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.

Consecration to God (Rewritten )

From what has already been said, one thing should be clear: real growth in the life of faith is not likely without a settled, personal, and devout act of consecration. If a Christian is unwilling to make such a commitment — or is content merely to wish for it without actually carrying it out through a clear and decisive act — there is little reason to expect deep progress or the kind of inward spiritual experience that I will describe later.

This duty is so important, and so much depends on it, that it deserves careful and focused attention on its own.

How We Can Attain a Holy Life (Rewritten)

In our previous post, we explored an important idea: the deepest and most meaningful expressions of spiritual life — those moments when the barriers between God and the human soul seem to fall away — are inseparably linked to holiness of heart. If that’s true, then the next natural question is an urgent one: How do we actually become holy?

How do we move from weak faith to confident faith, from inconsistent love to a love that is whole and mature? How do we experience what Scripture often calls entire sanctification?

In response, we suggest that three essential elements are involved—always in partnership with the work of the Holy Spirit. Without these, holiness will remain more of a theory than a lived reality.

On Holiness of Heart (Rewritten)

 In our previous post, we talked about the Hidden Life — that deep, interior life of communion with God. A natural question follows: How do we enter into this kind of life? What path leads us there?

The gospel clearly presents the Christian life as a journey. It begins with forgiveness and acceptance — foundational and essential realities — but it does not end there. God intends for every believer to grow beyond those first steps into a deeper work of renewal and sanctification.

The apostle points to this progression in Hebrews 6, urging believers to move beyond the basics and “go on to perfection.” The question, then, is straightforward but searching: What direction should we take if we want to move past spiritual beginnings and walk in close, uninterrupted fellowship with God?

Purification Not Eradication

It seems to have been the doctrine of some advocates of Christian perfection, especially some pious Catholics of former times, that the various propensities and affections, and particularly the bodily appetites, ought to be entirely eradicated. But this doctrine, when carried to its full extent, is one of the artifices of Satan, by which the cause of holiness has been greatly injured. It is more difficult to regulate the natural principles, than to destroy them; and there is no doubt that the more difficult duty in this case, is the scriptural one. We are not required to eradicate our natural propensities and affections, but to purify them. We are not required to cease to be men, but merely to become holy men.

— Religious Maxims (1846) XXXIV.

When Destitute of Joy

 Guest blog by Phoebe Worrall Palmer (1807-1874)

If feeling were the principle commanding religious action, instead of calm, deliberate, steady faith, how often should we be led astray, even when in our most pious moods! Think of the disciples, who, from the impulse of exuberant, pious feeling, desired to have three tabernacles reared, in order that they might ever abide on the mount, alone with the Saviour and his heavenly visitants; unmindful that the work of the Redeemer in saving the world was not yet accomplished, neither the work to which they, as his disciples, were called, in establishing his kingdom. Imagine that the pious feelings with which they were at this time favored had formed the principle of action, what would have been the fate of a lost world?

The Land of Rest

"Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then I would flee away and be at rest." — Ps. 66. 6.

There is no quietude in mortal life,
But, like the fretful and imperious sea,
Whose angry surges heave incessantly,
'Tis toss'd and driven with eternal strife.
Oh when, oh when, shall a deliverance rise
To him, who feels the ceaseless war within
Of truth with falsehood, holiness with sin?
Alas! 'Tis not on earth, but in the skies.
'Tis there we find, and only there, a rest,
Never attained, and never known before;
'Tis there sweet peace shall soothe the weary breast,
And songs re-echo from that happy shore.
Then murmur not, but from the future borrow
Assured hope of joy, to crown this life of sorrow.

— The Religious Offering  XXVII.

Crucified to Holiness Itself

But perhaps the most decisive mark of the truly crucified man is, that he is crucified even to holiness itself. That is to say, he desires God only, seeks God only, is satisfied and can be satisfied with God only, in distinction from those truly spiritual gifts or graces, which God by his Holy Spirit imparts to the soul.

The truly devout man, for instance, exercises penitence, submission, gratitude, forgiveness, and other Christian graces on their appropriate occasions; and he has great reason to be thankful to God that he is enabled to do it. But if in some moment of inward forgetfulness, of religious “irrecollection,” if we may so term it, he turns the thoughts and the interests of his heart from God to the graces which God gives, and begins to take complacency in his religious exercises, and to be happy in his holiness and to love his holiness, instead of a fixed and exclusive love for the Author of his holiness, I think we may confidently say, he is no longer a man dead to self, no longer in the proper sense of the terms a man inwardly crucified. 

