Marks of Perfect Love (rewritten)

If the doctrine often called entire sanctification, evangelical holiness, or Christian perfection is true — or if the closely related doctrine known as assurance of faith is true — then an important conclusion follows. It means that even in this present life, it is both our duty and our privilege to experience the fulfillment of that great command: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.” In simpler terms, it means that it is possible to live in what can rightly be called perfect love. 

This leads us to a serious and deeply meaningful question: When can our love truly be called perfect? That is the question this chapter seeks to answer.

Before doing so, a few necessary foundations must be laid.

Assurance of Faith and Perfect Love (Rewritten)

Up to now we have explored how consecration relates to assurance of faith. But assurance itself doesn’t stand alone — it, too, has important relationships. One of the closest and most significant is its connection to perfect love. These two — assurance (or perfection) of faith and perfection of love — are deeply and inseparably linked. 

That raises a thoughtful and worthwhile question: what exactly is the relationship between them?

1. Faith Comes First, Love Follows

To begin, assurance of faith and perfect love relate to each other as cause and effect, or more precisely, as what comes first and what follows. Assurance of faith naturally and necessarily comes before perfect love.

Some theologians — capable thinkers, to be sure — have tried to reverse this order. They argue that love comes first, and that faith grows out of love, making perfect love the foundation of assurance. But it’s hard to see how this position holds up, either logically or biblically.

Consecration and the Assurance of Faith (Rewritten)

It’s hardly necessary to say much more to highlight just how important the assurance of faith really is. Anyone who genuinely longs for holiness of heart will naturally place great value on assurance, because holiness — understood in the gospel sense — is simply perfect love. And perfect love grows out of a mature, confident faith. In other words, deep assurance and deep holiness rise together.

When we look carefully at what assurance of faith actually is, it seems to rest on two essential elements. First, there is a steady, unshakable confidence in God — his character, his ways, and his promises. Second, there is a confident belief that we ourselves are accepted by God through Christ. Assurance is not limited to this personal element alone, as some people assume. Personal confidence rests on a broader, settled trust in God as a whole. Without that foundation, personal assurance has no place to stand.

Guard Against the Habits of Unbelief

Those, who are in assurance of faith, or who are aiming at and approximating that state, should guard against the influence of former habits of unbelief. The fact, that they have given themselves wholly to God, and that he has promised to accept them, and that he does now accept them, while it furnishes ample basis of the assured belief of their acceptance with God, is not inconsistent with strong temptations to unbelief. Against the influence of these temptations they would do well carefully to guard. They should resist them, not only by prayers to God, but by fixed resolutions, by strong purposes; remembering that the doubts, which are thus suggested, and which they are thus called upon to resist, do not spring from real evidence adverse to their acceptance with God, but chiefly from the influence of a species of infirmity and vacillation of mind resulting from former habits of unbelief.

Assurance and Consecration

Whatever may be true in regard to the lower degrees of religious faith, we may regard it as a fixed principle, that there can be no such thing as assurance of faith, without the antecedent existence of personal and entire consecration. Assurance of faith, as the phrase appears to be understood by those, who have written upon the subject, is not merely an assured faith, that God has an existence, or that he is good and just; but it is an assurance or assured belief that God is the God, the Father, and Friend of the subject of this faith. In other words, it is a state of mind, existing on the part of the subject of it, which excludes doubt in relation to his own personal and religious acceptance. The Christian, who possesses it, is enabled to speak in the first person. With a calm, unwavering, rejoicing confidence, and still without presumption, he can say of Christ, that he is MY Savior; and can say of God, that he is MY God, MY Father, MY Friend.

Now we do not hesitate to say, that this can never be done by a person, who has not seriously and fully consecrated himself to God. Not to consecrate ourselves to God, with a fixed purpose to do his will, is the same thing, as it seems to us, or at least is essentially the same thing, as deliberately to sin against God. Certain it is, that he, who is not willing to consecrate himself to God with a full purpose to conform to his designs, is willing to sin against him, when a favorable opportunity presents. It is not too much to say, that he is conscious, and must be conscious, at the present moment, of sinning against God in his heart. It is obviously impossible, that a person in this state of mind, if he has any proper conceptions of God’s law and of God’s character, should have a full assurance of being the subject of his acceptance and favor. No person, therefore, whatever other degrees of faith he may have, can enjoy full assurance of faith, who is not conscious, that he has in all things, and for all time to come, and with all the powers of perception and volition which he possesses, consecrated himself to God without reserve.

