Inward Crucifixion and False Self-Confidence

We have already, without referring to the subject [of inward crucifixion] by name, in part explained what is to be understood by inward crucifixion in the remarks, which have been made upon the suppression of the inordinate exercises of the appetites and affections. Such appetites and affections, without being extinguished, are reduced to their true position; and are no longer the recipients of any life or any law but what comes from God. But this is not all; nor is it a principal part of what is implied in it. 

The process of inward crucifixion destroys and removes many other evils, to which our nature is exposed. Without going into a full detail of them, we may be allowed to say, among other things that it implies the destruction and removal of that feeling of SELF-CONFIDENCE, which is so natural to the heart that is not fully the Lord’s. Least of all things does the man, who has undergone the process of inward crucifixion, place a high estimate, a self-confident estimate, on his own strength, his own perseverance, his own wisdom. Every feeling of that kind, which once characterized his proud nature, has passed away. So much so, that, so far from cherishing them, even the recollection of them is painful.

 — from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 12.

 

Inward Crucifixion and Suffering

The term crucifixion implies suffering. The crucifixion of our inward nature cannot take place without the experience of suffering. The suffering, which we experience, is mental, and is analogous to that, which we experience at any and all times, when our desires are crossed and disappointed. It is the pain or suffering of ceasing to be what we have been by nature, and what by nature we have loved to be. A desire, a love, a passion, disappointed of its object, is always a sufferer. Such is the natural law in the case. And the intensity of the pain will be in proportion to the intensity of the passion. If we loved the world with but little strength, if we were bound to it but by slight adhesion, the process, which sunders this attachment, and disappoints this love, would give but slight pain. But bound as we are in fact with a tie which reaches forth from the heart to its object with the first moment of life, and which grows stronger and stronger with every pulsation, until it embodies, if we may so express it, the whole strength of the soul, the pain of separation, which corresponds to the strength of the previous attachment, is keen and intense indeed. The suffering of a parent, who sees all his attachments and hopes expiring in the death of a beloved child, are not keener. Hence in experiencing the new inward life, we are said to be crucified to that which went before; not only because we die to it, but because in dying to it we suffer.

Inward Crucifixion

A soul, right with God, is a soul crucified. A soul right with God, is a soul, which, in having undergone a painful death to every worldly tie, is a soul, which may be described, in the figurative sense, as being nailed to the cross. The crucifixion of the outward life, by a separation from outward error, and by doing right outwardly, is of far less consequence, in itself considered, and far less painful than the crucifixion of the inward life by doing and being right inwardly.

The subject of inward crucifixion is one of no small interest and importance. It is a subject, which very seldom fails to receive a due share of notice in those devout writers, who have endeavored to analyze and explain Christian experience. In some writers, especially that remarkable class who are usually denominated the Mystics, and are so denominated, more than for any other reason, in consequence of their insisting so much on a new spiritual life in distinction from the old sensual life, it is a theme of especial interest and remark. Some of these writers, particularly Tauler, John of the Cross, Canfield, Catharine of Genoa, and Madame Guyon, denounce the natural life, the Old Adam, as they sometimes denominate man’s fallen nature, with an unsparing, unmitigated eloquence, which, as it seems to us, finds no parallel except in the solemn and overwhelming denunciations of the Scriptures. They attack it with the weapons of argument also, and with a keen and hostile inspection, as well as with denunciation. They pursue it into its hidden places. They detect it under its hidden disguises. They reject all its excuses, all its flattering speeches, all its insinuating applications for a little forbearance, a little lenity. They are not satisfied, because they think and know, that God is not satisfied, until they see it dying and dead on the Cross. “If any man,” says the Savior, “will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23. The Apostle Paul says, referring to the trials he was called to endure, “I die daily.”

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 12.

The Prayer of Faith Leads Us Aright

It is the prayer of faith, therefore, involving, of course, an act of an entire consecration to God, which possesses the wonderful prerogative of leading us into the right, without knowledge, and even against knowledge. And hence it is, on the principles which have been laid down, that God, who always requires us to do what is right, so often shuts up the avenues of knowledge in particular cases of conduct, that we may do right by faith without knowledge. Faith is God’s light in the soul; and he may be said, in a multitude of cases, to extinguish the light of knowledge, that he may kindle up the light of faith.

