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"That is enough for the present. It is mercy, blessedness, and justice. . . . Consider, it was night He chose in order to unveil the Kingdom of Heaven. For it is not visible to the outward eye, but to the inward eye. Man, if you possess the Kingdom of Heaven, you possess it in your soul. If it is not there, you seek it elsewhere in vain."
But in the hymns of Lorenzo, which we are tempted to regard as the highest product of the spirit of this school, an unreserved Theism is set forth a Theism which strives to treat the world as a great moral and physical Cosmos. The soul of man can by recognizing God draw Him into its narrow boundaries, but also by love of Him expand itself into the Infinite and this is blessedness on earth.
"Heaven is very merciful," said Corona, thinking it necessary to make some such remark. "Oh, I know," answered Flavia, with sudden seriousness. "I know. But poor papa you see I am afraid " She stopped significantly and shook her head, evidently implying that Prince Montevarchi's chances of blessedness were but slender. "Flavia!" cried Faustina indignantly, "how can you say such things!"
The Christian can believe past doubt, that "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" that "with what judgment we judge, we shall be judged; and with what measure we mete, it shall be measured to us again." But the infidel has no foundation for such a faith. For anything he knows, a man may sow villany, and reap honor and blessedness.
And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of blessedness and holiness; just as all evil spirits have lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life, and be something in themselves and of themselves without respect to God.
So, then, our highest good not only depends on the knowledge of God, but wholly consists therein; and it further follows that man is perfect or the reverse in proportion to the nature and perfection of the object of his special desire; hence the most perfect and the chief sharer in the highest blessedness is he who prizes above all else, and takes especial delight in the intellectual knowledge of God, the most perfect Being.
"I will laugh at their calamity; I will mock when their fear cometh." Barren fig-tree, thou hast heretofore been digged about; God's mattock has heretofore been at thy roots; thou hast heretofore been striven with, convinced, awakened, made to taste and see, and cry, O the blessedness!
Her soul is almost joyous and serene; she has suffered so much, and for her to sink into death is truly blessedness! She has passed the undisturbed hours of the night in writing to her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and this letter is also the queen's testament.
But he does not rely on this only: he notices sins as actually existing; he mingles the language of reproof and of anxiety, so as to make it quite clear that he did not mean his descriptions of their holiness and blessedness to apply to them all necessarily; he knew full well that they did not: but yet he knew also that, considering what God had done for them, it was monstrous that they should not be truly applicable.
When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death in Fairy Land, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope in it, I often think of the wise woman in the cottage, and of her solemn assurance that she knew something too good to be told.
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