“The purer our gifts are,” says Fenelon, “the more jealous God is of our appropriating or directing them to ourselves. The most eminent graces are the most deadly poisons, if we rest in them and regard them with complacency. It is the sin of the fallen angels. They only turned to themselves, and regarded their state with complacency. At that instant they fell from heaven, and became the enemies of God.”

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

Inward Crucifixion and Inward Consolations

Those, who are the subjects of inward crucifixion, do not seek, and do not value inward consolations in themselves considered. “It is written,” says the Savior, “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Consolation is the attendant of religion, but it is not religion itself. Religion, in its highest sense, implies an entire union with the will of God. The true food of our souls is God’s commandment, which is only another name for God’s will. A desire of any thing, and complacency in any thing, which does not place God’s will first, is infidelity to God’s claims. Holy joy is not a thing, which comes by volition; but by a necessary law. If our hearts are right with God, such joy will always come in its appropriate place; not because it is called or willed, but because it cannot help coming. It is a thing which flows from holiness as from its natural fountain. The truly crucified man, therefore, is right in seeking the fountain first. Holiness is something which must be desired and sought for itself; something, which must stand, independently of its pleasant results, first in the mind’s eye, first in the heart’s affections.

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

Keep The Eye Fixed on God's Order of Things

...the man, who has experienced the practical annihilation of his own will, does every thing and suffers every thing precisely in the order of God’s providence. It is the PRESENT MOMENT, considered as indicating the divine arrangement of things, which furnishes the truest and safest test of character. Holiness requires the fulfilment of our whole duty; and our duty necessarily has relation to the facts which God’s providence now presents before us. If our whole soul goes forth in obedience to what his holy providence now imposes on us, then, and not otherwise, are we acceptable in his sight. It is necessary, therefore, to keep our eye fixed upon God’s order of things. We must do this in relation to our place and situation in life, whatever it may be; not murmuring at our supposed ill lot; not giving way to any eager desires of change; but remaining quietly and humbly just where God has seen fit to place us.

Liberty of Spirit

That devout condition of mind, which is expressed by the term holiness, requires, that we should do the will of God in all things; or what amounts to the same thing, that we should do right in all things. But it is obvious, that partialities, inordinate attachments, loving one more than another without any reasonable grounds for making a distinction, perplex both our perceptions of right and our ability to do what is right. It is important, therefore, to keep our minds in that desirable state, so often mentioned by spiritual writers, which is denominated liberty of spirit; a state of mind, in which there are no disturbing influences, originating either from inordinate hatred or inordinate love, and in which the soul, acting under a divine guidance, may be moved with the greatest possible ease in any direction.

 When, in the exercise of our naturally kind feelings, we strive to do good to our fellow-men, by soothing their sorrows, by healing their dissentions, or in any other way, if we do it without a humble and serious eye to God’s providences, we shall always find on a careful examination, that we do it in a considerable degree, if not entirely, without a believing regard to God himself. And accordingly, in attempting to do good in this way, viz., from the mere impulse of nature, without a regard to God and his providences, it will not be surprising, if, in many cases, we fail of our object, and do evil rather than good. God is present in time, as well as in events. There is always the right time, as well as the right thing; the right time, as well as the right action. The man of true faith feels it to be necessary to act at the right time, to act in God’s time, even in doing those things, which are clearly of a benevolent nature. God holds the remedy of the evils, which exist in the world, in his own hands. His people are the instruments, which he employs, in applying this remedy. But the application is never made beneficially either to the subject or the agent, except when it is made under his own superintendence, in his own time and manner.

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 7.

The Need to Believe That Holiness is Attainable

It becomes a very important inquiry, whether holiness, in any strict and proper sense of that term, is something attainable in the present life. Among other reasons it is important to be able to answer properly this question, because, unless we believe in the attainableness of holiness, we shall not be likely, such are the laws of the human mind, to attain it. Perhaps we may say, that without this belief it will be impossible to attain it. And without holiness, without a heart thoroughly purified from the stains of voluntary transgression, we may be assured that we shall not enter into the secrets of the Most High; the Hidden Life will be hidden to us: and there will be many things in the Christian’s privileges, more precious than rubies, which will never, in the present state of being, come within the range of our experience.

