Degrees of Faith

There are various relations running through the different kinds and degrees of faith, which are worthy of notice. For instance, we must have a belief, that God IS, and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him, before we can believe in him as accepting us. And again, we must believe in him as granting forgiveness and acceptance to ourselves, and consequently as sustaining to us the relation of a Father and a friend, before we can have faith to make known to him our requests to him in the behalf of others.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXLIX.

Happiness and the Divine Order

Happiness can be found only in being resigned and contented in the Divine Order. That is to say, in being resigned and contented in that situation, whatever it may be, in which God's providential order has evidently placed us. If the angels in heaven, like men under the influence of the natural life, were constantly desiring to change their position, and to assume the place of archangels or other higher beings, they would exhibit a spirit, which would be displeasing to God, and which could not fail to render them unhappy.

— Religious Maxims (1846) CXLVIII.

Peck: Being Shut Up to the Present

Guest blog by Methodist Bishop Jesse T. Peck (1811-1883).

"The just shall live by faith."

You will be shut up to the present. The past will have no power to annoy you, for it is all atoned in the blood of Christ, which is your salvation. The future is to give you no concern, for it is not yours. You may never meet the cares and trials which your mind would naturally suggest. You may be in heaven before the day of tribulation comes; and, if not, your safety is with him to whom you have committed your all. He will cover you with his hand "until the indignation be overpast." For all the future, you are to trust in God without wavering. And how is life thus simplified? Am I now wholly the Lord's? Not, was I at some former time? Not, shall I be next year, next week, next moment, but now is it all right? Would that all Christians could obtain the power to live by the moment. It reduces indefinitely the concern of the soul, makes every thing a present passing reality, and secures the practicability of perfect contentment. It is easy to examine the present, — to settle the question of gracious acceptance now; but impossible to decide the future, only by the faith that determines the present. Am I now glorifying God in my body and spirit which are his? Am I now doing his will? Does the blood of Jesus now cleanse me from all sin? Then it is all well. I have no other concern. As each succeeding moment of the future comes, it will be a present moment, and disposable in the same way. Here at least the wholly sanctified must rest; and this is the method of adjusting the question of responsibility. To ask what it will be, and shrink from its future demands, will be to involve the soul in doubt, and it may be inextricable difficulty. It is true the purest Christian has a future; but it is the future of faith, of hope, of divine revelation, and not of anxiety. The plans of a sound discretion in the light of the present and the past must extend into the future. A prudent foresight belongs eminently to faith, but it is the exercise of confidence and submission. "Thy will be done," is the clearest expression of choice and purpose. Surely this is not a responsibility to be dreaded. There is much more that is fearful and perilous in the responsibility of living without holiness.

— edited from The Central Idea of Christianity (1876) Chapter 5.

Oh, Sacred Union with the Perfect Mind

Oh, sacred union with the perfect mind!
Transcendent bliss, which Thou alone canst give!
How blest are they, this pearl of price who find,
And, dead to earth, have learnt in Thee to live!

Thus, in thine arms of love, O God, I lie!
Lost, and forever lost, to all but Thee.
My happy soul, since it hath learnt to die,
Hath found new life in thine Infinity.

O, go, and learn this lesson of the cross!
And tread the way which saints and prophets trod;
Who, counting life, and self, and all things loss,
Have found in inward death the life of God.

— quoted in A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 10.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This poem has sometimes been sung as a hymn: for the music, check out hymnal.net here: "Oh, sacred union with the Perfect Mind."

 

Holiness and Living by the Moment

As soon as God, by his in-dwelling presence, becomes the inspiration and life of the soul, he inspires in it those thoughts and feelings, and those only, which are appropriate to the present time. To every moment of time there is but one mental state which is suited. Between the circumstances of the time and the correspondent attributes of the mental state there is, and necessarily must be, a relationship as wise as infinite wisdom, and as perfect as infinite adjustment. God himself cannot alter it, because he cannot deviate from the perfect to the imperfect. God, therefore, as the infinite giver, (that is to say, when he is allowed to be and is accepted as the infinite giver,) can give only what he does give; and can give it only at the present time. The life, therefore, which we live in God, is and can be only life by the moment. The stream flows forever, but it strikes upon the soul only at the given time.

The man who thus consecrates himself to God, and, in the exercise of faith, puts himself in the line of divine communication, so that he receives from God his knowledge, his feeling, and his purpose, is the truly holy man, because he is the whole man.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 10.

Consecration, Faith, and Living by the Moment

No man can experience the highest results of religion, and become a truly holy man, unless he has thus consecrated himself to God.

We do not suppose, however, that this, although it is indispensable in the growth of religion in the soul, is ordinarily the first thing that takes place. Before a man can consecrate himself to God, he must be led to see that he is alienated from God. Conviction of sin, therefore, would naturally be the first thing. He could hardly be expected to return, until he had first been made sensible of his departure. But when this has been done, when he has been made in some degree to see and feel his situation, and to apply to Christ for relief, he may reasonably be expected, in his new position and in the exercise of a new faith, to lay himself, as it is sometimes expressed, upon the "altar of sacrifice." And in doing this, he alters his whole position. Dissatisfied with his past experience, he now ceases to look to himself, and to repose confidence in himself. In his blindness, of which he now for the first time has a proper conception, although he knew something of it before, he looks to another and higher source for light. In his weakness, which he finds after a greater or less experience to be universal and total, he looks somewhere else for strength. And this disposition to renounce himself, and to place himself entirely in the hands of God for strength and wisdom and whatever else is necessary for him, is what is generally understood to be meant by consecration.

The Life of God in the Soul Makes a Person Holy

Man is restored from death just in proportion as he begins to live in and from God. And when, by exercising that consent which God allows him, he lives wholly from God by choosing to live wholly from him, and by exercising faith to that effect, then he is a whole or holy man. Taking the common definition, that holiness is entire conformity to God's law, still it is not the definition which makes a man holy, but the life of God in the soul. It is God within, that makes the definition available. Who properly understands God's law, and knows what it is, unless he is first taught of God? Who loves God's law, unless love is first inspired within him by the breath of God himself? Who obeys God's law by bringing his will into conformity with it, except by the constant aids of divine grace?

Let it ever be remembered that there is only one that is holy in the higher and original sense. And that is God. All other beings, whatever position they may sustain in the universe, are holy only as they are holy in and by him. If there is anything at variance with the Scriptures, unsound in philosophy, and pernicious in practice, it is the idea of right or holy living from one's self; that is to say, by means of the elements of strength and of guidance which he has in himself. It is no more philosophical than the doctrine of effect without a cause. Sooner shall the flower grow without the earth and rains to nourish it, or the mighty oak spring from the surface of the barren rock, than the soul of man live without having its roots struck, if we may so express it, in the bosom of the Infinite; and deriving, not a partnership of nourishment, but the whole of its nourishment from God.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 10.