We Do Not Need to Escape the World

It is not necessary that we should retire from the world, as if we were unequal to the contest which presents itself. It is not necessary, after the manner of some devout persons of other ages, to shut ourselves up in cloisters or to seek some solitary cave of the desert, in order to gain the victory: Mingling in the world, in the midst of our families, in the discharge of the ordinary duties of life, it will be with us according to our faith. 

We may have God with us, if we have faith to have him with us. And having God with us, who is ready to bear the banner and fight the battles of those who trust in him, we are enabled here, and are enabled every where, in the market and the forum as well as in the solitary place, in our workshops, amid our farms and our merchandize, in seasons of joy and of sorrow, to keep our hitherto rebellious tendencies in subjection. The injunction of the Apostle becomes a practical reality. “Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

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

Victory by Faith

In considering the Power or Effects of faith in the regulation of Man’s Inward Nature, our attention is... directed to a striking passage in the writings of John. “Whatsoever is born of God,” says the Apostle John, Second Epistle 5:4, “OVERCOMETH THE WORLD. And this is the victory, that overcometh the world, even our faith.” The term world, as it is employed by the Apostle in this passage, is obviously of wide import; including the world inward, as well as the world outward; the human heart, as well as the objects around us, to which the inward state gives their character and their power. 

 And, accordingly, the victory over the world, whatever else the expressions may be supposed to indicate, includes especially and emphatically the victory over ourselves. Perhaps we ought to say, it is the victory over whatever sin has rendered inordinate and evil in ourselves. In other words, and still more definitely, it is the victory over SELFISHNESS; a victory, which places us in such a position, that the world, in the variety of its enticements and temptations both inward and outward, cannot reach us and touch us to our hurt. And this victory is by faith.

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

God Worshipped in His Works

"The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament showeth his handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard." — Ps. 19. 1, 2, 3.

Men use a different speech in different climes,
But Nature hath one voice and only one.
Her wandering moon, her stars, her golden sun,
Her woods and waters, in all lands and times,
In one deep song proclaim the wondrous story.
They tell it to each other in the sky,
Upon the winds they send it sounding high,
Jehovah's wisdom, goodness, power, and glory.
I hear it come from mountain, cliff, and tree,
Ten thousand voices in one voice united;
On every side the song encircles me,
The whole round world reveres and is delighted.
Ah! why, when heaven and earth lift up their voice,
Ah! why should man alone nor worship nor rejoice?

— from The Religious Offering (1835) XXVI.

Opposition to Her New Faith

Reflections on
the Life of
Madame Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon.

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Reflections on her conversion.

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Religion is the same in the Catholic and in the Protestant. I speak now of the substance, and not of the form; of the  internal and not of the external. Religion, so far as it is religion, is always the same; the same in all lands and in all ages; the same in its nature, the same in its results; always allied to angels and God, and always meeting with the opposition of that which is not angelic and is not God. It is not surprising, therefore, that Madame Guyon's new heart should meet with opposition from the world's old one.

When the world saw that I had quitted it, it persecuted me, and turned me into ridicule. I became the subject of its conversation, of its fabulous stories, and of its amusement. Given up to its irreligion and pleasures, it could not bear that a woman who was little more than twenty years of age, should thus make war against it, and overcome it.

Her age was not the only circumstance that was remembered. That youth should quit the world was something, but that wealth, intelligence, and beauty, combined with youth, in the same person, should quit it, was much more. On merely human principles it could not well be explained. Some were offended; some spoke of her as a person under some species of mental delusion; some attributed her conduct to stupidity, inquiring very significantly, "What can all this mean? This lady has the reputation of knowledge and talent. But we see nothing of it."

But God was with her. She relates that, about this time, she and her husband went into the country on some business. She did not leave her religion on leaving her home. The river Seine flowed near the place where they staid. "On the banks  of the river,"  she says, "finding a dry and solitary place, I sought intercourse with my God." Her husband had gone with her into the country; but he did not accompany her there. There is something impressive in this little incident. She went alone to the banks of the Seine, to the waters of the beautiful river, and into the dry and solitary place. It was indeed a solitary place; but can we say that she who went there, went alone? God was with her. God, who made the woods and the waters, and who, in the beginning, walked with his holy ones amid the trees of the garden. "The communications of Divine Love," she adds, "were unutterably sweet to my soul in that retirement." And thus, with God for her portion, she was happy in the loss of that portion which was taken away from her.

"Let the world despise and leave me;

They have left my Savior too;

Human hearts and looks deceive me

Thou art not, like them, untrue.

"Man may trouble and distress me,

'Twill but drive me to Thy breast;

Life with trials hard may press me;

Heaven will bring me sweeter rest."

— edited from The Life of Madam Guyon (1877) Volume 1, Chapter 8.

The Mind Bears Witness to God

The evidence, which God furnishes, would compel belief, were it not for voluntary opposition. We choose to think of ourselves and of our own interests, to the neglect of all adequate thought of God, and of our religious interests. On this subject, I doubt not, that the feelings of thoughtful and serious men are strong and unalterable. To the suggestion, that God has left himself without witness, or that he has not furnished adequate witness, they can yield no assent.

The nature of the human mind is such, that it bears, as it were, the idea of a Supreme Being, and other truths, closely connected with the idea of a Supreme Being, written on its very structure. It is a psychological fact, which a careful observation of the progress of human culture has fully demonstrated, that the human mind, when brought into full and unperverted action, always develops the idea of a God. It is an idea written there in letters uneffaceable; and, though sometimes obscured and deeply hidden, it will always come out and make itself evident, when it is brought to the light. And there too, essential in the structure of the same mind, are the conceptions of truth and justice, of sympathy and benevolence as due from man to his fellow-man, of immutable wrong and immutable right. There is no barbarism so low, so linked to the extreme of moral degradation, where these bright conceptions, in connection with their related emotions, do not exist in greater or less distinctness. The mind, therefore, by its very nature, by a voice which cries out unceasingly from its depths, bears witness for God. Were it not so, heathenism, still more degraded and destitute than it is at present, would have heard no announcement from its moral teachers; would have had no Socrates, no Plato.

The world, of which we are a part, and the systems of worlds with which we are connected, bear witness for God. There is not a tree nor a flower, no river, nor lake, nor cataract, no hill, nor valley, nor mountaintop, nothing on the earth nor under the earth, neither the fruits it bears on its surface nor the minerals it cherishes in its bosom, no insect, nor bird, nor quadruped, nor any other thing of the infinite varieties presented to our notice, which, on a careful examination in itself and its relations, does not bear its testimony.

— The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 4.

A Spirit Which Belongs to the World

The man who rests in God, by having the principles of his nature brought into harmony with the divine nature, cannot be restricted by the limitations of name or country; but has a spirit which belongs to the world.  It is true his speculative beliefs may harmonize in certain directions more than in others; but, bearing Christ's image at the center, he belongs to Christ rather than a party, and all mankind are his brethren. The turbulence of nature has given place to the pacifications of grace, in order that he may extend the right hand of fellowship to those of every name and every clime.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 11.