We are aware, that it may appear extraordinary to some persons, to speak of doing right by faith without knowledge. But delay a moment, and notice the precise import of these expressions, which obviously convey a great truth. What, then, is their true meaning? It is precisely this. In those cases, where we are destitute of positive knowledge, we must form the best judgment we are able, looking to God with sincerity and singleness of purpose and in full faith also, that he will guide us aright. And the judgment which is formed under such circumstances, although it rests upon faith, and never in itself ascends above probability, yet becomes practically, and in the moral sense, KNOWLEDGE. That is to say, it answers the purpose of knowledge; and without being knowledge really, it is knowledge virtually.

Knowing God's Will through Faith, Consecration, and Prayer

Faith is the one great law of the life of holy beings. Like the law of attraction, which is universal and reaches every particle of matter, however minute and however remote, it reaches and keeps in its position every moral being that is united to God as its centre. But it is hardly necessary to add, that the very nature of faith implies, that it is antagonistical to open knowledge. God, therefore, in a multitude of cases does not design, (and such is the difference between the finite and the infinite, that he cannot design,) that we should live by such knowledge.

What, then, shall be done? If God does not reveal his will as a matter of positive knowledge, how can we be expected to walk in it? The doctrine of the life of faith precisely meets these inquiries. 

But in ascribing the answer to inquiries of this kind to Faith, inquiries which constantly arise in connection with the duties and the trials of life, we should remember, among other things, that a life of true faith is a life of entire consecration. And in this state of consecration, which always and necessarily implies a freedom from prejudice and all personal influence, we come and present the case of difficulty, whatever it may be, before God. With simplicity or singleness of heart, in other words, with the single motive of doing his will, we supplicate his direction. And while we are thus seeking the divine guidance, we also exercise those powers of reflection and judgment, which our heavenly Father has given us for the express purpose of being faithfully and conscientiously employed on their appropriate occasions. Under these circumstances, let us decide as we will, let us turn to the right or the left, let us advance or retreat, it is our privilege and our duty to believe, that we take the right course: in a single word, that we are right, because the Lord guides us.

In adopting this view, and in making these remarks, it will be naturally understood that we mean the right course in the moral sense of the terms. The prayer for divine direction, offered up in the spirit of consecration, which implies a heart wholly given to God, and offered up also in entire faith, which receives the promises of God without wavering, necessarily involves the result, that the course taken, whether it be conformed to natural wisdom or not, and is attended with the best natural results or not, is morally the right course, and is entirely acceptable to God. A man in that state of mind may commit a physical or prudential error; he may perhaps take a course which will be followed by the loss of his property or an injury to his person, but he cannot commit a moral error. That is to say, he cannot commit an error, which, under the adjustments and pledges of the Gospel, will bring him into a state of moral condemnation, and will have the effect to separate him from God and God’s favor. The mistakes of judgment, if any such exist, are compensated by the rectitude of the heart. The humble and sincere uprightness, which exists there, taken in connection with the arrangements and promises of God, cannot fail to rectify and to make every thing well in the end.

— from: The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 11.

Knowing the Will of God by Faith

It is difficult to appreciate too highly the value, which we should attach to the will of God; a will which is always consonant with the highest rectitude, and always tends to the highest happiness. And it is equally difficult to state too strongly the obligation, which rests upon every individual, to bring every thought and feeling and action of his life into harmony with the divine will. Many persons appear to admit the existence of this obligation in its full extent, while they assert their inability to fulfill it, on the ground, that in particular cases and instances of duty they frequently do not know what the will of God is. They are willing to do what God wills; but their willingness is rendered unavailable by their ignorance. It is true, that a judgment enlightened by God’s Holy Spirit, will do much; and yet much remains to be done. They may know something: and yet much more remains to be known. This exceedingly perplexes them.

The doctrine of faith, considered in certain applications and results, precisely and adequately meets this difficulty.

Hinderances to Good Judgment: Judging Others

Faith in the heart is the true regulator of that disposition, so widely prevalent, and oftentimes so unjust and so dangerous, of judging the characters of our fellowmen. The judgment of men’s conduct and characters, if it be a just and full judgment, implies the additional fact of a judgment of their motives. But if men are baffled in their inquiries into the nature of a tree or plant, of a drop of water or a grain of sand, ought they not to distrust their powers and to be slow in their decisions, in a matter so remote from direct observation and involving so many elements, as the judgment of human motives. If there be any one thing, which may properly be described as God’s prerogative, it is that of judging the heart. 

