Henry Scougal

He could not therefore solve his new friend's aching problem, but he could lend him the books that he himself was reading, and he did.

The book that Charles Wesley lent George Whitfield was Henry Scougal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

He read it with amazement and delight.

It told him exactly what he longed to know.

Salvation, first and foremost, is integration into the life of God.

As the great Anglican Reverend Henry Scougal says in Life of God in the Soul of Man, "Religion is, at its root, a participation in the divine life." And so salvation encompasses that great process by which men and women are enfolded into the life of God and continually take on his life so that it wells up into salvation.

This sounds a great deal actually like theosis for Eastern Orthodox listeners.

On this score, we should say that there isn't a very strong disagreement between Rome, the East, and Protestants as to what salvation is, at least for classical Protestants.

that they have been born again, that there has been an awakening in their mind and in their heart as they have been united together with the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore have a union with the Father in heaven.

Henry Scougal, An ancient writer, he wrote a book called The Life of God in the Soul of Man.

And that's how he described the true center, the heartbeat, what marks a true believer of God, what marks a true Christian, is when you have the life of God, the divine life in the soul of man, where we become partakers, even as it mentions in Peter, of the divine nature, where there's a union together with God and with man.

Now the Bible seeks to take the same idea of this radical conversion, this joining together between us and God, by describing it with several different words and different metaphors.