Scripture: "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:"—Romans viii. 16
" All that is called Divine goodness and virtue in the creature is nothing else but the one goodness of God manifesting a discovery of itself in the creature. This is the unalterable state between God and the creature, according as its created nature is fitted to receive it. Goodness, for ever and ever, can only be long to God as essential to Him, and inseparable from Him, as His own unity.
"But if now all that is glorious and happy in the spirit and enjoyment of the creature is only so much of the glory and blessedness of God dwelling in it, then we may infallibly see the true nature of all true religion. For the creature's true religion is its 'rendering to God all that is God's'; its true continual acknowledging that all which it is and has, is in and from God alone.
"The one relation, which is the ground alone of all true religion, is this ; it is o total unalterable dependence on God, an immediate continual receiving of every degree of goodness and happiness from God alone.
"The angels are ever abiding flames of pure love, always ascending up to and uniting with God, because the glory, the love, and goodness of God alone, is all that they see and know, either within or without themselves. Their adoration in spirit and in truth never ceases, because they never cease to acknowledge THE ALL of God ; — THE ALL of God in themselves, and THE ALL of God in the whole creation. This is the one religion of heaven, and nothing else is the truth of religion on earth.
"Nothing can be the good of religion, but the power and presence of God really and essentially living and working in it. So that the creature must have all its religious goodness as wholly and solely from God's immediate operation, as it had its first goodness at its creation."
Blessed Father/ we thank Thee for that wonderful relationship to Thyself for which Thou didst create tts. And we thank Thee still more for that wonderful Redemption which has restored us by the gift of the Holy Spirit into that blessed union and communion with Thyself, in which Thou wilt enable us always to live. We humbly pray Thee ever to keep this in the thought of the heart of Thy people.
