6/22/14

Jeremy Taylor on the Kingdom in our hearts

Here is a good reflection for us as we've recently celebrated Pentecost and Trinity Sunday:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God...?
-2 Corinthians 6:19 (NRSV)

...for behold, the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you
-Luke 17:21 (ESV)

...For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.  Amen.
-Matthew 6:13 (KJV)

God is especially present in the hearts of his people, by his Holy Spirit: and indeed the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and, in type and shadow, they are heaven itself.  For God reigns in the hearts of his servants: there is his kingdom.  The power of grace has subdued all his enemies: there is his power.  They serve him night and day, and give him thanks and praise: that is his glory.  This is the religion and worship of God in the temple.  The temple itself is the heart of man; Christ is the High Priest, who from there sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to his own intercession, and presents all together to his Father; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling there, has also consecrated it into a temple; and God dwells in our hearts by faith, and Christ by his Spirit, and the Spirit by his purities; so that we are also cabinets of the mysterious Trinity; and what is this short of heaven itself, but as infancy is short of manhood, and letters of words?  The same state of life it is, but not the same age.  It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but yet true, representing the beauties of the soul, and the graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory, by the reality of a special Presence.

-Jeremy Taylor (17th Century Anglican bishop and spiritual writer)

Methodists out there should note that Jeremy Taylor's work was much-admired by John Wesley who included Taylor in his essential Christian Library.

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