(a) In opposition to the false abnegation of human reason and will which quietism demands, we hold that God guides us, not by continual miracle, but by his natural providence and the energizing of our faculties by his Spirit, so that we rationally and freely do our own work, and work out our own salvation.
Upham, Interior Life, 356, defines quietism as “cessation of wandering thoughts and discursive imaginations, rest from irregular desires and affections, and perfect submission of the will.” Its advocates, however, have often spoken of it as a giving up of our will and reason, and a swallowing up of these in the wisdom and will of God. This phraseology is misleading, and savors of a pantheistic merging of man in God. Dorner: “Quietism makes God a monarch without living subjects.” Certain English quietists, like the Mohammedans, will not employ physicians in sickness. They quote 2 Chron. 16:12, 13—Asa “sought not to Jehovah, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers.” They forget that the “physicians” alluded to in Chronicles were probably heathen necromancers. Cromwell to his Ironsides: “Trust God, and keep your powder dry!”
Providence does not exclude, but rather implies the operation of natural law, by which we mean God's regular way of working. It leaves no excuse for the sarcasm of Robert Browning's Mr. Sludge the Medium, 223—“Saved your precious self from what befell The thirty-three whom Providence forgot.” Schurman, Belief in God, 213—“The temples were hung with the votive offerings of those only who had escapeddrowning.” “So like Provvy!” Bentham used to say, when anything particularly unseemly occurred in the way of natural catastrophe, God reveals himself in natural law. Physicians and medicine are his methods, as well as the impartation of faith and courage to the patient. The advocates of faith-cure should provide by faith that no believing Christian should die. With the apostolic miracles should go inspiration, as Edward Irving declared. “Every man is as lazy as circumstances will admit.” We throw upon the shoulders of Providence the burdens which belong to us to bear. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12, 13).
Prayer without the use of means is an insult to God. “If God has decreed that you should live, what is the use of your eating or drinking?” Can a drowning man refuse to swim, or even to lay hold of the rope that is thrown to him, and yet ask God to save him on account of his faith? “Tie your camel,” said Mohammed, “and commit it to God.” Frederick Douglas used to say that when in slavery he often prayed for freedom, but his prayer was never answered till he prayed with his feet—and ran away. Whitney, Integrity of Christian Science, 68—“The existence of the dynamo at the power-house does not make unnecessary the trolley line, nor the secondary motor, nor the conductor's application of the power. True quietism is a resting in the Lord after we have done our part.” Ps. 37:7—“Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for him”; Is. 57:2—“He entereth into peace; they rest in their beds, each one that walketh in his uprightness”. Ian Maclaren, Cure of Souls, 147—“Religion has three places of abode: in the reason, which is theology; in the conscience, which is ethics; and in the heart, which is quietism.” On the self-guidance of Christ, see Adamson, The Mind in Christ, 202-232.
George Müller, writing about ascertaining the will of God, says: “I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. Having done this, I do not leave the result to feeling or simple impression. If I do so, I make myself liable to a great delusion. I seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone, without [pg 440]the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, he will do it according to the Scriptures, and never contrary to them. Next I take into account providential circumstances. These often plainly indicate God's will in connection with his Word and his Spirit. I ask God in prayer to reveal to me his will aright. Thus through prayer to God, the study of the Word, and reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my knowledge and ability, and, if my mind is thus at peace, I proceed accordingly.”
We must not confound rational piety with false enthusiasm. See Isaac Taylor, Natural History of Enthusiasm. “Not quiescence, but acquiescence, is demanded of us.” As God feeds “the birds of the heaven” (Mat. 6:26), not by dropping food from heaven into their mouths, but by stimulating them to seek food for themselves, so God provides for his rational creatures by giving them a sanctified common sense and by leading them to use it. In a true sense Christianity gives us more will than ever. The Holy Spirit emancipates the will, sets it upon proper objects, and fills it with new energy. We are therefore not to surrender ourselves passively to whatever professes to be a divine suggestion: 1 John 4:1—“believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God.” The test is the revealed word of God: Is. 8:20—“To the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.” See remarks on false Mysticism, pages 32, 33.
(b) In opposition to naturalism, we hold that God is continually near the human spirit by his providential working, and that this providential working is so adjusted to the Christian's nature and necessities as to furnish instruction with regard to duty, discipline of religious character, and needed help and comfort in trial.
In interpreting God's providences, as in interpreting Scripture, we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is, indeed, in great part an application of Scripture truth to present circumstances. While we never allow ourselves to act blindly and irrationally, but accustom ourselves to weigh evidence with regard to duty, we are to expect, as the gift of the Spirit, an understanding of circumstances—a fine sense of God's providential purposes with regard to us, which will make our true course plain to ourselves, although we may not always be able to explain it to others.
The Christian may have a continual divine guidance. Unlike the unfaithful and unbelieving, of whom it is said, in Ps. 106:13, “They waited not for his counsel,” the true believer has wisdom given him from above. Ps. 32:8—“I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go”; Prov. 3:6—“In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths”; Phil. 1:9—“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment” (αἰσθήσει = spiritual discernment); James 1:5—“if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth (τοῦ διδόντος Θεοῦ) to all liberally and upbraideth not”; John 15:15—“No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends”; Col. 1:9, 10—“that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing.”
God's Spirit makes Providence as well as the Bible personal to us. From every page of nature, as well as of the Bible, the living God speaks to us. Tholuck: “The more we recognize in every daily occurrence God's secret inspiration, guiding and controlling us, the more will all which to others wears a common and every-day aspect prove to us a sign and a wondrous work.” Hutton, Essays: “Animals that are blind slaves of impulse, driven about by forces from within, have so to say fewer valves in their moral constitution for the entrance of divine guidance. But minds alive to every word of God give constant opportunity for his interference with suggestions that may alter the course of their lives. The higher the mind, the more it glides into the region of providential control. God turns the good by the slightest breath of thought.” So the Christian hymn, “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah!” likens God's leading of the believer to that of Israel by the pillar of fire and cloud; and Paul in his dungeon calls himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:1). Affliction is the discipline of God's providence. Greek proverb: “He who does not get thrashed, does not get educated.” On God's Leadings, see A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 560-562.