Natural Joy vs. Spiritual Joy (Rewritten)

In our previous post, we worked to clarify the difference between love and joy — a distinction that isn’t obvious at first, but is quite real and important. To deepen that discussion, it helps to introduce another meaningful distinction: the difference between natural joy and spiritual joy.

Just as spiritual joy should not be confused with love, neither should natural joy. In both cases, love and joy are genuinely distinct experiences. But beyond that shared distinction, there is another important point: spiritual (or gracious) joy differs from natural joy in several key ways. Exploring those differences will help shed more light on the nature of true spiritual experience.

God Righteous in Judgements

"Clouds and darhness are round about him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne." — Ps. 97.2.

Sad is my heart, embittered with deep grief,
E'en as a bulrush I bow down my head;
The dark, substantial clouds are overspread,
I see no friendly hand, find no relief.
No more I taste the joys which once I tasted,
My hopes, my honors, and my pleasures flown;
There's nought on earth which I can call my own;
All blacken'd, wither'd, torn away, and wasted,
And, in their stead, afllictive tears and woe.
Oh, give me faith, Thou holy, sovereign Power,
That I may know the hand that smites me so.
Oh, give me faith, when the dark tempests lower,
To yield Thee reverence and submission due;
Thou art the righteous God, thy judgments just and true.

— The Religious Offering (1835) XIX.

Marks of True Humility: Does Not Judge

The truly humble man, although he is not destitute of that observation and judgment, which are necessary to discriminate between right and wrong, is disposed to look with a forbearing and pitying eye on the faults of others. If a brother falls into transgression, while he himself is preserved, he knows who it is, and who alone it is, that makes him to differ. He feels deeply that he himself would be no better than others that fall into errors and sin, if he should cease to be sustained by the special grace of God. And he cannot fail, therefore, to remember that blessed passage of Scripture, which has a close connection with the highest experiences in religion: "judge not, that ye be not judged."

— edited from Religious Maxims (1846).

Being Like God Means Not Being Impusive

We are continually taught by good men and in the Bible, that we ought to be like our Heavenly Father, to be holy as he is holy, to be perfect as he is perfect. And I suppose it is the general design and aim of Christians, who are striving after high attainments in holiness, to bear this blessed image. But probably we do not any of us conceive of God as acting impulsively and without reflection; as regulating his conduct by the stupid instinct of impressions, without the clear light of perceptive rationality. We should be deeply afflicted and affrighted, in being obliged to ascribe to our Heavenly Father such a character as this.

Similar views will apply to the Savior. He himself says, John 5: 30, "I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge; [that is to say, the communications of the Holy Spirit call my judgment into exercise,] and my judgment is just, because, [implying in the remark that he was uninfluenced by any suggestions and impressions from self,] I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father, which hath sent me." Are we not safe, then, if God desires and requires us to be like himself, and to be like him also, whom in the likeness of man He has set before us as our example, in saying, that a judgment, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is the true guide of our actions, rather than blind impulses and impressions?

It will be recollected, that we do not absolutely deny the occasional existence of impulses and impressions, resulting from the operations of the Spirit of God. But we cannot well avoid the conclusion, that they are entitled to no influence, and are not designed to have any, except in connection with the subsequent action of an awakened and sanctified judgment. And it is this view only, which can rescue them from the imputation of blindness and irrationality, even when they come from a good and right source. When, therefore, we speak of them as blind and irrational, we wish to be understood as speaking of them, as they are in themselves, and without being enlightened by the subsequent action of a sanctified intellect. The subsequent action of the mind, which may always be expected to follow when they come from the Holy Spirit, cannot fail to impart to them a new and interesting character.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition 1844) Part 3, Chapter 4.

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.