A belief of our acceptance with God, founded on the fact of our entire consecration to him, taken in connection with the declarations and promises of God’s Word, is such a belief, as “no one,” in the language of Dr. Hopkins, “would have reason to call in question.” The evidence in the case is not what might be called by a term, which numerous facts in ecclesiastical history render almost an indispensable one, “apparitional” evidence; that is to say, the evidence of outward appearances and manifestations, the evidence of sights and sounds, of dreams and visions, upon which so many rely; but upon which the Bible no where authorizes us to place reliance. Nor is it what may be called “emotional evidence,” the evidence of mere joy and sorrow, upon which so many others rely; but which we obviously cannot rely upon with entire confidence, because our joys and sorrows are very variable, and may arise from causes, which are not religious, although they are frequently mistaken for such. It is the evidence, the divine and infallible evidence, of God’s Spirit testifying through the principle of faith; and that faith, which exists distinctly and quietly in our consciousness, just as any other analogous state of mind does, resting upon God’s immutable Word. If we have given ourselves to God to be wholly and forever his, then we have no reason for doubting, (and the testimony of the Holy Spirit revealed in the act of faith is in accordance with the fact,) that we are the children of God, since we have God’s immutable word, that we are such. “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” 2 Corinthians 6:17, 18.

— edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 16.

Examples of Assurance of Faith

It is a matter of gratitude, that some persons have recognized the responsibility, which rests upon them; and have been enabled, under the divine influence and blessing, to become what they felt that they ought to be. It would not be difficult to enumerate individuals, in all the various denominations of Christians, who have lived for a considerable length of time, in entire union with God, and in full assurance.

A few years since an elder of a Presbyterian church in Ohio died at a very advanced age. He informed his Pastor on his dying bed, that his attention to religious things had been awakened, and that he had become a subject of religious experience and hope under the ministry of Whitefield, at the age of fifteen. His long life had been distinguished for its blameless innocence, its strong faith, its meek and humble devotedness to God. And he was enabled, with thankfulness to the divine grace which he had experienced, to assure his Pastor, in the course of this conversation, that, during the seventy years which had intervened since his conversion, “he had never had a dark hour.”

A certain person once wrote to Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers, a woman of intelligence and of remarkable piety, for the purpose of ascertaining from her explicitly and decisively, whether she could speak with confidence of being in that state of assured or perfected faith and love, which she had long aimed to realize. She answered, not, so far as we can perceive, in the spirit of unreflecting and hasty presumption, but because she could not do otherwise under the facts of her inward experience, in the following words: “Blessed be God, I have not the shadow of a doubt. Even Satan himself finds these suggestions vain, and has left them off. He would rather lead me to doubt, or care for to-morrow; saying such and such a thing is at hand, and will overcome thee. Thou wilt fall in some of thy trials; or, when death comes, thou wilt be under a cloud. But through divine grace I am enabled to discern whence these suggestions come, and they never distress me for a moment; for, by constantly looking to Jesus, I receive fresh strength in every time of need.” [Experience and Spiritual Letters of Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers, Letter VIII.]

I suppose that the learned and pious Hermann Francke, whose name is permanently associated with the erection of the celebrated Orphan House at Halle in Germany, must have known something of this state, when near the close of a long life devoted with almost unexampled fidelity to holy objects, he exclaimed, “I praise thee, dear Savior, that thou hast purified me from sin, and made me a king and a priest unto God.”

Such instances, though less numerous than they should be, are still to be found, from time to time, in the history of the church. But it seems to be hardly necessary to enumerate them, when we find in the Scriptures, as we have already had occasion to notice, such clear announcements of the doctrine under consideration, and such striking illustrations of it. The Apostle Paul, for instance, could have had no doubt, either as to his love of God or his acceptance with God, when he exclaimed, “I am now ready to be offered, and, the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me at the last day.”

 — edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 16.

