Freed From the Fear of Other People

The man, in whom the divine nature is reconstituted, is freed from the fear of his fellow-man. It is one of the artifices of Satan to attack holy men through the aids of those who are unholy; by employing their lips in the utterance of evil surmises and falsehoods, and sometimes by exciting them to more open attacks. The holy man leaves his cause with God. He would not plead it himself if he could. He stands without fear, as Christ did before the bar of Pilate, in the sublimity of  a triumphant silence. He rejoices in spirit, knowing that, at the appointed time, when faith and patience have had their perfect work, he shall hear the voice of his own great Defender.

Nay more, armies of men, as well as individuals, have ceased to cause terror. Dungeons, which nations have erected, bring no alarm. He has no fear, because he finds the defense of the future in the history of the past. The walls of cities have fallen before the voice of the Lord. Brazen gates have been sundered. Iron chains have been separated like flax at the touch of fire. What has been, will be. No power can hurt him, because infinite power is his protection. And even if there is no direct interposition, and evil men are allowed to triumph for a time, the sense of suffering is overwhelmed and lost in the joy that he is accounted worthy to suffer.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 5.