An End of Doctrinal Controversies, Chapter 24
CHAP. XXIV. Of Assurance of our Justification, and of Hope.
§. 1. ASsurance of Perseverance and Salvation, is not here to be spoken of, but only of our present Iustification: And they are distinct Questions. 1. What Assurance is desirable. 2. What Assurance is attainable. 3. What Assurance we actually have, and who have it. 4. What is the nature and grounds of this Assurance.
§. 2. I. Some pleaded so much for the usefulness of Uncertainty and Doubting, as if it were the safest condition to keep us humble and watchful, as excited Luther and other Reformers to take them for utter Enemies to Christian Comfort. And certainly Assurance is a most desirable thing; it kindleth in us the love of God; it maketh Duty sweet; it maketh Sufferings easie, and Death less terrible, and Heaven more desired, and consequently cureth an earthly Mind, and leadeth man to a heavenly Conversation, and putteth Life into all his Endeavours: Whereas a man that is still utterly in doubt of his state of Salvation, and right to Life, will be loath to die, and therefore love this present World, and have less thankful and loving Thoughts of God and his Redeemer, and so all sin will have advantage, and Holiness a great impediment. An Infidel will confess, that such Assurance is exceeding desirable.
§. 3. II. And no doubt but a comfortable degree of Assurance is attainable, or else God would never have so fully differenced the Righteous and the Wicked, and commanded all to examine and try themselves, and to make sure: But this I have often elsewhere proved.
§. 4. III. But all true Believers have not Assurance of their Justification, because they are not certain that their Faith is such as hath the promise of Justification: He that believeth perceiveth that he believeth, but yet may be uncertain that his Faith is so sincere, as no unjustified man can have.
§. 5. Their Justification is real, or true, or certain in it self; but the Evidence of it may be dark, and their perception of the Evidence defective; from whence it is to them uncertain; that is, not known with that full satisfaction of mind, which we call Assurance.
§. 6. Yea, Experience telleth us, That it is but a small part of the most religious Christians, who will say themselves▪ That they are certain of their Iustification; and of those few that are forwardest to say so, all have it not.
§. 7. Therefore justifying Faith is not Assurance that we are justified; otherwise all should have assurance that have Faith; and justifying Faith in order of Nature, goeth before Iustification, but Assurance that we are justified, followeth it; we cannot be assured that we are justified, but by being assured that we believe: But it's absurd to say, [I am assured I am justified, because I am assured that I am justified.] But this is only against the Antinomians.
§. 8. No man hath perfect Assurance, that is the highest degree in this Life: For if all our Graces be imperfect, our Assurance must needs be imperfect.
§. 9. IV. This Assurance then is not properly Divine Faith, or a Belief of God's Word; but it is a clear and satisfying perception of our own Justification, because we are clearly satisfied, that God's Promises are true, and that we are true Believers.
§. 10. This Certainty is not by an immediate Word or Revelation of the Spirit in us; but yet the Spirit is all these ways the cause of it in the Faithful. 1. The Spirit working us to God's Image and Will, is our assuring-Evidence, or the Minor in that Argument, whose Conclusion we are assured of (as the Spirit in the Word is the Major.) 2. The Spirit in Believers helpeth them to perceive his own Works in them, and know their Evidence: 3. And also to rejoyce in that perception. This is the Witness of the Spirit which we mean, and not immediate Revelation.
§. 11. Though Hope be sometimes about things certain, yet it is often also about that which we are not certain of: And more have true Hopes of Salvation, than have Assurance of it, or of their Title to it: For Hope may be exercised upon probabilities, and most usually it is so.
§. 12. Strong Probability, with little reason of doubting, may cause such strong Hopes as may cause us to live and die with comfort: If doubting be small, and Hope be great, the Peace and Ioy will be greater than the fear and trouble.
§. 13. Bellarmin's Moral Certainty is more than most Christians attain to, and his, and other mens Concession thereof tell us, That in this Point our difference is less than those have thought, who have said it was sufficient Cause of our Separation from Rome.
§. 14. While we are certain that this World is fading Vanity, and that there is no hope of Felicity on Earth, and that therefore Godliness can cost us the loss of nothing but Vanity, a Faith short of Certainty, and mixt with doubting, about the very Truth of the Promise it self, and Life Eternal, may engage a man savingly in a holy Life, and the forsaking of all for the hopes of Glory: And such doubting, even of the Life to come, or of the Gospel, as keepeth not men from trusting to it for their Felicity, and seeking it above all, and forsaking all for it, will keep no man from Salvation, though it be his sin, and the cause of other sins.
Much more may this be done when men doubt not of God's Word, or the State of Glory, but only of their own Sincerity, Justification and Salvation.