— from The Interior of Hidden Life (1844), Chapter 2.

Holiness in This Life

The Gospel evidently contemplates, in the case of every individual, a progress from the incipient condition of mere forgiveness and acceptance, immensely important as it is, to the higher state of interior renovation and sanctification throughout. The Apostle appears to have reference to this onward progress of the soul in the expressions he employs in the commencement of the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God; of the doctrine of baptism and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.” What direction, then, shall we take? What course shall we pursue, that we may rise above the merely initiatory principles and feelings of the gospel life, and enjoy the delightful privilege of walking in close and uninterrupted communion with God? In answer to this general inquiry we remark, that the first and indispensable prerequisite is HOLINESS OF HEART. It is generally supposed, that God may exhibit pity and pardon to those in whom there still exist some relics and stains of inward corruption; in other words, that those, may be forgiven or pardoned, who are not entirely sanctified. But those, who would walk acceptably with their Maker, who would receive from him his secret communications and enjoy the hidden embraces of his love, must see to it, first of all, that they are pure in heart; that they have a present, as well as a prospective salvation; in other words, that they are holy.

We are aware, that, in the view of some, this condition of realizing the full life of God in the soul is an impracticable one. They regard holiness in this life, as a thing unattainable; or, what seems to me to be practically the same view, as a thing never attained. The persons, to whom we now allude, seem to look upon holiness as a sort of intangible abstraction, as something placed high and remotely in the distance, as designed to be realized by angels and by the just made perfect in heaven, but situated far beyond mere human acquisition. Hence it is, that followed and scourged by an inward condemnation, they remain in the condition of servants, and do not cheerfully and boldly take that of sons. They wander about, oftentimes led captive by Satan, in the low grounds of the gospel life, amid marshes and tangled forests; and do not ascend into the pleasant hills and that emblematical land of Beulah, where are spicy breezes and perpetual sunshine.

— from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844), Chapter 2.

Seek Holiness, Not Consolation

Seek holiness rather than consolation. Not that consolation is to be despised, or thought lightly of; but solid and permanent consolation is the result rather than the forerunner of holiness; therefore he, who seeks consolation as a distinct and independent object, will miss it. Seek and possess holiness, and consolation, (not perhaps often in the form of ecstatic and rapturous joys, but rather of solid and delightful peace,) will follow, as assuredly as warmth follows the dispensation of the rays of the sun. He, who is holy, must be happy.

— from Religious Maxims (1846), II.

God Alone is the Proper Center of Human Love

God alone is the proper centre of love. God alone, in consequence of the exalted nature of his perfections, is the object, to which our highest affections can properly attach themselves. If God is not loved supremely, something else is, because the nature of love is such as to require some highest object. And if God is the centre, (an expression, which implies, that our love is essentially, if not absolutely proportioned to its object,) then he is so in such a degree and manner, that all other beings are regarded and loved in their relation to him. Being not only the highest or supreme object, but being so beyond any and all comparison with other objects, he is properly the centre of centres. Consequently, receiving all our springs of action from him, as the great object of our affections, we shall regard objects, so far as we are capable of understanding their nature, just as he regards them; we shall love what he loves; hate what he hates; rejoice in what he rejoices in.

The moment we get into this great and true Centre, every thing else falls into the right position. We love ourselves, and we love other beings just as God would have us; for we can neither approve nor disapprove, neither love nor hate, except as we receive the spring of movement from the great source. In any other position of mind, the influence of self will be felt. But in this, as the mind operates in perfect coincidence with the will of God, a will which never deviates from perfect rectitude, it can give no countenance to selfishness, which is always at variance with rectitude. 

The life of God in the soul and the life of self in the soul are entirely inconsistent with each other. Where God exists, as the supreme object, self is, and must be cast out. Sensuality ceases. All our appetites, and all our propensities and affections of whatever degree will, in that case, be properly regulated. And the grace of sanctification or holiness will pervade the whole inner man.

—The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.

