Rest From Condemnation

"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." — John 14:27 (KJV)

In analyzing and explaining the elements of that pure and heavenly peace, which our Savior has left both as the inheritance and the characteristic of truly holy souls, we proceed to remark, further, that they are at rest from the reproofs of conscience.

This is a state of things very different from that which is experienced by souls that are only partially united with God. The latter, as they are going through the transition state from love commencing to love completed, have a constant conflict in themselves. Their inward good and evil are arrayed in opposition to each other. They see the right; but they continue, in some degree at least, to follow the wrong. And just so far as this is the case, they are under condemnation. And under such circumstances, they cannot fail to be uneasy and unhappy.

Recognizing the Spirit's Guidance: Promoting God's Glory

It is an evidence, that a person is guided by thy Holy Spirit, whose whole conduct, whether considered in its particulars or in its general outline, has a distinctly favorable bearing on the promotion of God's glory in the world. The end of all things is the glory of God. In the promotion of this great object, God, the Holy Ghost, co-operates with God the Father, and God the Son. The Holy Ghost, therefore, recognizes and enforces the great truth, that all subordinate tendencies, that all inferior and private interests, whenever they receive a corrected and sanctified direction, will always converge to the same center, and will never reach their TERMINUS, if we may so express it, except in the bosom of the adorable Infinite. To this great result, all his interior and individual teachings infallibly tend. To know all things and to love all things in God; to annihilate self in all the various forms of creature-love and of self-will, and to make God the great center of our being; this only is true wisdom and everlasting life. He, therefore, who is led by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, will be taught that he must think for God, feel for God, will for God, act for God; and that the great reality of God, which is the true beginning and completion of all religious life, must be received into the soul as the paramount motive; and with a power to expel all subordinate motives, and to reign there forever with supreme dominion.

Recognizing the Spirit's Guidance: Conscience

The person, who is guided by the Holy Spirit, will possess a quickly operative and effective conscience. This is too obvious to require much remark. It seems to be impossible, that a man should be guided by the Holy Spirit, and not experience a purified and renovated activity of the moral sense. This important result is what might naturally be expected, among other things, from the result on our intellectual nature, which has already been indicated. It is well known that the conscience operates in connection with the intellect, and subsequent in time. There must necessarily be certain intellectual data or facts, as the basis of the inward conscientious movement. And in accordance with this law, in proportion as the truth under the guidance of the Holy Spirit develops itself from the intellect, with greater and greater clearness, the action of the conscience becomes increasingly distinct, sensitive, and energetic. It becomes a sort of flaming sword in the soul; and keeps it in the way of life. Accordingly, on this principle, no man, who has a dull and sleepy conscience, a rough and blunted edge of moral perceptivity, is at liberty to say, that he is guided by the Holy Ghost.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 3, Chapter 6.

Are We Standing Where We Should?

It  is sometimes a serious and important question with the Christian, whether he is in his right position, standing precisely where he should stand, in the order of God's providence. In order to understand what we ought to do under such circumstances, we should be faithful, in the first place, to every obligation, which our present situation imposes; so that there shall be found within us no condemnations and rebukes of conscience for neglect of duty. And discharging our duties in this manner, we should remain calmly and quietly where we are, till the providences of God shall so clearly open another situation, that conscience, enlightened by the Holy Ghost, (as the conscience of a truly consecrated man always is,) shall condemn us for not leaving the present one.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLXXVII.

Rest From the Constraints of Conscience

There is a rest, in holy persons, not only from the reproofs or condemnations of conscience, (a view which naturally arrests our attention in the first instance,) but also, with proper explanations of the remark, from the compulsory or constraining power of conscience.

The constraints of conscience, (which is only another expression for those coercive feelings of obligation which require us to pursue a right course,) precede action; while the reproofs of conscience, on the other hand, follow action. The holy soul, the soul which has passed from a mixed state to a state where holy love becomes the exclusive principle of action, does not appear to experience, and certainly not to be conscious of, those compulsory influences to which we have referred. It does not feel the reproofs of conscience, because it does not do wrong. It does not feel the compulsions or constraints of conscience, because, being moved by perfect love, it fulfills the will of God, and does right without constraint.

The Holy Spirit Illuminates the Intellect

It is one part of the office of the Holy Spirit to illuminate the intellect, and through the intellect to impart clearness and strength to the conscience. We ought, therefore, highly to value not only those affections, which are originated and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, but also an intellect and conscience, enlightened from the same source. Especially when we consider, that a spiritually enlightened conscience is the surest guide in relation to the true character and the right degree of the affections.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CLVIII.

Acting Without God

The decisions of the conscience are  always based upon perceptions and acts of the judgment; consequently he who acts from mere desire, without any intervention and helps of the judgment, necessarily acts without the approbation of conscience; and may be said, therefore, in the moral sense of the terms, to act without God.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXXVI.

Love vs. Moral Obligation

There are two important principles in the human constitution, which are very different from each other in their nature; but which, operating in different ways, often harmonize in the production of the same results. The one is the great principle of love, which we have been endeavoring to illustrate; the other is the feeling of moral obligation. Cases of human conduct, illustrative of the operation of these two principles, are very frequent.

A man, for instance, visits and relieves one who is sick. The action, which is so interesting and important, may be ascribed either to the principle of love, or the sentiment of duty. The father of a family restrains those under his care from outward labors on the Sabbath day, and visits the house of God with them; and, in doing so, he may be moved by love to God, or merely by the constraint of mental conviction and obligation. A child may render obedience to his parents from either of these motives; either because he loves to obey, — it being a pleasure, a delight to him to obey,— or because, without love, and sometimes against love, he feels it to be his duty to obey. And thus of many other instances.

It is important to ascertain the true position and the comparative relations of these principles. In the order of nature, love is the first in time. The heart naturally operates before the conscience. One evidence of this is, that it is the office of the conscience to intimate the proper regulations, and to establish the law of the heart. It is obvious, however, that there can be no regulation without something which is regulated; and conscience, whose business it is to regulate and direct, would obviously be a faculty without application and without use, if there were not propensities and affections which in the order of nature operated antecedently. Love is the true impulsive principle, the central movement or life of man, as it is of God and of all holy beings. Of conscience, it can only be said that it is its guard, the flaming sword which waves and flashes round it to protect its purity. And he who does not act in the right way naturally, and by the power of his own loving life, must be wounded and goaded into the right by the authority and the penalties of the moral sense.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 8.

Sensitiveness to Sin

The man, who is troubled at great sins, particularly such as involve a degree of notoriety, but finds himself slightly affected and troubled in the commission of small or hidden ones, has but little claim to the grace of sanctification. One of the surest marks of sanctification is  an increased sensitiveness to sin in all its degrees. The slightest sin is a source of unspeakable misery to the sanctified heart; and gives the soul no rest, till it is washed out in overflowing tears of penitence.

— Religious Maxims L.

Sanctification and Conscience

It  is quite possible for a man to possess evidence of sanctification, who is temporarily destitute of joyful and rapturous emotions. But  it is not possible for a man to possess such evidence, who is destitute of a living, operative, and effective conscience. On no part of our nature does sanctification work greater effects than on the conscience.  It  may be said to give to it an intensity and multiplicity of existence; so that like the flaming sword of the cherubims, it turns every way and guards the tree of life.

— Religious Maxims XLIX.