The man, who has faith in God, will not be hasty in passing a judgment upon the characters of his fellow-men, because faith is the natural and only effectual extinguisher of those various rivalships and jealousies, which are the frequent and injurious sources of hasty judgment. Nor is this all. He will not judge in this hasty manner also, because he feels that God’s command, to which faith gives a practical import and power of which it would otherwise be destitute, is binding upon him. “JUDGE NOT, THAT YE BE NOT JUDGED; for, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

— From The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 10.

Good Judgment & Living by the Moment

The doctrine of religious faith involves the doctrine of living by the moment; that is to say, of giving to the present moment the whole amount of our present powers, on the obvious ground of its involving the whole amount of present duty. In other words, a living faith, resulting as it does in a holy heart and life, tends to prevent mental dissipation, and to fix the mind upon one object, the appropriate and all important object, namely, that which the present moment brings before it. Such a mind necessarily forms the habit of strict and profound attention. It is not perplexed in its action by a frequent tendency to fly off from its present inquiries, and to bewilder itself in other subjects which are not connected with them. It is superfluous to say, that such a state of mind is exceedingly favorable in the investigation of the truth. The mind, that is capable of fully giving its attention, other things being equal, will be much more correct in its judgments than other minds.

— From The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 10.

Hinderances to Correct Judgment: The Pride of Human Intellect

One of the favorable effects of faith on the exercise of the judgment is, that it is adverse to the pride of human intellect. When we speak of faith in God, we mean God as he is; not a God who is dwindled down to the compass of man’s imagination, but God as he is; God illimitable, God omnipotent, God who reveals himself in every thing that is made, but who in every thing that is made indicates also that there is something not revealed, and something which cannot be revealed. The pride of human intellect cannot stand in the light of such a presence. The man of true religious faith, the man who has faith, not in the idol of his own imagination, but in God as he is, reverting from the Infinite Mind to his own mind, begins at once to feel that he has no intellectual strength, no true wisdom, no purity of love, and no foundation of hope, except what he derives from a divine source. “The most enlightened of men,” says Robert Hall, “have always been the first to perceive and acknowledge the remaining obscurity, which hung around them; just as, in the night, the further a light extends, the wider the surrounding sphere of darkness appears. Hence it has always been observed, that the most profound inquirers into nature have been the most modest and humble.

Hinderances to Correct Judgment: “Empressement.”

One of those things, which are unfavorable to sound judgment, is an undue eagerness, a precipitancy of spirit, which looks earnestly and interestedly to the end without a suitable consideration of the intermediate steps; a state of mind, which the French spiritual writers happily denominate by the single term, “empressement.” 

Christian faith not only removes that undue excitement, which has already been mentioned, and which may arise from a variety of causes; but is also, as it seems to us, the best and only sure corrective of this unseemly and dangerous urgency; this ZEAL of NATURE, if we may so designate it, in distinction from the pure and calm zeal of grace. 

The truth is hidden in God; IN him, OF him, and FROM him; in him because God is true; of him, because all things that come from God are characterized as they come from his hand by being made in the truth; from him, because all beings that desire and seek the truth, must look to him for it. To the truth, therefore, God can never be indifferent; neither to its nature, nor its dissemination, nor its results. And he, who has faith in God as the source of light to all that seek light, as the giver of truth to all that humbly seek the truth, will find no difficulty in being patient, in delaying his conclusions when there is a want of adequate evidence, in reflecting, comparing, and praying for divine guidance. The perceptive and judging powers, exercised under such circumstances, can hardly fail to ascertain the truth. Not the absolute truth always, which implies a knowledge of all possible facts and relations; in other words, not the whole or all possible truth always; but the TRUTH; that kind of truth and that degree of truth, be it more or less, which God in his beneficence and wisdom sees to be precisely fitted to our intellectual capacities and our moral wants; that truth, which the Savior declared to those who believed on him, should make them free. “Then said Jesus to those Jews which BELIEVED on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31, 32.

— From The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 10.