From “The Way towards the Blessed Life,” Lecture 10.

THE RELIGIOUS man is forever secured from the possibility of doubt and uncertainty. In every moment he knows distinctly what he wills, and ought to will; for the innermost root of his life—his will—forever flows forth from the Divinity, immediately and without possibility of error; its indication is infallible, and for that indication he has an infallible perception. In every moment he knows assuredly that in all eternity he shall know what he shall will, and ought to will; that in all eternity the fountain of Divine Love which has burst forth in him shall never be dried up, but shall uphold him securely, and bear him onward forever. It is the root of his existence; it has now arisen upon him clear and bright, and his eye is fixed upon it with unspeakable love:—how could that fountain ever be dried up, how could that leader and guardian ever turn aside? Whatever comes to pass around him, nothing appears to him strange or unaccountable;—he knows assuredly, whether he understand it or not, that it is in God’s world, and that there nothing can be that does not directly tend to good.

  In him there is no fear for the future, for the absolute fountain of all blessedness eternally bears him on towards it;—no sorrow for the past, for in so far as he was not in God he was nothing, and this is now at an end, and since he has dwelt in God he has been born into life; while in so far as he was in God, that which he has done is assuredly right and good. He has never aught to deny himself, nor aught to long for; for he is at all times in eternal possession of the fullness of all that he is capable of enjoying. For him all labor and effort have vanished; his whole outward existence flows forth, softly and gently, from his inward being, and issues out into reality without difficulty or hindrance. To use the language of one of our great poets:—

  Thus much have I desired to say to you, concerning the True Life and its Blessedness. It is true that we might say much more on this subject; and that, in particular, it would be very interesting, now that we have learned to know the moral-religious man in the central point of his being, to accompany him thence out into common life, and even into the most ordinary concerns and circumstances of his existence, and there to contemplate him in all his admirable serenity and loveliness. But, without a fundamental knowledge of that first central-point, such a description might become, to the hearer, either empty declamation, or else a mere air castle, producing, indeed, for the moment an æsthetic pleasure, but containing within itself no true ground of persistence;—and this is the reason why we rather choose to abstain from this prolongation of our subject.