Archive for February 16th, 2011
Direction X.
That we may be prepared by the comforts of the Gospel to perform sincerely the duties of the Law, we must get some assurance of our salvation in that very faith whereby Christ himself is received into our hearts; therefore one must endeavor to believe on Christ confidently, persuading and assuring ourselves in the act of believing, that God freely gives to us an interest in Christ and his salvation according to his gracious promise.
Explication.
It is evident that these comforts of the gospel, that are necessary to an holy practice, cannot be truly received without some assurance of our interest in Christ and his salvation; for some of those comforts consist in a good persuasion of our reconciliation with God, and of our future heavenly happiness, and of strength both to will and to do what which is acceptable to God through Christ, as has been before shown: Hence it will clearly follow, that this assurance is very necessary to enable us for the practice of holiness, as those comforts that must go before the duties of the law in order of nature, as the cause goes before the effect, though not in any distance of time. My present work is to show, what this assurance is that is so necessary unto holiness, and which I have here asserted, that we must act in that very faith whereby we receive Christ himself into our hearts, even in justifying faith. This doctrine seems strange to many that profess themselves Protestants of late days, whereas it was formerly highly owned by the chief Protestants whom God made use of to restore the purity of the gospel, and to maintain it against the Papists for many years, they commonly taught that faith was a persuasion or confidence of our own salvation by Christ, and that we must be sure to apply Christ and his salvation to ourselves in believing. And this doctrine was one of the great engines whereby they prevailed to overthrow the Popish superstition, whereunto doubtfulness of salvation is one of the principal pillars. But many of the successors of those Protestants have deserted them, and left their writings to be shamefully insulted over by the Papists, and this innovation has been of longer standing among us than several other parts of our new divinity, and maintained by those hat profess to abhor that corrupt doctrine which the Papist have built upon such principles. Modern divines may think they stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors, whose labors they enjoy, and that they can see farther than they, as the school-men might have like thoughts of the ancient fathers; but for all this they may not be able to see so far, if the eyes of their predecessors were better enlightened by the Spirit of God to understand the mystery of the gospel, and why may we not judge that it is so in the present case? The eyes of men in these late years has been blinded in this point of assurance by many false imaginations. They think that because salvation is not promised to us absolutely, but upon condition of believing on Christ for it; therefore we must first believe directly on Christ for our salvation, and after that we must reflect our minds upon our faith, and examine it by several marks and signs, especially by the fruit of sincere obedience; and if upon this examination we find out certainly that it is true saving faith, then and not before we may believe assuredly that we in particular shall be saved. On this account they say that our salvation is by direct, and our assurance by the reflex1 act of faith, and that many have true faith, and shall be saved that never have any assurance of their salvation as long as they live in this world, they find by Scripture and experience, that many precious saints of God are frequently troubled with doubts, whither they shall be saved, and whither their faith and obedience be sincere, so that they cannot see assurance in themselves. Therefore they conclude that assurance must not be accounted absolutely necessary to justifying faith and salvation, lest we should make the hearts of doubting saints sad and drive them to despair. They account that former Protestants were guilty of a manifest absurdity, in making assurance to be of the nature and definition of saving faith, because all that hear the gospel are bound to saving faith, and yet they are not bound absolutely to believe that they themselves shall be saved, for then many of them would be bound to believe that which is not declared in the gospel concerning them in particular, yea that which is a plain lie, because the gospel shows that many of those that are called are not chosen to salvation, and that perish forever, Mat. 20:16. No wonder if the appearance of so great an absurdity move many to imagine that saving faith is a trusting or resting on Christ as the only sufficient means of salvation without any assurance; or that it is a desiring and venturing to trust, or rely upon him in a mere state of suspense and uncertainty concerning our salvation, or with a probable opinion or conjectural hope of it at best.