 

Called to Holiness

It is to this great result, therefore, and to this great work, that every individual is called. “Be ye holy,” says God, “for I am holy.” “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” The law of God’s holy nature would not allow him to command less or to require less. His mighty heart of love is fixed upon the one great object, that all other hearts, that all other moral beings throughout the universe may be in unison with himself, and bear his own image. It is this, still more than mere forgiveness or pardon, great and wonderful and costly as that is, which constitutes salvation. And if it is a great work, considered in reference to its results, it is great also, considered in reference to the difficulties, which perplex it. 

But difficult as it is, God, operating by the Holy Spirit in the production of faith in the heart, can accomplish it. Human nature, instigated by distrust of God or by confidence in its own efforts, has attempted the work in other ways, and by other instrumentalities, but always in vain. It has found all its toils and all its sufferings useless, its fastings, its pilgrimages, its macerations, its many tears, its fixed purpose of being better and of doing better, of no avail when unattended by faith. They are nothing, and perhaps we may say, are worse than nothing, except when they are yielded as subsequent in time and in cooperation with faith. Undoubtedly some persons have made the attempt, (ecclesiastical history, especially that part of it which exists in the shape of religious biographies and memoirs, furnishes abundant proofs of it,) to gain the victory over their inward sins, and to sanctify themselves by a system of works, who have been ignorant, in a great degree, of the true principles of the Gospel on this subject. They have made the attempt, therefore, as it is probable, with a considerable degree of natural sincerity; with a real desire, according to the light which they possessed, to become what the Lord would have them to be. And God, who always regards real sincerity of feeling, even when it is perplexed by ignorance, has in many cases blessed them. But the result invariably has been, that they see at last, and acknowledge at last, that any system of human effort, which does not consist in simple cooperation and union with the antecedent presence and operation of the grace of faith in the heart, is without avail. So that the first great work of man, the first indispensable work, indispensable for sanctification as it is for forgiveness, indispensable now and indispensable moment by moment forever, is to BELIEVE.

—The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 3.

Fit Heirs of Heaven

The great objects of that atoning and remedial system, which is revealed in the Gospel, are not secured by forgiveness alone. Christ died not merely to save sinners, but to sanctify them; not merely to rescue them from hell, but to make them, by the purification of their natures, the fit heirs of heaven. 

Salvation is a state, not a locality. It does not consist in dwelling in the new Jerusalem; but in having the right inward state; that is to say, in being fit to dwell there. A soul, that is truly and permanently saved, is a soul, that is made truly and permanently holy. And the hope of salvation, (even in that inferior and secondary form, which consists in freedom or salvation from suffering,) can be sustained only by the consciousness of possessing a heart, which, in some degree at least, is made right with God.

— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 3.

The Unknown God

We admit the doctrine of limited manifestations. God may manifest himself to a certain extent, and he does so. He manifests the fact of his existence by the works, which he has made. He manifests also, in the same manner, some of the incidents or attributes of his existence, such as his wisdom, his power, and goodness. And it is certainly possible for him, departing from the usual method of his proceedings, to manifest himself, even at the present time, in special or supernatural sights and sounds, in displays and visions of heaven and of earth, which shall be impressive to the outward senses. But what we contend for is, that such manifestations do not constitute, and cannot constitute the real knowledge, or rather the knowledge of the nature of the I AM; but are only a sign, adapted to the nature of our capacities, that the I AM is; that he has certain attributes; and that there is yet something beyond what the eye sees and the ear hears and the intellect knows; a region of existence, vast, unmeasured, infinite, which belongs to faith. Thomas, the doubting disciple, believed, as far as he could see, and only because he could see. Jesus said to him; “Thomas because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they, that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

The love of manifestations, of that which is visible and tangible, in distinction from that, which is addressed to faith, is one of the evils of the present age. Men love visions, more than they love holiness. They would have God in their hands, rather than in their hearts. They would set him up as a thing to be looked at, and with decorated cars would transport him, if they could realize what their hearts desire, from place to place, on the precise principles of heathenism; because, being weak in faith, they find it difficult to recognize the existence, and to love and to do the will of an “unknown God.” But this was not the religion of the Apostle Paul. “As I passed by,” he says to the Athenians, “and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you.” We must be so humble, so sunk in the depths of our own nothingness, as to be willing to receive, worship, and love the God unknown; and who, because he is infinite, and man is finite, always must be unknown in a great degree; except in the MANIFESTATION OF HIS WILL. It is in his will, believing that his will is righteous, that we may meet with him, may know him, may rejoice in him, may become one with him. “BELIEVE in the Lord your God; so shall you be established.”

