what diligence and striving towards God his mind has; and looking towards the perfect mark, of liberty, and of freedom from passions, and of the Spirit’s rest, let him run without stopping and without sloth, never satisfied with any spiritual gift or with any righteous attainment. ”

“ This influence of individual subjects will be all the greater, of course, the nearer and more intimately they are united with the true centre of the universal spiritual life, the spirit of spirits, about which the universe gravitates, whether with or without the conscious will of the individual. ”

“ This, however, takes place by communication and participation, God Himself effecting it in the soul, for this is "to be transformed in the Three Persons" in power, wisdom, and love, and herein it is that the soul becomes like God, Who, that it might come to this, created it to His own image and likeness. ”

“ And the spiritual men are not called so because there is no flesh in them, but because the Spirit in them has obtained dominance, and when you meet them and have intercourse with them, you feel that the Spirit of God has sanctified them. Ah, let us beware lest the blessing God gives us in our work deceive us and lead us to think that because he has blessed us, we must be spiritual men. God may give us gifts that we use, and yet our lives may not be wholly in the power of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ It is that generous, pure and holy state of the soul which rests in the Lord, which takes home to the heart the spiritual life that He has taught, and which finds its chief pleasure and delight in doing good. ”

“ Thus, by that instinctive and warmly devoted direction of its behaviour which is love, and that willed attention to and communion with the spiritual world which is prayer, all the powers of the self are united and turned towards the seeking and finding of the Eternal. It is by complete obedience to this exacting love, doing difficult and unselfish things, giving up easy and comfortable things—in fact by living, living hard on the highest levels—that men more and more deeply feel, experience, and enter into their spiritual life. ”

“ How, then, should we act on these facts? Plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal. ”

“ If, however, an individual hath spiritual characteristics, and virtues that shine out, and his purpose in life be spiritual and his inclinations be directed toward God, and he also study other branches of knowledge—then we have light upon light:14 outer being luminous, his private character radiant, his heart sound, his thought elevated, his understanding swift, his rank noble. ”

“ Man can be raised therefore from natural knowledge into spiritual intelligence and on into celestial wisdom. From the two, intelligence and wisdom, he can look to the Lord, be conjoined with Him, and thereby live to eternity. ”

“ You, my friend, have taken the first step1 in the spiritual life; you have devoted yourself absolutely to God, to live wholly to his will, under the light and guidance of his holy Spirit, intending, seeking nothing in this world, but such a passage thro’ it as may tend to the glory of God, and the recovery of your own fallen soul. ”

“ As the literal sense is intended for men in a simple, natural state, so the internal or spiritual sense is for those men whose minds are in a more elevated and spiritual state; and also for those who were once men in this world, but are now dwelling in the spiritual world, good and happy—angels of heaven. ”

“ "God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself;—only in Thee I have all"
IN this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual [1] sight of His homely loving. ”

“ We are so accustomed to connect the spiritual with the ideal and invisible, that it will need time and thought and faith to realize how the physical and the sensible influence our spiritual life, and must be under the mastery and inspiration of God’s Spirit. ”

“ The spiritual life contains real life, real power, real wisdom, real love, real harmony, real health, real purity, real peace, real joy, and to develop spirituality is to realize more and more of the real of these things until the perfection of divine being is unfolded and lived in the present personal form. ”

“ If God were to open our eyes to see the spiritual glory of our Lord in His poverty, in His entire renunciation of every thing of worldly comfort or self-pleasing; if we saw the Divine glory of which it is the expression; if we knew how infinitely beautiful it was to all the holy angels, how infinitely well-pleasing to the Father, we should then only in some little degree be able to say whether it was something we ought to desire and imitate. ”

“ To grow in spirituality is to continue perpetually to spiritualize the body, as well as mind and soul, until the visible man is as pure, as strong, as wholesome and as beautiful as the highest state of divine existence. ”

“ In the same way, God and the holy angels are in tears over souls that are not nourished with the heavenly nourishment of the Spirit, and have not come to life in incorruption. These things, I say again, are not merely words that are spoken, but the work of spiritual life, the work of truth accomplished upon the soul that is worthy and faithful. ”

“ They insisted that the Eternal Spirit, who had been educating the race from its birth, bringing all things up to better, and who had used now one symbol and now another to fit the growing spiritual perception of men, is a real Presence in the deeps of men's {45} consciousness, and is ceaselessly voicing Himself there as a living Word whom it is life to obey and death to disregard and slight. ”

“ But, long before the elaboration of this concept of the ruthless Thing, and of its blind Force, Our Lord had, by His Life and Teaching, brought to man, with abidingly unforgettable, divine depth and vividness, the sense of Spirit and Personality, with its liberty and interiority, its far-looking wisdom and its regenerating, creative power of love. ”

“ We have now to describe the detachment and purity of the three faculties of the soul and for this are necessary a far greater knowledge and spirituality than mine, in order to make clear to spiritual persons how strait is this road which, said Our Saviour, leads to life; so that, persuaded of this, they may not marvel at the emptiness and detachment to which, in this night, we have to abandon the faculties of the soul. ”

“ In linking holy and without blemish (or without blame) so closely, the Holy Spirit would have led us to seek [p222] for the embodiment of holiness as a spiritual power in the blamelessness of practice and of daily life. ”