Could the angel see a _spark_ of wisdom, goodness, or excellence, as coming from, or belonging to _itself_, its place in heaven would be lost, as sure as _Lucifer_ lost his. But they are ever abiding flames of pure love, always ascending up to, and uniting with God, for this reason, because the wisdom, the power, the glory, the majesty, the love, and goodness of God _alone_, is all that they see, and feel, and know, either within, or without themselves.――Songs of praise to their heavenly Father, are their ravishing delight, because they see, and know, and feel, that it is the _breath_ and _spirit_ of their heavenly Father that _sings_ and _rejoices_ in them.――Their adoration in spirit and in truth never ceases, because they never cease to acknowledge the ALL of God;――the ALL of God in themselves, and the ALL of God in the whole creation. This is the one religion of heaven, and nothing else is the truth of religion on earth.
The matter plainly comes to this. Nothing can be _religion_ to the intelligent creature, but the power and presence of God, _really_ and _essentially_ living and working in it. But if this be the unchangeable nature of religion, then of necessity the creature must have all its _religious_ goodness, as wholly and solely from God’s _immediate operation_, as it had its first goodness at its creation. And it is the same impossibility for the creature to help itself to religion, by any contrivance, reasonings, or workings of its own natural powers, as to create itself. For the creature after its creation, can no more take any thing to itself, that belongs to God, than it could take it before it was created. And as the natural powers of the creature could only come from the _one power_ of God, so _that_ which _comforts_, which _enlightens_, which _blesses_, which gives peace, joy, goodness, and rest to its natural powers, can be had in no other way, nor by any other thing, but from God’s immediate, holy operation in it.
All true religion is, an essential union, and communion of the spirit of the creature, with the Spirit of the Creator: God in it, and it in God, one life, one light, one love. The Spirit of God first sows the seed of divine union in the soul of every man; and religion is, _that_, by which it is quickened, and brought to a fullness of life in God.――Take a similitude of this.――The beginning of animal breath, springs in the creature from the Spirit of this world, and the respiration, keeps up an essential union of the animal life with the spirit of this world. In like manner, faith, hope, love, and resignation to God, are in the religious life, its acts of respiration, which unite God and the creature, in the same essential manner, as animal respiration, unites the breath of the animal, with the breath of this world.
*Now as no animal could _begin_ to respire, but because it had its beginning to breathe, from the air of this world, so no creature, angel or man, could _begin_ to be religious, or breathe forth faith, love, and desire towards God, but because these divine affections were by the Spirit of God begotten in it.――And as a tree or plant can only grow, and fructify by the same power, that first gave birth to the seed, so faith, and hope, and love towards God, can only grow, and fructify by the same power, that begat the first seed of them in the soul. Therefore divine, immediate inspiration, and religion, are inseparable in the nature of the thing.
Take away _inspiration_, or suppose it to cease, and no religious acts, or affections can remain. For the creature can return nothing to God, but _that_, which it has first received from him; therefore, if it is to offer up to God, affections and aspirations, that are divine and godly, it must of necessity have the divine nature living, and breathing in it.――Can any thing reflect light, before it has received it, or any other light, than that which it has received? Can any creature breathe forth _earthly_ or _diabolical_ affections, before it is possessed of an _earthly_, or _diabolical_ nature? Yet this is as possible, as for any creature to have divine affections dwelling in it, either _before_, or any _farther_, than it has, the divine nature, dwelling, and operating in it.