If his spirit has become one with God's spirit, then all he has to do is to feel as God feels; — which he does by a natural sympathy rather than by a constrained voluntary effort. And so true is this, that God, operating by the gentle attractions, and by the ebbing and flowing of divine love, almost seems to take his place, and to feel for him.

He wills, it is further remarked by the writer just now referred to, "without willing." That is to say, his will, freed from selfish impulses, and from the power of antecedent habits, operates so harmoniously with the Universal Will, that the two wills, not physically, but morally, are made one. And he wills as if another willed in his stead.

6. And is not a man who thus thinks without thinking, feels without feeling, and wills without willing, by the loss of his own thoughts, feelings, and volitions, in the thoughts, affections, and purposes of God, is not such a man truly characterized by simplicity of spirit? It is sometimes said of the truly renovated and sanctified man, that he has become a child. And it may well be asked, who is or can be more a child than the man we have just described? The child thinks as his father thinks, feels as his father feels, wills as his father wills. And it is this, much more than his physical likeness, which makes him the true child. He is sometimes taunted with that which constitutes his true honor, namely, that he dares not think for himself, nor feel nor will for himself, but that he is just as his father is. The child of God, also, is just as his Father is. It is this, more than anything else, which makes him the true child. And as the Father establishes, or makes Providence, the child harmonizes with Providence; and it is much the same thing to say, that he is the child of Providence, and to say that he is the child of God. In either case, he

is a child, and a child is SIMPLE; that is to say, he has that simplicity of spirit, which makes him think, feel, and will, as another thinks, feels, and wills. In his simplicity, not knowing which way to direct his steps, he goes as he is led. God leads him. From the hand of God's providence he receives his daily food. The same Providence which leads him, feeds him. All things and all events are his teachers, because God is in them. He BELIEVES, and God takes care of him.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THE UNION OF GOD AND MAN IN PROVIDENCE.

Union with Providence is union with God. The unsanctified or sinful man at variance with both. - Union with God in Providence implies union with God in outward nature. — Illustrations of this view.On turning from God. - Remarks.

Ir will be seen, on a little examination, that the result of these views in relation to Providence must be, that harmony with Providence is union with God. As the law of Providence is only another expression for God's will, as that will is exhibited in connection with his providences, the man who lives in conformity with Providence necessarily lives in conformity with God.

2. This certainly cannot be said of the natural or unholy man. It is impossible that it should be. Living in the breath and heat of his own desires, in his own will and out of God's will, he is not more discordant with Providence, than with the Author of Providence. There is a perpetual conflict. Full of his own objects and purposes, he desires health, but God sends sickness; he desires riches, but God sends poverty; he desires ease, but God imposes activity and labor; he desires honor, but God sends degradation. Or, if God sends the objects of his desire, giving him health, wealth, and honor, he still complains of the way in which they are sent; or if he is satisfied with the way in which they are sent, he is not satisfied with the degrees. There will always be found a divergency, a want of harmony somewhere. It is impossible that they should walk together.

3. It is very different with the truly holy man, to whom God's providences are dear. In conforming to the law of Providence, he obeys the law which secures efficacy and application to every other law. The law of God, for instance, requires us to reprove sin in our neighbor; but unless we are guided in doing it by the providential law, we shall be likely to do more evil than good. If we reprove him without regard to time and place, if we take an occasion to do it which will unnecessarily expose him to contempt and injury from others, while he is made the subject of our own reprehensions, we shall obviously fail of our object.

The law of God requires us to do good, by speaking to impenitent persons on the subject of religion. But this requisition must be carried into effect, in connection with the law of Providence; in accordance with the appropriateness of time, place, the presence or absence of friends, and all other circumstances which are naturally or necessarily involved.

The law of God requires us to be benevolent; but benevolence, without regard to the adjustments and claims of Providence, is not benevolence, but prodigality; in other words, it is unbelieving and unacceptable wastefulness. We are to consult God's will in the manner of giving. as much as in the fact of giving. His written law requires the fact; - his providential law indicates the manner. A failure in the latter, if it is intentional, vitiates and annuls the obedience of the former.

The law of God requires us to be submissive and acquiescent under those afflictions which from time to time come upon us. But submission to afflictions, without recognizing God's providential foresight and arrangements in sending them, is mere acquiescence in unavoida

ble events, and not acquiescence in God's wise and just agency; it is the submission of a brute animal, and not the submission of a Christian.

4. It is hardly necessary to say anything in addition to what has already been intimated in various places, to show the importance of keeping steady to the line of Providence. It is when we are in this position, and only when we are in this position, that we may be said to walk with God; and walking with God is union with God.

5. Providence, expansive as the agency of the Divine Mind, includes things as well as events, material nature as well as human action. To be in harmony, therefore, with God's Providence, we must be in harmony with everything;-not excepting the material world. It is true, that things inanimate have no life in themselves; but they are the residence of a living mind. We might almost say, in a mitigated sense of the terms, that every thing, not excluding objects the most remote from moral intelligence, becomes God to us. There is no grass, no flower, no tree, no insect, no creeping thing, no singing bird, nothing which does not bring God with it, and in such a manner that the thing which we behold becomes a clear and bright revelation of that which is invisible.

6. We go, for instance, into a garden and pluck a flower; and, as we permit our eye to wander over it, and to behold the various elements of its graceful beauty, we not only see the flower, but the eye of faith, making a telescope of the bodily eye, and reading the invisible in the visible, sees, also, the God of the flower. Often has the devout Christian, in all ages of the world, used expressions, which indicate the fact of this divine perception. "The God, whom I love," he says, "shines