The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 39 pages of information about The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life.

The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 39 pages of information about The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life.

Let all our employment be to know GOD:  the more one knows Him, the more one desires to know Him.  And as knowledge is commonly the measure of love, the deeper and more extensive our knowledge shall be, the greater will be our love:  and if our love of GOD were great, we should love Him equally in pains and pleasures.

Let us not content ourselves with loving GOD for the mere sensible favors, how elevated soever, which he has done, or may do us.  Such favors, though never so great, cannot bring us so near to Him as faith does in one simple act.  Let us seek Him often by faith.  He is within us:  seek Him not elsewhere.  If we do love Him alone, are we not rude, and do we not deserve blame, if we busy ourselves about trifles which do not please and perhaps offend Him.  It is to be feared these trifles will one day cost us dear.

Let us begin to be devoted to Him in good earnest.  Let us cast everything besides out of our hearts.  He would possess them alone.  Beg this favor of Him.  If we do what we can on our parts, we shall soon see that change wrought in us which we aspire after.  I cannot thank Him sufficiently for the relaxation He has vouchsafed you.  I hope from His mercy the favor to see Him within a few days.[4] Let us pray for one another.

I am, in our LORD, Yours, &c.

NOTES: 

[1:  Gal. i, 10; Eph. vi, 5, 6.]

[2:  The particulars which follow are collected from other accounts of Brother Lawrence.]

[3:  I suppose he means that all distinct notions he could form of GOD, were unsatisfactory, because he perceived them to be unworthy of GOD; and therefore his mind was not to be satisfied but by the views of faith, which apprehend GOD as infinite and incomprehensible, as He is in Himself, and not as He can be conceived by human ideas.]

[4:  He took to his bed two days after, and died within the week.]

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The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.