Assurance and Appropriating Faith

The experience of assurance of faith involves the experience of appropriating faith. Appropriation may exist without assurance; but, such is the relation of ideas and doctrines in the two cases, that assurance cannot exist without appropriation. The person who exercises appropriating faith, believes in Christ, not only as the sacrifice for men generally, and believes in the promises of God not merely as promises available to men generally, but unites the object of faith with the subject of faith; and believes in Christ as a Savior applicable and savingly available in his own case, and in the promises, as belonging to himself. Assurance of faith, without being the same thing as appropriation of faith, includes all this; but it includes also or rather it implies something more. In other words, assurance of faith differs from appropriation of faith, which may be more or less decided and strong according to the circumstances of the case, chiefly in the particular of carrying the act of belief or faith to the highest degree. He, who is in the state of assurance of faith, does not believe in his acceptance with God feebly and inefficiently. The faith, which he exercises, is a strong faith; so much so, as the term assurance itself obviously indicates, as altogether to exclude the feeling of uncertainty.

The Assurance of Faith

We have already had occasion to make the remark, that there are different degrees of faith. In some cases faith is feeble, so much so as scarcely to be a distinct subject of notice in our consciousness. In other cases, existing with increased strength in greater or less degrees, it develops itself as a distinctly marked and operative principle. And there are yet other cases, less frequent, it is true, than would be desirable, in which it exists in that high degree, which is denominated ASSURANCE. A state of Christian experience, which implies the highest degree of Christian devotedness, and brings the soul into the most intimate communion with God.

The existence of the state of Assurance is generally admitted. There are many passages of Scripture, which imply its existence; and many statements, which cannot well be explained on any other grounds.

President Edwards in his Work on the religious affections, says,

It is manifest that it was a common thing for the saints that we have a history or particular account of in the Scripture, to be assured. God, in the plainest and most positive manner, revealed and testified his special favor to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Daniel, and others. Job often speaks of his sincerity and uprightness with the greatest imaginable confidence and assurance, often calling God to witness to it; and says plainly, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall see him for myself, and not another,’ Job 19:25. David, throughout the book of Psalms, almost every where speaks without any hesitancy, and in the most positive manner, of God as his God; glorying in him as his portion and heritage, as his rock and confidence.

The Apostle Paul, through all his Epistles, speaks in an assured strain; ever speaking positively of his special relation to Christ, his Lord, and Master, and Redeemer; and his interest in, and expectation of the future reward.

Many of the formularies of belief or creeds of different religious sects, which may properly be regarded as expressing the deliberate and cherished sentiments of those who have adopted them, recognize the existence of the state of assurance. The Confession of Faith, adopted by the American Congregational Churches in 1680, has the following expressions in a short chapter especially devoted to this subject. “Such as believe in the Lord Jesus and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace; and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.”

And in accordance with this view, Dr. Hopkins, the learned author of a system of theology and a member of the religious denomination whose belief on this subject has been given in the passage just quoted, says, “If a person, who has lived a life eminently devoted to God, and in the constant practice of all the duties of Christianity, shining externally in good works, and all the graces of our holy religion, should, on proper occasions, humbly and modestly declare to his Christian friends, that he was raised above all doubts about his state, and had, for a long time, enjoyed full assurance of his salvation, no one would have reason to call it in question.” [Hopkins’ System of Doctrines, Part. 2d. Ch. 4.] And he adds very correctly, that it is the duty of Christians “constantly to have and maintain this assurance.”

And it may be proper to add here, that the doctrine of Assurance, generally expressed by the phrase Assurance of Faith, was formerly more familiar to the public mind in this country, as it seems to me, than it is at present. In the early periods of our country’s history, the subject of religion took the precedence of every other subject, and men were expected, under the thorough discipline of the Word and of Providence, not merely to believe faintly and doubtfully, but to believe with that higher degree of religious trust, which is expressed by assurance. A writer in the recently published work, entitled the Great Awakening, in giving an account of a meeting of Ministers in Boston, more than a hundred years ago, at which he himself was present, says, “Our conversation was upon Assurance; the grounds of it, the manner of obtaining it, and the special operation of the Holy Spirit therein. A very useful conversation.”

— edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 16.

