The Complete Works of Hannah More - 1847 Author:Hannah More Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: engagement with his creatures, -- he condescended to stipulate with the work of his hands ! But the consummation of his goodness was reserved for his work of... more » redemption. Here he not only performed the office, but assumed the name of Love ; a name with which, notwithstanding all his preceding wonders of providence and grace, he was never invested till after the completion of this last, greatest act: -- an act towards his pardoned rebels, not only of indemnity, but promotion ;- -- an act which the angels desire to scrutinize, and which man will never fully comprehend till he enters on that beatitude to which it has introduced him. CHAP. IV. " Thy will be done." To desire to know the divine will is the first duty of a being so ignorant as man; to endeavor to obey it is the most indispensable duty of a being at once so corrupt and so dependent. The Holy Scriptures frequently comprise the essence of the Christian temper in some short aphorism, apostrophe, or definition. The essential spirit of the Christian life may be said to be included in this one brief petition of the Christian's prayer, " Thy Will Be Done ;" just as the distinguishing characteristic of the irreligious may be said to consist in following his own will. There is a haughty spirit which, though it will not complain, does not care to submit. It arrogates to itself the dignity of enduring, without any claim to the meekness of yielding. Its silence is stubbornness, its fortitude is pride ; its calmness is apathy without, and discontent within. In such characters it is not so much the will of God which is the rule of conduct, as the scorn of pusillanimity. Not seldom indeed the mind puts in a claim for a merit to which the nerves could make out a better title. Yet the suffering which arises from acute feeli...« less