eceive much, and often interrupt me by speaking, which causes
in me a vacillation of grace. If we were together some considerable
time without distraction, you would perceive more marked results. It
is the desire of God that there should be, between us, perfect
interchange of thoughts, of hearts, of souls;--a flux and reflux, such
as there will be when souls are new-created in Christ Jesus. At
present, my soul in rotation to yours, is as a river which enters into
the sea, to draw and invite the smaller river to lose itself also in
the sea.
This truth,--the fruitfulness of souls who are in God, whereby they
communicate grace,--however much it is rejected, is, nevertheless, a
truth. This flux and reflux of communication, like the ebbing and
flowing of the great ocean-current, is the secret of the heavenly
hierarchy, and makes a communication from superior orders to
inferior,--and of equality, between angels of the same order.
During all eternity, the communication of God the Father, and the Son,
to angels and saints, and their reciprocal communication to each other,
will be a well-spring of blessedness. The design of God, in the
creation of men, has been to associate to himself living beings, to
whom he could communicate himself. He could create nothing greater
than likenesses of himself. All the splendor of angels and saints, is
but light reflected from God.
God could not see himself reflected in saints, without their
participating of these two qualities, fruitfulness and reciprocal
communication. In this life all perfection consists, in that which
makes the consummation of this same perfection in heaven, No one can be
perfect, if he is not perfect _as_ the Father in heaven is perfect;
that is, partaking of his nature.
Jesus Christ is the Father of souls; his generation, or the souls that
are begotten of him, are eternal in their nature as he is. The figure,
"giving us his flesh to eat," is the nourishment he gives the soul in
communication with himself; or himself reproduced, or begotten in us.
The eternal Word is the essential, undying life of the soul.
DESOLATE STATE.
Believe me, dear madam, I take a deep interest in your spiritual
welfare, and I earnestly hope your confidence in God will not fail, on
account of your present desolate state. As the winter plunges still
deeper the roots of the trees in the earth, so the wintry state of the
soul plunges it deeper in humiliation. Remember the
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