Re: Italian premier might resign

[United Press International]

of them enjoy, give a new relish to
their common blessings, and cause all things about them to appear as it
were beautiful, sweet, and pleasant. All things abroad, the sun, moon,
and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were
with a divine glory and sweetness upon them. Though this joy includes in
it a delightful sense of the safety of their own state, yet frequently,
in times of their highest spiritual entertainment, this seems not to be
the chief object of their fixed thought and meditation. The supreme
attention of their minds is to the glorious excellencies of God and
Christ; and there is very often a ravishing sense of God's love
accompanying a sense of His excellency. They rejoice in a sense of the
faithfulness of God's promises, as they respect the future eternal
enjoyment of Him.

The unparalleled joy that many of them speak of, is what they find when
they are lowest in the dust, emptied most of themselves, and as it were
annihilating themselves before God; when they are nothing, and God is
all; seeing their own unworthiness, depending not at all on themselves,
but alone on Christ, and ascribing all glory to God. Then their souls
are most in the enjoyment of satisfying rest; excepting that, at such
times, they apprehend themselves to be not sufficiently self-abased; for
then above all times do they

[United Press International]

reveals God, and it
is not true that all conceals God. But it is at the same time true that He
hides Himself from those who tempt Him, and that He reveals Himself to those
who seek Him, because men are both unworthy and capable of God; unworthy by
their corruption, capable by their original nature.

558. What shall we conclude from all our darkness, but our unworthiness?

559. If there never had been any appearance of God, this eternal deprivation
would have been equivocal, and might have as well corresponded with the
absence of all divinity, as with the unworthiness of men to know Him; but
His occasional, though not continual, appearances remove the ambiguity. If
He appeared once, He exists always; and thus we cannot but conclude both
that there is a God and that men are unworthy of Him.

560. We do not understand the glorious state of Adam, nor the nature of his
sin, nor the transmission of it to us. These are matters which took place
under conditions of a nature altogether different from our ow