Man is an instrument of life, and God alone is life. God pours His
life into His instrument and every part of him, as the sun pours its
heat into a tree and every part of it. God also gives man to feel this
life in himself as his own. God wills that he should do so, that man
may live as of himself according to the laws of order, which are as
many as there are precepts in the Word, and may dispose himself to
receive the love of God. But still God perpetually holds with His
finger the perpendicular above the scales, and regulates, but never
violates by compulsion, man's free decision. Man's free will is from
this: that he feels life in himself as his, and God leaves him so to
feel, that reciprocal conjunction may take place between Him and man.
--_True Christian Religion, n._ 504
"ABIDE IN ME"
Man is so created that he can be more and more closely united to the
Lord. He is so united not by knowledge alone, nor by intelligence
alone, nor even by wisdom alone, but by a life in accordance with
these. The more closely he is united to the Lord, the wiser and
happier he becomes, the more distinctly he seems to himself to be his
own, and the more clearly he perceives that he is the Lord's.
--_Divine Providence, nn._ 32 _et al._