— edited from the Life of Faith (1852) Part 2, Chapter 1.

But, Faith Does Not Abandon Reason

It is not uncommon for Christians to eulogize faith in distinction from reason; and not unfrequently they speak of faith as a higher authority than reason. We are aware, that expressions of this kind, which are often on the lips of eminently pious and devoted people, suggest trials and doubts in the minds of some, as if they implied an abandonment of reason. And it is not surprising that they should, when the expressions are taken in their literal and obvious import. But a little reflection on the subject will help to remove this difficulty.

As Christians we do not, and we cannot abandon reason. The abandonment of reason would involve the abandonment of Christianity itself. 

Quietude and Inordinate Desires

The state of internal quietude implies a cessation or rest from unrestrained and inordinate desires and affections.

Such a cessation becomes comparatively easy, when God has become the ruling idea in the thoughts; and when other ideas, which are vain, wandering, and in other ways inconsistent with it, are excluded. This rest or stillness of the affections, when it exists in the highest degree, is secured by perfect faith in God, necessarily resulting in perfect love. We have already had occasion to say that perfect faith implies, in its results, perfect love. How can we possibly have perfect faith in God, perfect confidence that he will do all things right and well, when at the same time we are wanting in love to him? From perfect faith, therefore, perfect love necessarily flows out, baptizing, as it were, and purifying all the subordinate powers of the soul. In other words, under the influence of this predominating principle, the perfect love of God resting upon perfect faith in God, the harmony of the soul becomes restored; the various appetites, propensities, and affections act each in their place and all concurrently; there are no disturbing and jarring influences, and the beautiful result is that quietness of spirit, which is declared to be "in the sight of God of great price."

Those, who are privileged by divine assistance, to enjoy this interior rest and beautiful stillness of the passions, are truly lovely to the beholder. The wicked are like the troubled sea, that cannot rest, tossed about by conflicting passions, and are not more unhappy in themselves, than they are unlovely in the sight of holy beings. There is a want of interior symmetry and union; that guiding principle of divine love, which consolidates and perfects the characters of holy beings, is absent; the lower parts of their nature have gained the ascendency, and there is internal jarring and discord and general moral deformity. In such a heart God does not and cannot dwell. How different is the condition of that heart, which is pervaded by the power of a sanctifying stillness, and which, in the cessation of its own jarring noise, is prepared to listen to the "still small voice!" It is here that God not only takes up his abode, but continually instructs, guides, and consoles.

On this part of the subject, in order to prevent any misapprehension, we make two brief remarks. The first is, that the doctrine of stillness or quietude of the desires and passions, does not necessarily exclude an occasional agitation arising from the instinctive part of our nature. The INSTINCTS are so constituted, that they act, not by cool reason and reflection, but by an inexpressibly quick and agitated movement. Such is their nature. Such agitation is entirely consistent with holiness. And it is not unreasonable to suppose, that even the amazement and fears, which are ascribed to our blessed Savior at certain periods of his life, are to be attributed to the operation of this part of his nature, which is perfectly consistent with entire resignation and with perfect confidence in God. The other remark is, that the doctrine of internal quietude, pervading and characterizing the action of the sensibilities, is not inconsistent with feelings of displeasure, and even of anger. Our Savior was at times grieved, displeased, angry; as he had abundant reason to be, in view of the hardness of heart and the sins, which were exposed to his notice. Anger, (so far as it is not purely  instinctive, which at its first rise and for a mere moment of time it may be,) is, in its nature, entirely consistent with reason and reflection; is consistent with the spirit of supplication, and consistent also, even in its strong exercises, with entire agreement and relative quietude in all parts of the soul. In other words, although there is deep feeling in one part of the soul, the other parts, such as the reason, the conscience, and the will, are so entirely consentient, that the great fact of holy, internal quietude, which depends upon a perfect adjustment of the parts to each other, is secured. A strong faith in God, existing in the interior recesses of the soul, and inspiring a disposition to look with a constant eye to his will alone; keeps every thing in its right position. Hence there still remains the great and important fact of holy internal rest, even at such trying times.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 3, Chapter 10.