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.

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?

Don't Indulge the Appetities

We are naturally led to urge upon all persons, who wish to live a life of true holiness, the great importance of living in such a manner, in the exercise and indulgence of the appetites, as to fulfill, and nothing more than fulfill the intentions of nature; or rather the intentions of the wise and benevolent Author of nature. The life of God in the soul has a much closer connection with modes of living, than is generally supposed. If Christians, instead of indulging and pampering the appetite for meats and drinks, would be satisfied with simple nourishment, and with that small quantity, which is adequate to all the purposes of nature, what abundant blessings would infallibly result both to body and mind! Many dark hours, which are now the subject of sad complaints on the part of professed Christians, would be exchanged for bright ones. God would then reveal his face of affectionate love, which it is impossible for him to do to those, who enslave themselves in this manner. — And in relation to any other principles, which properly come under the head of the appetites, beneficial and important as they undoubtedly are in their place, if they could be restrained to the purposes and the limits which their author has assigned, it would certainly make a vast difference in the relative amount of sin and holiness, of suffering and happiness in the world. Christian, think of these things! Ye, who seek the experience, the indispensable and blessed experience, of holiness of heart, earnestly make them the subject of reflection and prayer. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."

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

Outward Actions May Remain the Same

It is important to remember, that the existence of holiness in the heart does not necessarily alter the manner of action, although it does the principle of action. The farmer and the mechanic plough their fields and smite their anvils as they did before; and if they are estimated by the outward action and the outward appearance merely, they are the same men in many respects as they ever were. But the difference internally, as it reveals itself to the eye of God who searcheth the heart, is as great as that between sin and holiness, between heaven and hell.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CII.

Holiness Does Not Depend on Circumstances

The hidden life, which God imparts to his accepted people, may flourish in solitudes and deserts; far from the societies of men and the din and disturbance of cities. From the cave of the hermit, from the cell of the solitary recluse, the fervent prayer has often arisen, which has been acceptable in the sight of God. But it would be a strange and fatal misconception, that religion, even in its most pure and triumphant exaltations, can flourish no where else. The home of holiness is in the heart, irrespective of outward situations and alliances; and therefore we may expect to find it, if there are hearts adapted to its reception and growth, in the haunts of business as well as in the silence of retirement; in the palaces of Rome, as well as in the deserts of the Thebais.  It is a fatal mistake to suppose that we cannot be holy except on the condition of a situation and circumstances in life such as shall suit ourselves.  It is one of the first principles of holiness to leave our times and our places, our going out and our coming in, our wasted and our goodly heritage entirely with the Lord. Here, O Lord, hast thou placed us, and we will glorify thee here.

— Religious Maxims (1846) XIII.

Holiness is Required of All

Holiness, as the term has now been explained, in other words, pure and perfect love, is required of all persons. We do not esteem it necessary to delay and repeat all the passages, in which the requisition is made. It is written very plainly upon all parts of the Bible, from the beginning to the end of it. “But as he, which hath called you, is holy,” says the apostle Peter, “so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy.” All, therefore, which we have to say further at the present time is this: Those, who aim at the possession of the Hidden Life, who wish to walk with God and to hold communion with him in the interior man, as a friend converses with a friend, will find these glorious results impossible to them, except on the condition of HOLINESS OF HEART. So long as they indulge voluntarily in any known sin, they erect a wall of separation between themselves and their heavenly Father; and he cannot and will not take them into his bosom, and reveal to them the hidden secrets of his love. They must stand far off; we do not say that they are utterly rejected; but they occupy the position of their own selection; obscure and perplexed in their own experience, and darkness and perplexity to all around them.

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