Manning: the celestial foundation

Wednesday, September 26, 2018
    Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942
Meditation:
    I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.
    —2 Corinthians 12:2-4 (NIV)
Quotation:
    There is [in these Wesleyan hymns] the solid structure of historic dogma; there is the passionate thrill of present experience; but there is, too, the glory of a mystic sunlight coming directly from another world. This transfigures history and experience. This puts past and present into the timeless, eternal NOW. This brings together God and man until Wesley talks with God as a man talks with his friend. This gives to the hymn-book its divine audacity, those passages only to be understood by such as have sat in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and, being caught up into paradise, have heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
    ... Bernard Lord Manning (1892-1941), The Hymns of Wesley and Watts, London: Epworth Press, 1942, p. 29 (see the book)
    See also 2 Cor. 12:2-4; Isa. 6:1-4; Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16; Heb. 11:5; Jas. 5:13; Rev. 2:7; 7:16-17
Quiet time reflection:
    Lord, make me to know the inexpressible joy of Your life in me. CQOD    Blog    email    RSS
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