Confession and the Decietfulness of Sin

It is proper... to confess our sins, because there may be sins in us, and not merely those which result from infirmity and are involuntary, which are seen by the omniscient eye of God, but which may not be obvious to ourselves. We have no doubt that, as a general thing, we may rely upon our consciousness in confirmation of the great fact of perfection in love. Certainly it is a reasonable idea, that, as a general thing, a man may know in himself or in his own consciousness, whether he loves God or not; and whether he loves him with his whole heart or not. At the same time there may occasionally be cases, in which he is left in some degree of doubt. He may through the influence of some sudden temptation, be driven so closely upon the line which separates rectitude from sin, that it is almost impossible for him to tell whether he has kept within it. The Scriptures also recognize the great deceitfulness of the human heart. Who, then, is able, either on philosophical or scripture principles, to assert, absolutely and unconditionally, that he has been free from sin, at least for any great length of time? We may, therefore, with great propriety, even if there were no other reason but this, ask the forgiveness of our trespasses, of our sins, or of whatever God sees amiss in us. And it is unquestionably our duty so to do.

We may add here, that it is generally, and perhaps we may say, universally the case that those, who give good evidence of being in that state which we variously describe as assurance of faith and as perfect love, and which involves the possession of the blessing of present sanctification, speak of their state in a qualified, rather than in an absolute manner. In other words, they generally express themselves, (and it is exceedingly proper that they should do so,) merely as if they hoped or had reason to hope that they had experienced this great blessing, and were kept free from voluntary and known sin. Such a mode of expression seems to be unobjectionable; it is consistent with confession, and corresponds to the precise state of the case.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 2, Chapter 16.

What is Perfect Love?

If the doctrine, which is variously termed sanctification, evangelical holiness, and evangelical or christian perfection, be true, or if the related and equivalent doctrine, which is denominated assurance of faith, be true, then it will follow, that it is our duty and privilege, even in the present life, to realize in our own souls the fulfillment of that great command, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," In other words, it is our duty and privilege to possess what may properly be called "perfect love." Accordingly it becomes a very important and interesting inquiry, When can our love properly be said to be perfect?

Perfection of love implies the removal or extinction of all selfishness. In other words, perfect love is always PURE love. We may probably conceive of love, which is pure in its nature; but is deficient, and therefore not perfect in its degree or intensity. But we cannot conceive of love which is acceptable to God, and is perfect in degree, which has any intermixture of selfishness.

Perfection of love is necessarily relative to the capacity of the subject of it. In other words, what would be perfection of love in one would not be in another, whose capacity of loving is greater. That precise amount or degree of love in man, which would be characterized as perfect in consequence of being all his capacity could render, would be imperfect in an angel or other being of greater capacity.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 1, Chapter 17.

Assurance and Consecration

ASSURANCE of faith, like all other forms of religious faith considered in distinction from natural faith, is the gift of God. No one has it without the divine blessing. But here, as in every other case of God's dealings, we see no other course but to take the position as almost a self-evident one, that there are reasons in the divine mind for every occurrence or fact and also for every modification of the divine conduct; and that God, in imparting the immense blessing of assurance of faith, does not, and cannot act accidentally. In other words, there is some antecedent fact, some preparatory condition, in connection with which this great blessing takes place. Not a meritorious condition, it is true; nothing which lays God under obligation; but still a preparatory antecedent or condition actually existing in the view of the Divine Mind, and as an indispensable part of the divine arrangement. And that condition, as the matter presents itself to our view, is CONSECRATION. Not a consecration in part, but in whole; a solemn and a permanent giving up of the whole being to God. If with any inferior degree of consecration there may be an inferior degree of faith, there cannot be a perfection or assurance of faith, without a consecration corresponding to it. It must, therefore, be a consecration, such as was described in the chapter on that subject, both of body and of spirit, both of persons and of possessions, ENTIRE, PERMANENT, and IRREVOCABLE.

— The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part1, Chapter 8.

The Nature of Assurance of Faith

In respect to the nature of assurance of faith, we may remark here, after an examination of various statements and illustrations on the subject, that it appears to consist essentially in two things; First, in a general but unwavering confidence in God's character, administration, and promises; and, secondly, in a confident belief of our personal acceptance with God through Christ. And accordingly it is not limited to the second particular, as some persons may be inclined to suppose; but the second element, viz. that of a particular or personal acceptance, which probably, in the popular view of it, is the striking or characteristic trait, has its basis in a prevailing or assured faith of a more general character.

— The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 1, Chapter 8.